Lowercase music is the tiniest, weirdest experimental music (feat. Philosophy Tube)

[@PhilosophyTube]

Oh hey, who's that handsome philosopher ;) This was really fun! Thanks man!

[@juanitoMint]

+Philosophy Tube hahahahaa didn't catch it the first time until clicked on the links above hahahahhaa nice marketing strategy!

[@beholdthebanana]

+Philosophy Tube Been subscribed to both of you for quite some time. Great collaboration! :)

[@a.i.l1074]

+Philosophy Tube All that studying ethics hasn't taught you to stop being awkward as fuck

[@PhilosophyTube]

I'm not awkward I'm just English.

[@aespher]

+Philosophy Tube well put dear chap.

[@PandaJNiccals]

Lowercase music would be really good soundtracks to games.

[@crunchu2361]

Horror games probably

[@Shyuthrosnaevin]

im already planning to use it in my animated series (when and if i ever get around to making it).

[@vincentsvirtues4172]

I imagine bell is the truth being in Limbo

[@gabierazore]

lowercase already sounds like the Yume Nikki soundtrack

[@SlyHikari03]

@@gabierazore straight up

[@DJ_BoomBear]

in always open to new genres give them a try, if you dont like it just say its not for you and move on. making fun of someone over their taste in music is like making fun of someones taste in food.

[@Ten_Thousand_Locusts]

Believe it or not my taste of food has been made fun of countless of times. Guess people are just dicks.

[@unritardatoqualsiasi]

I make fun of my own taste in food because i hate a lot of rather popular ingredients and because of that i don't eat a lot of stuff...

[@TheTechnoBroz]

+Explosive Bear Wise words right here.

[@joeyjohnson5850]

+tracnemaker123 There is nothing quantifiably "good" about taste. One person can't have "better taste" than another because taste just means one's opinion

[@tracnemaker123]

+Joey Johnson Yes, but I do not believe in individually. Call me a selfish prick by saying this, but not everyone's have and should have value. If intelligence can be objectively mesured, why can't art?

[@don_brodka]

I have gotten wasted to Merzbow in a park before. I'd say that's close enough.

[@Maycauseblindness]

We need an episode of harsh noise

[@madmanadam1]

+Bryan Keller but that means we'd have to listen to harsh noise and i'd rather not go through that again.

[@Suped_BIGRIG_350mph]

+Onodera Punpun Merzbeat is a pretty nice listen. I don't go out of my way to listen to harsh noise, but there's a ton of artists like Full of Hell and Boris that utilize it in their music and make it a rewarding listen. That said I'm not sure if a `This Exists` episode would fit UNLESS it added something new & relevant, because power electronics has been a thing for decades and `noise` music has been a thing for arguably much, much longer.

[@madmanadam1]

+Human8Stain i mean ive tried before. i honestly understand the reasoning but they tend to miss the mark for me. they dont pose anything THAT new academically and in terms of listening ive never been able to grasp the asmr like appeal

[@tommytomthms5]

+Human8Stain Perhaps an episode on musique concerte (spelling?) the origins of people like merzbow?

[@WasabiKitCat]

One of my favorite quotes from vine sauce "what the fuck why did the music get all tiny and shit"

[@francescaneibel-spruill6994]

WasabiKitKat SAME!!! 😂😂😂 (btw I like ur profile pic!)

[@WasabiKitCat]

Francesca Neibel-Spruill Thank you lol

[@SnowyDragoon]

WasabiKitKat when'd he say that?

[@AeonsOfFrost]

Post-ASMR

[@SeaJay_Oceans]

I think Lower case was first, going back to the early 1990s...

[@pzychxzis4044]

@@SeaJay_Oceans 2001 was made

[@snow-puppetsofficial360]

Proto-ASMR*

[@OFFICIALBLINK182DRUMCOVERS]

PRE

[@DrNunez-n8i]

Not gonna lie these tracks would be great for the next big survival horror game.

[@comradefreedom8275]

I think sound art is basically music. I did once say "the definition of music is, a sound there's a market for."

[@gladitsnotme]

i was getting my asmr on at 0:10 and then i was RUDELY AWAKENED

[@CitrusZero]

+gladitsnotme Your icon makes this especially funny

[@thewingedcroc]

+gladitsnotme oh man ASMR + lowercase music = BFFs 4 LIFE

[@gtabro1337]

+gladitsnotme what are you people even getting from ASMR?..

