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Philosophical question about "song"

Guermantes

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Isn't the song... the sound?

As Ray has pointed out, there is more to it than acoustics. You've used the term "organised sound" (a common but problematic definition for music) -- the "organised" component encapsulates a whole set of other external factors. Also the term "song" implies singing and therefore communication and intelligibility in a musical sense. Once again, the acoustics is just a part of it.

Or simly skip the ontology part (for a moment), and go directly to your dichotomy about song, from a single-individual/listener point of view:

This was my attempt to interpret what you are asking, so I actually thought it was your dichotomy.

Let's go back to your original question:

If a song is sound dependent, and we know that sound is always changing between staggered, non-contiguous, time-separated listening (due to many things, from setup to aural room impact), is it correct to state that a song is evolving and changing continuously?

"If a song is sound dependent" -- I'm not sure anyone completely agrees with this. I think we see sound as just one aspect of a song. See above.

"and we know that sound is always changing between staggered, non-contiguous, time-separated listening (due to many things, from setup to aural room impact)" -- it seems to me you are referring to a sound recording here that has the potential to be played back repeatedly. Difference and repetition.

"is it correct to state that a song is evolving and changing continuously?" -- I think this could be asked without invoking sound.

Are you asking if the sound of a recording of a song is evolving and changing continuously due to replay and acoustic variations?
 

RayDunzl

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I don't think I like the word evolve in the context it is being used.

To me, evolution implies a change, that once committed, becomes a new baseline for subsequent iterations.

Automotive examples of evolution (in no perfect order):

Pneumatic tires
Fuel Injection (various types)
Paint Processes
Tubeless Tires
Safety Glass
Seat Belts
Corrosion Inhibition
Radial tires
Robotic Manufacture
Electronic Engine Control
Synthetic Lubricants
Emissions Controls
Overhead Valves
Overhead Camshafts
and so on.

The change occurs, they rarely look back, changes remain and are incorporated into the next iteration.

Sometimes there are dead ends.

No more Rocket Fins in the stylistic expression.

upload_2018-5-11_16-20-58.png
 
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Nowhk

Nowhk

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As Ray has pointed out, there is more to it than acoustics. You've used the term "organised sound" (a common but problematic definition for music) -- the "organised" component encapsulates a whole set of other external factors. Also the term "song" implies singing and therefore communication and intelligibility in a musical sense. Once again, the acoustics is just a part of it.
I think I've wrong the initial context. Being electronic/synth sound designer (i.e. making tracks/instrumental) the "voice" part is out of the context.
And honestly I'm mainly focus on "sound" listening to this music. In that sense I talked about "song", but in effect I was refering to "Instrumental". Sorry for being inaccurate.
Lets talk about "Instrumental" from now.

"and we know that sound is always changing between staggered, non-contiguous, time-separated listening (due to many things, from setup to aural room impact)" -- it seems to me you are referring to a sound recording here that has the potential to be played back repeatedly. Difference and repetition.
Yes.

Are you asking if the sound of a recording of a song is evolving and changing continuously due to replay and acoustic variations?
Saying that the sound IS changing continuously, and the result (also) depends by our gear/environments, is it correct to state that an "Instrumental" track is evolving and changing continuously? And that the variations depends (also) by our preferences?
Thus we are dealing/shaping with the artist's art?

I don't think I like the word evolve in the context it is being used.

To me, evolution implies a change, that once committed, becomes a new baseline for subsequent iterations.
For some point of view, playback standard has changed as well (and change constantly). You play records differently rather 30 years ago.
In that sense, also the sound played back is evolved, and in the next 30 years will surely sound "different", from hifi to hifi.
 

RayDunzl

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You play records differently rather 30 years ago.

30 years ago was 1988.

If I was playing anything it was CD, or just listening to broadcast radio.

Still do.

Being electronic/synth sound designer

I dabbled in that general area for a while...

I had a Commodore 64 with a three-voice synthesizer, and enjoyed POKEing data into its registers to see what happened.

Later, with Mac and PC, wrote C code to directly write WAV files sample by sample since I couldn't figure out how to tickle the sound hardware in them.
 
