Entry for 9-7-11

In the readings, Davies seems to be much more independent on what one should define as music. He doesn't quite say that music requires typical conventions, such as meter and harmony and syncopation, but neither does he exclude them. This, in a way, reflects the feelings that Levitin expresses in This Is Your Brain on Music. Levitin says that though people may not exactly recognize the harmonies or conflicting rhythms and identify them as such, their brains automatically process the sounds and do it for them. In response to 4'33" by Cage, Davies seems to be unwilling to label the piece as strictly music, referring to it as an artwork or a political stance on a couple of different occasions. The piece seems to come with a lot of "baggage," so to speak, which requires the audience to think about what they consider to be music. However, Levitin would probably classify 4'33" as simply nonsense, because while the brain has ambient sounds to process, none of those sounds would trigger the brain's typical responses to a song like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.