[@gladitsnotme]

gtabro1337 you people? lmao you sound jelly af. don't be mad you don't get relaxed.

[@gtabro1337]

gladitsnotme I just don't understand your community, so it's relaxation you're after, I see now

[@bassoonistfromhell]

Music is whatever you want it to be.

[@96powerpower]

+bassoonistfromhell Exactly.

[@DeletedMusic]

+bassoonistfromhell This guy gets it

[@betongitarre]

+bassoonistfromhell exactly. the term music is just an abstract interchangeable word. you don't need a definition to know, what it is about. Besides that its meaning changes over time.

[@EloquentRoasts]

+bassoonistfromhell Example: the sound of my victims lamentations for help

[@TheLuxma]

There's plenty of girls in the sea 🎶

[@GuyWithAnAmazingHat]

I subscribed yesterday and finished watching every single video, looking forward to more.

[@thisexists]

+GuyWithAnAmazingHat That's awesome, thanks for digging in!

[@MrGiygas1]

+This Exists You should do a This Exist video of a genre known as shitcore. Look up Passenger of Shit and his music here on KZbin. Not for the faint of heart.

[@vv09]

+This Exists You should do a video about the sounds of the planets and stars. It's pretty interesting

[@explorershaymin3309]

+Giygas my friend made a shitcore cover once

[@corncobjenkins6170]

breh...you need to see a counselor..

[@RobiticDuck]

I actually listen to and made my own lowercase tracks years ago in high school. thanks This Exists for bringing lowercase to a broader audience.

[@dawsonhicks5929]

I love how you used one of the most obscure and unknown tracks from Skrillex.

[@TrebleWing]

Micro music has been a thing since like the 60s. Has to do with minimal sounds often produced by granular synthesis.

[@nik8099]

+Tyler Barnes Yeah it's nothing new. Though I do enjoy it.

[@jorgepeterbarton]

+Tyler Barnes or musique concrete, with the everyday sounds manipulated. 1930s yep...as soon as people could record and slow things down and chop it up.

[@mycosys]

Wow - there are other people who know music history. Lowercase = digitally produced music concrete

[@totally_not_a_bot]

After listening to "Bell is the Truth," I can say that it definitely has rhythmic and tonal qualities that seem to be intended to impart a feeling of eery beauty. I would call it music, just minimalist and strange music that sounds like the drepressed offspring of a meditation bell and a pachinko machine.

[@Laurabeck329]

It's so weird seeing Abigal before transitin now. It just feels wrong.

[@gothbotanist2376]

Lowercase is like the asmr of experimental music Wall-noise is the ear rape of experimental music (but honestly it works for clearing your brain, and or travelling to another dimension

[@NerdSyncProductions]

Yeah, I guess I'd call it "sound art" more than music. Defining things can prove harder than most would think. I made a whole video trying to define "comics" only to find that there's never been an agreed upon definition. Some even went as far as to say that things aren't comics unless they are mass produced, or at least published on a medium that can easily be mass produced. Imagine if music had a similar rule about it.

[@zippydipity42]

Non-music sound art is my new favourite category of art. I don't mind experimental music not being music as such, but the art is still art.

[@Mallory-Malkovich]

This video introduced me to Philosophy Tube, and Philosophy Tube changed my life, so thank you both!

[@scottpeterson7500]

Music is: Art Sound, i.e. The use of sound,including silence,for the purpose of creating art😜✌️

[@nuberiffic]

Would you consider poetry music? Or even a speech?

[@rustydogg]

it isnt for the purpose of creating art, though

[@kevinwillems8720]

Oh shit I didn't know Abigail did a Collab with this exists.

[@999peaches]

Wild how this video was how I found out about PhilosophyTube

[@dannygaymes]

Two of my favorite channels that I never would have expected a collab between. Awesomenesssssss

[@alecchvirko6578]

Sick cross over with Philosophy Tube. I love both of these channels. Thanks guys.

[@ItsNerdeeBirdee]

"Lowercase music is the tiniest, weirdest experimental music" The weirdest? Have you actually delved into the experimental music world? This stuff is tame compared to some of the stuff out there.

[@thisexists]

+NerdeeBirdee If you watch the video, I think I make a clear case for it - buuuuuut it doesn't make me right.