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Nowhk

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30 years ago was 1988.

If I was playing anything it was CD, or just listening to broadcast radio.

Still do.
CD is CD, is the contour that has been changed. Or are you using the same setup? With the same room treatment? Never change a thing for 30 years? And if you did, you won't change somethings in the future?
Such as video: still with LCD? No Amoled? Oled?

I don't think pro/enthusiastic change their gears because of the mainstream feeling. Or at least, not everybody.
He does because he like the impact they have on the stuff being consumed. Or at least, I think so; else, why to change?
But once they are affected, well, they are affected :D You have put color (or somethings) above it.

Its not a matter of improvements till some point, its a matter of change after that point, I think.
Such as trying to reproduce the whole frequency range of a record, and get a system able to reproduce from 20hz to 20khz. Once you reach it, there isn't anything to improve really; still, the tonal balance is varying across systems. Flat 100% is just a dream. And even if that's true, sure we want it?
(still talking from a single/individual point of view)

Curious about your thoughts people :rolleyes:
 

RayDunzl

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Whatever I did with my playback, I didn't feel I evolved the "song".

Flat 100% is just a dream. And even if that's true, sure we want it?

As for "flat", I aim for the in-room performance to be close as I can get to the recorded source.

In-Room "corrected" at the listening position, Left and Right uncorrected source:

upload_2018-5-14_14-22-27.png

Some of the differences I haven't been able to fix yet, some is because the single mic is receiving the sum/difference of the two slightly different channels.

I find the result obtained so far to be pretty close. 95% maybe?

Do I want it? That's my target.

There's a dip at 220Hz I can't get rid of (dipole back-wall cancellation). A new dip at 160Hz, subs/crossover/delay/phase conflicting with the mains at the moment (but it corrects what was a bigger problem around 50Hz). A little defect in the low bass. These are very narrow defects. The rest (that I or others can hear) seems particularly right. Low distortion at all frequencies, nothing to object to (that's not in a recording) when listening.
 
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Guermantes

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I still would want to conceive the sound recording as a complex thing which has aspects of temporal actualisation (i.e. variations of replay or performance) and as an archive or a standing-reserve which is all about potential.

This is partly why we revere the master recording so much -- it represents the limit of all potentialities. Ray has said that he aims to set up in-room replay to be as close as possible to the recorded source, so he is striving to approach that limit.
 
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Nowhk

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Whatever I did with my playback, I didn't feel I evolved the "song".
So why did you change the playback systems during time? Add details? To improve somethings? Can you give to me some of your own personal motivation?

I find the result obtained so far to be pretty close. 95% maybe?
...
The rest (that I or others can hear) seems particularly right. Low distortion at all frequencies, nothing to object to (that's not in a recording) when listening.
But can you discriminate that low distiortion, right? I mean: that "5%" is unnoticeable during listening music, or are you just ignoring it?

This is partly why we revere the master recording so much -- it represents the limit of all potentialities. Ray has said that he aims to set up in-room replay to be as close as possible to the recorded source, so he is striving to approach that limit.
There's also to say that the "real" recordings on the record has never been listened neither by the artist/audio engineering. They were affected as well by their own setups and rooms (without speaking of their own perceptions, which could differs more than "tiny" variations by gears).

Why should I listen and search for something that has never been heard before and (above all) was not created for this purpose (since everybody know it is not possible to provide a 100% objective product)?
 

RayDunzl

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So why did you change the playback systems during time? Add details? To improve somethings? Can you give to me some of your own personal motivation?

I'm just looking for improved "accuracy" in reproduction.


But can you discriminate that low distiortion, right? I mean: that "5%" is unnoticeable during listening music, or are you just ignoring it?

Low distortion playback exhibits a clarity that more distorted playback lacks. I cannot specify limits for perception.

I have two sets of speakers in this room. I prefer the measurably lower distortion setup when critically listening, because it sounds better. That occurs mainly at higher SPL, where the "little" speakers distort far more than the "big" ones. For daily use, the little guys are fine.

