Charles Taylor’s 1989 Christmas Lectures 1/5: What is Music?

In this first lecture, Charles Taylor explains why some sounds are musical and others are just noise. Music is one of most familiar features of everyday life and in all cultures people have always danced and sung in rituals, in celebrations, and as an expression of joy. Whenever pressure of air is changed rapidly, our ear-brain system detects pressure changes as sound. Sound travels from source to listener as sound waves, but what are they really like? And why are some sounds musical and some just noise? Answer for simple, single sounds is easy: if vibration is very regular sound is more musical than if it is irregular. As we move to more complex sounds and mixtures that occur in real world of music, difference is far less easy to describe in any scientific way. Musical instruments can be used for sending information but is all music concerned with passing on information? Why do some people love music that other people hate? There are obvious differences in musical preferences of people of different cultures, yet some say that music is universal language. How much of what we like is determined by our experience and how much is from physics of ear-brain system? What part does memory and conditioning play in our appreciation of music? Why do some sounds make us laugh and why can music have such powerful effect on our mood? It is unlikely that we shall find clear cut answers to these questions, nor to general question of this lecture. But we should have fun exploring the...