[@prepecenihleb1679]

Holy shit this is where I first saw philosophytube

[@JacobA666]

I've been on youtube for almost 8 years, that's by far the most entertaining and informative channel I encounter. (Let alone that most of the videos you post here are about music, which is the place I come from actually :) ) I am a musician and I teach music at school. You'll be amazed when I tell you that where I come from it's almost non-existant where people would actually dig deep into musical philisophies and look into challenge themselves with these questions. That being said, I managed to teach a whole series of music lessons for 6 through 8 graders on "concrete music". Which in my opinion could be quite possibility to look through when one should define what music is. That, and I'm also a huge Norwegian black metal fan!!!

[@TheIndieGamesNL]

I think lowercase music is like good for an intro or outro in your album, or a interlude not an album on its own

[@ForgottenDawn]

I am actually surprised to see someone taking his time to share obscure musical styles such as the hilariously dubbed "lowercase". Props to that. I consider myself open to sounds, they're literally all around us, and sometimes hearing these subtle compositions in the background remind me of how subjective and blurry the boundary between "noise" and "music" is. Noise experimentation isn't a new thing, however, it dates back to the Futurists of the past century (Luigi Russolo and the Art of Noises), then carried on by people like Pierre Schaeffer and all the mid-century avant-garde, followed by the Berlin school developments in the '60s/70s. I think it's about being open to possibilities and embrace the sounds for what they are. One has to experiment or we'd reach stagnation. Whether you like it or not, it's really just a matter of taste in the end.

[@kraai98]

My favorite experimental genre! Thanks for tackling this, it's pretty hard to talk about.

[@hrnekbezucha]

Oh Boris and Merzbow. They sure were at their best with Sun Baked Snow Cave. It's just too good.

[@horstweinert7204]

Came to be confused by the subject, got confused by philosphy.

[@CIassmates]

really cool that you shed so much light on interesting genres of music

[@Netbug009]

This is actually really relaxing to listen to and would make good study ambience.

[@KaspuKasper]

the boris and merzbow album totally RIPS my inner soul into shards what recombine after their ANOTHER collab album, sun baked snow cave, what destroys my ears and makes me nauseous but still is calling my body to get closer and make it louder to the point of tinnitus. i love it.

[@alexzoin]

Yes! Two of my favorite youtubers, together at last!

[@logan1336]

I've listened to quite a bit of this type of music without realising it had a name. One of my favourite albums that I think qualifies is Four Rooms. An album recorded in Chernobyl by recording the dead ambient noises of abandoned buildings, then with a speaker projecting the recorded sounds, then again re-recording the resonance before projecting the noise again. This process looping to compose a song.

[@christophermetz1550]

As a Design major and fine arts minor in college I got really into philosophy in art. I even took a course on this subject. Art/Music is a very hard subject to come to any conclusions on but it does have a wealth of discussion topics. Loved the guest philosopher segment!

[@benseward5594]

Just a quick note, the "musical features" that Kania talks about are most likely referring to the 5 elements of music (melody, harmony, rhythm, form, instrumentation). These 5 elements are pretty much the cornerstone for any sort of musical analysis. Using these 5 elements in conjunction with Kania's definition, lowercase music exists in a gray area; one could argue that it does contain faint vestiges of (albeit unconventional) harmony and rhythm, and its instrumentation could be classified as some sub-category of electronic sounds. It's kind of up to the listener to decide for themselves whether or not it's music, which is kind of what a lot of more experimental classical composers (such as John Cage) are going for; to challenge their audience to think more deeply about music. There are tons of classical compositions that forego form and melody just like lowercase music does, but have slightly more conventional rhythm, harmony and instrumentation, which makes them much more listenable

[@mauriceschmidt24]

I am always looking forward to those difficult and unsettling nights with Steve Roden.

[@oBrownlee]

I heard an interview with John Cage on NPR at one point, and he said that 4:33 isn't actually about silence - it's about sounds that we didn't know we were listening to: He took a peculiar opportunity (before "composing" 4:33) to sit inside a scientist-created "sound vacuum" (I don't remember the actual name of the space), that boasted absolute silence. When he came out he told the scientist that he was hearing two sounds while within, a low frequency and a high one, and the scientist explained that the low was the coursing of John's own blood, and the high was the electrical frequency of his body. It was then John Cage concluded that as long as living creatures are present to be listening, there is no such thing as absolute silence - so 4:33 became his commentary on this, an absence of Musical Performance to make way for what I'm guessing he'd say is the absence of Silence, rather than the absence of Music or Sound. People shifting uncomfortably, rustling programs, stifled coughs - these became the improvised "music" of John Cage's 4:33. And this is all quite interesting, but it still doesn't make 4:33 into music. :) Because the absence of silence still isn't necessarily "organized." And I've thought about this A LOT since I heard that interview, and I think John Cage is a revolutionary, but I think this project misfired in that you can't make an audience be the performer unless you prepare them for it (something out of which Bobby McFerrin has successfully made an entire non-verbal performance pedagogy revolution). On the other hand, in his elements of a play, Aristotle described (in some translations) anything "heard" on stage as Music. On the other other hand, theatre is a rehearsed, paced, organized production. Thanks for the brain-bend. f:o