I would presume that the 5% you mention could be unnoticeable (sounds normal, you're used to it) without being able to instantly compare it to 0.2%.

I don't know how you would measure/quantify a distortion number during music playback, when there are so many frequencies being generated simultaneously. The only measurement I know looks at the unwanted harmonics of a pure fundamental.

Distortion measurement of "music":

It picked the fundamental at 124.8 Hz (highest instantaneous level) and looks at nine multiples of that frequency, blindly calculating 9.75% harmonic distortion, and calling the rest of the musical signal "noise" for a THD+N measure of 95.9%.

upload_2018-5-15_12-11-33.png




---

Musical instruments (including voice) create a range of distortions based on their fundamental tones. That gives each instrument its character. It gives each human speaker an instantly recognizable voice. Additional distortion changes that character, which you may or may not consciously notice, depending.

---

The lowest harmonic distortion non-electronic "instrument" I've found is the sound generated by blowing across the lip of a glass bottle. In this case, measured at 0.4%.

upload_2018-5-15_11-38-3.png



Contrast that with a single note on a bass guitar. 22.7% distortion on the fundamental (raw electrical signal measured).

I had to try several times before the second harmonic level fell below that of the fundamental.

upload_2018-5-15_11-24-39.png
 
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Guermantes

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There's also to say that the "real" recordings on the record has never been listened neither by the artist/audio engineering. They were affected as well by their own setups and rooms (without speaking of their own perceptions, which could differs more than "tiny" variations by gears).

Are you invoking the ontico-ontological divide here? Or is the "real" recording some Platonic metaphysical Idea that doesn't really have extension in our universe?

If the former, then yes, perhaps the recording's being-in-itself (the ontological) will always lie beyond our ability to access it through a reproduction chain (the ontical). But this is the nature of existence: we are finite temporal beings locked in bodies that admit only a limited window on the universe.


Why should I listen and search for something that has never been heard before and (above all) was not created for this purpose (since everybody know it is not possible to provide a 100% objective product)?

Well, the point is that we care (in the phenomenological and everyday sense) about it. Even if the being-in-itself of the recording is ultimately inaccessible, we still strive to come as close as we can to the best reproduction within our actual limitations. A futile exercise? Is the reproduction an illusion? Perhaps, but that is just the kind of beings we are. As Prospero says in The Tempest:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.​

As a tangent, this reminds of this discovery of sound reproduction from printed pictures of early disc grooves -- the pictures were published without the purpose of sound reproduction, however future technology allowed this information to be extracted.
https://mediapreservation.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/extracting-audio-from-pictures/
 
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Nowhk

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But this is the nature of existence: we are finite temporal beings locked in bodies that admit only a limited window on the universe.

Well, the point is that we care (in the phenomenological and everyday sense) about it. Even if the being-in-itself of the recording is ultimately inaccessible, we still strive to come as close as we can to the best reproduction within our actual limitations. A futile exercise? Is the reproduction an illusion? Perhaps, but that is just the kind of beings we are.
Awesome! I like these phrases, and I agree with them. But...

What about the nuances in which things appairs using a wide range of (similar) limited window?
I mean: you will (or could) reach a point where you can got two (or many) quality systems/setups.
No one will be better than another; still, you would observe things in different ways.
For the same reason, none of what you observe would better/more real (from your point of view) than another. Just similar.

So what's at this point? Things can be "multiple"? Different faces? A not-finite stuff, simply aleatory?
This makes me wonder...[/QUOTE]
 

Guermantes

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Awesome! I like these phrases, and I agree with them. But...

What about the nuances in which things appairs using a wide range of (similar) limited window?
I mean: you will (or could) reach a point where you can got two (or many) quality systems/setups.
No one will be better than another; still, you would observe things in different ways.
For the same reason, none of what you observe would better/more real (from your point of view) than another. Just similar.

So what's at this point? Things can be "multiple"? Different faces? A not-finite stuff, simply aleatory?
This makes me wonder...

