Humans, Music, and Andalites

[Damien]

I've been thinking lately about music in general. Is music a a natural, instinctual thing for a human being?

Think about it. All cultures have their own music and musical instruments. Almost all people like some kind of music. Every show has a theme song, except 60 minutes. Children (around ages 1 or 2) "dance" (jump and down, wave their, ands etc.) to music even if they never see anyone do so before (me, my cousin and sister for example... when we were around 1, my cousin still is 1). Being a good singer/musician is an extremely profitable job (and many are famous). Everyone wants/has and ipod/mp3 player (unless they are so poor they can't afford food, some things are more important). Not to mention music is considered an art and many video games (guitar hero, wii music) are created around music.

However I remember Ax thinking of music as "just a bunch of loud noise" or something similar to this effect (I don't know the exact words) does that mean all Andalites think the same thing?

So my my questions are, is music instinctual to humans? Is it natural to like music for humans? Is so why don't Andalites? Is it because they don't grow up with it? Or maybe because its something with their brain structure? Could it be something else?

Share your idea here, I'd like to hear what everyone thinks.

[ThinkAgain]

I'm pretty sure he just sees human music as just a bunch of noise. I bet most humans would find Andalite music as noise. Still, even among human cultures, people think the music of others as just noise. I guarantee you've at least witnessed a rock vs rap argument, and then there's techno, country, classical, etc. If that kind of discrepancy exists between the same species, I'm sure it's more significant between planets.

[Terenia]

haha, I'm with Ax here.

I rarely listen to music. When I do its of the classical/background noise vein. It isn't that I don't like it....it just all seems trite. I have never followed specific bands or whatnot.


It's all noise to me.

[RYTX]

I'm with Think, he was talking only human music, and I doubt he was exposed to more than background music at the store, or whatever crap Marco would expose him to.
Musics weird in the series, I think Andalites mention having music but it's never described. Hork-Bajir have their tree songs for communication, and Pemalite music is never described, but the Chee are suckers for Beethoven. And then there's the Ellimist and his whole magical music adventure.

How inborn a sense of music is, and for what, hard to say. Hork-Bajir music seems to bear a resembalance to tribal music to me, and Andalite music I always think would be serene, but who knows how it could really be interepted. I think in general music is instinctual for a lot animals, it is a form of communication, rich in emotion, which of course gives a lot of detail itself, but as for taste, well; lots of people like birds "songs" but will throw a shoe at a yodeling cat
Why is bird communication more appealing than a cat to a person? don't know

[anijen21]

the thing about the Ellimist's magical music adventure, at least what I found weird, is it was that weird alien that the Skrit Na picked up that exposed him to music for the first time. So, just to be be clear, this "new game" that Father invented, out of all the beings he had...absorbed?...was the first iteration of music either he or the Ellimist had experienced.

I found that weird. That seems to indicate music is a rarer thing in the galaxy than, I don't know, I thought it would be. Intelligent species look for and appreciate patterns. Music is just artistically complex audible patterns.

[voodooqueen126]

Perhaps-as andalites are mute- they are tone deaf and don't need hear music.

[eacortes]

I recall Ax saying that Human music is awfull, suggesting that Andalites have there own "superior" form of music, thats not to say that Andalites can't appreciate Human music. Remember in Andalite Chronicles when Elfangor was on the Taxxon home world and salvages a yellow Mustang (or was it a Ferrari?) from a wrecked Skrit'Na ship and drives along the dunes jamming to 80's/70"s rock, while sipping a coke through his hoof. Im sure he was having a blast listining to the music, which just suggests Ax is a more exclusively arrogant Andalite.  Music to them may also be a more abstract notion, and my not consiously be recognized for what it is when it is apparent, this is exemplified in #18 when their on the Leeran homeworld cought between a battle of Andalite and Yeerk forces and their trying to get to the Andalites flying as bats through the dark. They pass near Andalite ground sensors that emit sound pulses that Cassie describes as sounding like music.  I doubt the devices were intentionaly ment to sound like music, but the fact that a human noticed that, I am not surprised.   Music is in the ear of the beholder.