[@nuberiffic]

I've always thought of 4'33" as a commentary on what music is, but I hadn't heard that story before. I disagree that it isn't music though. I think it's organised in the sense that it's very deliberately executed. In the ThisExists version of it, he made the choice to perform the piece in it's entirety, edit it into a video, and upload it to youtube. Everything is there on purpose, including the audience being unprepared to perform.

[@ozdergekko]

yes. it's definitely music. my definition: music is everything anybody defines as such for him/herself. When I'm sufficiently stoned, every single - even the faintest - sound may turn into something musical (per my definition) and gradually transmutes into some slightly more conventional musical piece, mostly modern jazz.

[@uztre6789]

+ozdergecko What a definition.

[@uztre6789]

Botar Akutabi THE language?

[@valyri]

rest in peace steve roden.

[@CastleBallad]

Hell yeah, so happy listened to my suggestion for an episode. If you guys are interested, check out the japanese scene for lower case, Onkyo-key. Empty samples and no-ins mixers.

[@Xcel271]

Music is a collection of sonic vibrations that attracts a listener to them. Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so is music. I think that all of nature is music. When I go out and hear the busy streets and feel the calm at the eye of the storm, when I'm stuck inside on a rainy day and the prattle of the falling water cleanses my soul of all worry, when the coffee machine is warming up and makes a smooth purr to remind me that life isn't about sweating the small stuff, and I can handle what's coming my way. People listen to music with the intention of suiting their emotional state with sonic vibrations that organize it, turning it into a stable moment they can go back to at any moment if they want to. lowercase music is about emphasizing the music amongst the mundane, capturing those precious little moments that we as humans just naturally feel emotion for. It's kind of like minimalist photography for sound.

[@andrewkaluzynski736]

You guys are great! Thanks for making this!

[@librarykils]

so glad to hear lowercase explained in such plain terms, i've been curious for a while but could never quite wrap my mind around it

[@thelastattempt666]

Now i'm into lowercase music. Thank you both.

[@lamuyazimina1469]

Interesting video, thank you! Just one thing: Steve Roden did coin the term "lowercase", but Forms of Paper wasn't the first piece of lowercase music recorded - Bernhard Günter's Un Peu de Neige Salie, released in 1993, is usually considered the first. (Not surprisingly, the people in charge of pressing the CD thought the master tape Günter had handed them was defective because all they could hear were very faint pops and clicks.) "Amplified ambient sounds" could also describe some field recordings albums (yes, "field recordings" are also considered a music genre by some listeners)… Depending on how broad your definition is, lowercase music can use any kind of very quiet sounds, recorded, played or electronic. And silence. If you're interested, Wired wrote a good article about lowercase back in 2002 when the genre started gaining some attention, it was called "Whisper the Sounds of Silence". The sound samples no longer work but you can still read it.

[@volanterecordings.8113]

I propose that music is "purposed sound." Any sonic experience utilized or purposed, intentionally or unintentionally.

[@okayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy]

I have a very broad definition of art (basically something created with artistic intention and/or created to be pleasing to one of the senses), so music to me is pretty much 'sound art'. Lowercase music is the sound version of those pieces of artwork that are just colored squares, or a tiny sprinkle of paint and scribbles on a giant canvas. It pushes the boundaries of what people normally consider to be art, yes, but is nevertheless still weirdly pleasing when you step back and enjoy it for what it is. A quote I heard a while back that may be relevant to this discussion: Art is the way we decorate space, music is the way we decorate time.

[@wellurban]

The quote that nails it for me is from John Cage: "The music never stops; only the listening." Music (or any kind of art) is not such because of the way that it is made, but because of the kind of attention we bring to it.