I'm not sure it is simply aleatory as that would imply chaos. I would say that the variations you are describing are an aspect of the song's becoming and this can have an historical vector or direction. The "not-finite" is possibly a potential of this becoming. I don't think the actualisations are infinite otherwise the "piece of music as a set" concept I mentioned earlier would require the set to be infinite, something that Cantor has argued is not logically supportable. Let's just say the set is open to be enlarged -- or reduced.
 
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Nowhk

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Sorry for the late reply, very busy with the new work these days :) Hope all is ok!

I'm not sure it is simply aleatory as that would imply chaos. I would say that the variations you are describing are an aspect of the song's becoming and this can have an historical vector or direction. The "not-finite" is possibly a potential of this becoming. I don't think the actualisations are infinite otherwise the "piece of music as a set" concept I mentioned earlier would require the set to be infinite, something that Cantor has argued is not logically supportable. Let's just say the set is open to be enlarged -- or reduced.
The fact is: if that "becoming" is an aspect of the song, part of a song (so) is delegated to the listener.
Because if I can choose the (for example) tonal balance of it (simply using different setup), I take a recordings and I road it to my (prefered) variations.
Does it makes sense? o_O
 

Guermantes

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Well, yes, as a part of the song's becoming each actualisation is in effect unique and subject to whatever variations a listener, performer or the environment may make. However, I would be hesitant to say that ontologically the song is created as something completely new by the listener. Heraclitus might have said yes it is (we don't step into the same river twice) and Roland Barthes gave priority to readers over authors when it came to written meaning in The Death of the Author. I'd like to think of it as variations on a theme -- to use a musical metaphor.
 
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Nowhk

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However, I would be hesitant to say that ontologically the song is created as something completely new by the listener.
I wouldn't argue that's somethings completely new for the listener, but at the same time, we can't agree that ALL keep equal and won't change.

And if it changes a bit, would you still say its (from a subjective point of view) somethings fixed originated by the artist?

It seems more a contract between the parts.
From the artist point of view, this is not deliver somethings, rather negotiate a work.
 

andreasmaaan

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To return to the original question, the most obvious answer (to me at least) would be that a "song" and any particular manifestation of it (e.g. in a performance, a recording, a transcription, even perhaps a memory or description) are separate and distinct.

However (somewhat in the way "consciousness" manifests - arguably at least - in the brain) a song may only exist by virtue of its manifestations. Thus, when the last recording and the last transcription etc. of a song have disappeared and the last person who knew the song has died or forgotten it, the song can no longer exist, as it never did in its own right.
 
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Nowhk

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To return to the original question, the most obvious answer (to me at least) would be that a "song" and any particular manifestation of it (e.g. in a performance, a recording, a transcription, even perhaps a memory or description) are separate and distinct.
Its that "and" that makes me think.

Any manifestation of... what exactly?
Isn't the manifestation itself the song?
Or manifestations serve to describe another abstract thing?

Not really clear at all :)
 

Cosmik

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Can we think of it in terms of information? Once the song leaves the pressing plant (or equivalent) no new information can be created, but it can be destroyed. Adding noise or distortion, for example, adds new 'random stuff' but it isn't 'information'; the real information is obliterated.

Whatever inconsistencies occur due to listener inebriation or mood, the preservation of information is a good enough reason for wanting to maintain fidelity in the hardware.
 

andreasmaaan

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Can we think of it in terms of information? Once the song leaves the pressing plant (or equivalent) no new information can be created, but it can be destroyed.

Cosmik I think we‘re understanding the question very differently. Normally (or at least, in terms of copyright law) a distinction is drawn between a “song” (a melody, chord progression, etc., i.e. something rather abstract) and a specific recording of it (which is what you’re referring to I believe).

I took the OP to be framing the question on the basis that a song is distinct from recordings of it.
 

andreasmaaan

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Its that "and" that makes me think.

Any manifestation of... what exactly?
Isn't the manifestation itself the song?
Or manifestations serve to describe another abstract thing?

Not really clear at all :)

I don’t think the song and the manifestation can be the same thing. If that were the case, every recording or performance of a particular song would be a new song, and I don’t think this would adequately capture what is meant by the word “song”.

But I agree that it’s not particularly whatever way you look at it ;)
 
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