[@Detonexploder]

My mind can't handle this ow my head

[@milksheihk]

Basically just a bunch of people doing Musique Concrete (which has been around in one form or another for other 50 years) & calling it something else.

[@TheFunkyCriminal]

i love your channel bro, keep up the good work!!

[@thisexists]

+Nick Merrick Thanks!

[@rockeymountaincunning]

It seems that lower case music does organize sound in some way, and the intention is for listening (unless missed something). Even John cage in his book 'Silence' talks about how there is no silence and 4:33 is supposed to show that there is sound to listen too, the uncontrolled sound of the hall in which it is preformed, so 4:33 even organizes sound in some way, it's just not directly controlled, similar to his 'Cheap Imitation' which is also music that happens by chance, and that, I think, would easily be considered music, so while it seems like a stretch to call 4:33 or lower case music 'music' it contains elements that we consider music in other forms of music. If you want to reference a philosopher to back this up look at Wittgenstein's family resemblance in terms of definitions. That a word such as 'music' doesn't point to one quality contained in all music, but a set of qualities that appear in what we call music. The same way a family will share facial features, or mannerisms without there being one single trait that is common to them all.

[@wolfumz]

3:20 ... what is he doing with the knobs there? Is skirllex pretending to mix the drop live??

[@f.b.jeffers0n]

Olly with my favorite poem FTW!! "If Hope has flown away, in a night or in a day, in a vision or in none, is it therefore the less gone?" That being said, yeah, it's music...

[@JamesCoyle95]

I like it. Seems very suited to be ambient background noise in games and things of that nature.

[@squireoflink]

Two of my favorite people doing a collab!! YESSZ

[@martinreid2352]

FYI, what is described in 1:43-3:00 is what is called _musique concrète_, and was one of the largest conceptual leaps man has ever made in music: any sample-based music owes its very existence to this concept.

[@White_Owl-d9b]

Actually that 8 breaths of different lenghts from Steve Roden is pretty good.

[@madmanadam1]

having studied music at an academic level, having studied John cage and everything from the beetles, to Indian raga, to Indonesian Gamalan to whatever you can think up. I think I came to this conclusion: There is a VERY fine line between what is "Music" and what is "music experimentation". Take "Music for airports" from Brian Eno, a big pivotal point in music for many reasons but listening to it repeat on and on and on for however many minutes it made me think this: "This doesn't Invoke any sort of emotion in me" And it was designed to be exactly that, this piece of music heard in the background, but without any focus, music for an airport, what's now known as "Muzac". And the one definition presented by Philosophy Tube it clearly fits that definition. But I still consider it an Experiment in Music rather than music. To me Music needs to invoke emotion or a sense of solidarity amongst the performers/audience else its a rather moot point, if it does not entertain the listener then it serves an entirely different purpose. The other side exploring the outer boundaries of "Music" like Cage, Eno and Glass (basically the modernist and the post modernist, where a lot of the weird stuff we hear today sprung from) is very important to gage what we perceive as music, the people pushing the boundaries of music are just as important as those who create to entertain, so that we may learn new things to add to what we hear, like Dubstep has done as a genre. Taken what would've been considered trash 30 years back due to its nonsensical use of "nosie" as opposed to music, but utilized it in such a way that it works . I mean if you listen to Gamalan music, it sounds quite repulsive at first, but when you learn about its culture and its place in the communities it spawned from it turns out to be a very poignant set of music, especially if you get the chance to play Gamalan with a group, you can certainly understand why its seen as music despite it falling into the lines of many things such as "Lowercase", a droning set of bells that seemingly don't have a sense of structure unless you know what you're looking for, so it sort of helps define itself separately from Lowercase. I'm sorry if I'm terrible at explaining, I had to get my lecturers to help me all the time to write out my arguments properly, I usually have too many things to say and an awful sense of structure when writing. I hope SOMEONE understood me even a bit :I Edit: To clarify, I see music as two separate entities. The Academic form, to study what we can do with music: (Lowercase, Harsh noise, Brian Eno, John Cage, Philip Glass and many more.) The Entertainment form, to perform en mass with what we learn in the academic form (Folk music from every culture, what we hear on the radio, what we choose to listen to and the albums the artists release to entertain) but the question from this point is: what is Academic and what is Entertainment? I usually place it in my own spectrum but others may think differently.

[@KingDracSiege]

Talk about Hyperdense chords, the piece, threnody, and Johnny Greenwood's Popcorn Superhet Reciever. It's like this, but it uses orchestras and instrumentation to mimic every day sound.

[@pixelheresy]

awesome shirt! love the keeper of the seven keys pt 1 & 2!

[@OrdenJust]

Ollie, I am not sure Kania's definition rules out as music Morse code that is being heard on a staticky radio channel. It is intentionally organized sound. We listen to its pitch to separate it from the static on the channel, and it is rhythmic, especially if the message is being repeated. To make the debate even more interesting, one can tap out in dots and dashes the score of Beethoven's Fifth. Or tap on the arm of a deaf person in sync with the symphony for that matter. The show "signing with Cindy" showed her conveying Pat Benatar's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" translating the sound by swaying and dancing with her body as she signed. So it seems music is an idea, while amplified sounds from an ant mound might not be.

[@TheMohawkNinja]

I was taught that music is simply "sound organised in time". This eliminates the poetry problem, and removes both 4'33" (as there is no sound), and lowercase music (as most aren't organised in time by the sound of it) as music, while retaining what most people think of as "music".

[@walmorcarvalho2512]

MISTER SAM What about an episode on Pixação, a brazillian subgenre of Grafitti that artists climb 20+ story buildings by the outside, break in and literally risk their lives to leave their marks? Shit is preety intense and has a very decent audiovisual production by the own pixadores. And can be a nice toutch to the series "stuff that kills you" - Music that kills, movies that kill, videogames that kill, killer artists and now art that LITERALLY KILLS

[@ambroisevalet]

aweful definitions, 4.33 is music and so is poetry. music is art that's perceived with our ears. art is the tricky thing to define.

[@aepokkvulpex]

A lot of Roden's music sounds like the kinda stuff Endermen would listen to honestly

[@DIEKALSTER8]

I think music is produced audio, not available in nature, intended to invoke some response in a listener. Some of the lowercase music you played reminded me of the kind of thing you'd hear in the background of a stylized movie, meant to convey a certain mood or atmosphere. On its own though it can have so much more to offer and can lend itself to interpretation within the specific parameters of the music, sort of like an abstract painting. So yeah, IMO, it is definitely music.

[@erinroberts7751]

I hate sand. It gets everywhere.

[@ryan.1990]

I recommend you give Steve Roden a serious listen with headphones. Definitely worth it, the soundscapes he makes are amazing.

[@BrickfallOfficial]

As someone who is a musician, music teacher and composer for a living i would define music as: Any sound or sounds that contain a meter (rhythm of some sort), melody and harmony. It really must contain all 3 things for the human ear/brain to be able to perceive it as anything other than just organised noise or at the opposite end of the spectrum poetry.

[@Galactu5]

coconut7joemanji But organized "noise" can be music and even pleasantly musical without having melody or easily digested repeatable rhythmic structure. it might be safer to err to the side of any sound could be defined as music or risk being inaccurate due to one's own bias. In my own definition I think I would have to let the composer convince us if it was not already obvious to our own ears. Think about this for a minute. It is possible for some of us to read a score and hear in our heads the sounds almost as if we are reading words from a book and can understand in our minds what the author is saying or trying to convey. So does this mean that we must hear the composition being played on instruments in order to define the composition as music? white noise, pink noise, and similar typically non-musical sounds could be enjoyed as music by a listener and only the listener needs to be the one that defines what they hear. IMO. YMMV - your music may vary.

[@m_crowley6674]

oh my god its baby beardless abby

[@KaiCalimatinus]

I love this show partly because of the enthusiasm and also because I've never heard of the majority of topics. Which I suppose is precisely the point. Nice shirt by the way.

[@jakobquinn9003]

I would say the definition of music is up to the listener. If someone perceives lowercase to be music, that makes it music.

[@YouTube_gets_dumber_every_year]

Great video, thanks for all the hard work. btw nice shirt man \m/

[@thisexists]

+necrosauce Thanks!

[@madmonk66]

it's very much in the tradition of Steve Reich, Eno, Lou Reed's" Meta Machine Music" and a lot of 70s krautrock. I'm all for the experimentation- it has to have new tools to evolve. I appreciate this show, and that it comes at such things from an intelligent and informative angle as opposed to holding the unusual up for reactionary ridicule from a dumbed- down mindset like so much media today. Keep up the good work!!

[@nekoill]

I absolutely love that Maxwell's Demon tune. Sounds kinda aphextwinish.

[@juanitoMint]

if you consider music as a form of art, cosider this: "To know and understand a pice of art is about knowing and understanding what kind of complexities drives the creator, but not necessarily understand such complexity " Jorge Wagensberg 1985 therefore it's more about understanding the codes the creator uses in their composition rather than an absolute definition, since codes vary in time and from culture to culture.

[@perfectloser55]

0:01 Do you know what I love? Helloween! Also, the circularity in Kania's argument was crystal clear from the start and I would be annoyed if it wasn't pointed out. It makes me think there must be more to it because it's hard to believe someone would just lay out an argument with such premise. "Music is something you listen to in order to listen to music stuff". Woot! By the way, this lower case music sounds interesting to mix with more traditional stuff. I'd give it a go.

[@BlackburnBigdragon]

This form of music sounds like the old classic industrial music of the late 70's or early 80's. You can even push it back to the experimental tape music that was being made around the middle of the 20th century. I've always disagreed with that definition of music that Kania came up with. I have a much broader sense of what music is. I believe that music is more subjective to the listener. It's everything heard. Every sound together. It doesn't have to be organized. One person can consider birds in a forest as music. Others, a rock concert. It's entirely subjective. Some people can sit and listen to traffic or the sounds of a city as if it's an album. So music itself just might need a broad definition rather than the confining one that Kania was placing on it. Music means different things to different people. Every person considers a different thing to be "Music".

[@ManicalVale]

Just saw Merzbow live here in Finland about month ago. Incredible.

[@jefferyjones1508]

Wouldn't you consider that lowercase music contains and carries a melody, therefore making it music? Just an idea, not sure on the terminology and whether that would classify.

[@internetyears6643]

I agree, a lot of Steve Roden's tracks contain at least some sort of melody

[@koolkid1996]

HAHA!!! SAM IN THE HELLOWEEN SHIRT!! LOVE YOU MAN.

[@bradensouthard8969]

FINALLY AN ACTUAL COLLABORATION ON THE THIS EXISTS CHANNEL!

[@iamdamosuzuki_]

Lowercase from what I gather is just a newer form of musique contréte and aleatoric music. It's controlled chaos. It's really not too far off from Steve Reich's experimental pieces from the mid 60's. Field recording manipulation is also very common in experimental rock with bands like This Heat or Godspeed You! Black Emperor.

[@sarahbunnies]

Defining music is hard. I took an electronic music class as part of my degree (in music) and I had a lot of trouble making sense of it. Our final was to compose a piece that had no rhythm, no key, and we had to use sounds that weren't intended to be music. Listening to examples and to my peers compositions was a task for me because I could wrap my mind around the idea that it's music. I think music is music because the composer says it is. John Cage thinks 4' 33" is music so it is.

[@jimjones3126]

Aphex twin did it first

[@CertifiedGhoul]

aphex twin is god

[@bastienmillecam3183]

+Brian Rodriguez Let's just say that beside being that awesome musician that no one can top, he didn't have the pretention to name his own genre. That aside Lowercase music seems interesting

[@G8tr1522]

+B. Milkam uhhhhh "braindance"???

[@CertifiedGhoul]

Brian Rodriguez as do i

[@yellowcol]

+Brian Rodriguez Pierre Schaeffer did it first :-)

[@plunderpunk2]

"Truth Is The Bell" by Steve Roden is a BEAUTIFUL experience.

[@xthe_nojx5820]

This is one of those art forms that I'll likely never listen to, let alone be a fan of, but I am very glad they exist.

[@MrMichaeljenkins]

This was a particularly amazing episode. So to answer the question, yes lowercase music is music. Unfortunately it seems, we do not have a proper definition of music, so I hope this video and others like it , are inspiring people to create a better definition for music.

[@henrymikael82]

wow thanks for this one. thhat steve roden sounded pretty interesting i definetely have to check him out

[@harujoestar6676]

Love the Keeper of the Seven Keys Shirt! :D

[@acialist]

I've made some of that before. didn't know what it was except for experimental, but now I'm glad I can throw it into a category

[@Nyuu3]

I've been thinking of checking this scene out, but I'm wondering...does it HAVE to be difficult? Amplifying quiet sounds seems like it could produce really pleasant stuff.

[@thoraxepi]

The owl album is the feeling you get when you play Steve Roden at a party.

[@discobiscuit56]

I love how he goes on a tangent saying this type of music is completely unique, and then directly relates it to EDM.