^did you record it?

That doesn't have anything to do with the art though. I mean, Jim Carrey still had some funny movies and I wouldn't doubt him if he said he was trying to be funny in the other ones. He's still a lame anti-vaxxer. Generally people are aware of their thoughts when they create something from scratch, so I'm going to go on taking them at their word when they describe their intentions.

That's not to mention that dictating what art isn't is far more pretentious than anything that's attempting to challenge those preconceived notions.

Give it an hour, and then you'll be making some real music.

Whatever, Trollheart.

Generally people also are full of **** in some form or another, so I don't see why I shouldn't question them.

On this forum, your position seems to the conventional one, so I'm the iconoclast here :p:. And from what I can see, a lot of people hold your point of view, not so much because they actually believe it, but because they don't want to be seen as the kind of person who doesn't "get art". Which is pretty pretentious.

Really? I just figured that they were the type of people who respect the artist's word on their own music. Seems like a no brainer for me. I would respect a carpenter's claim that the chair he made was made out of hardwood oak much in the same way. Sure, they could be full of ****, but given that it's an artist's livelihood or passion, it wouldn't get them anywhere lying about something like that.

The word of the artist trumps all.

Unless of course they just accidentally used the wrong piece of wood and didn't notice.

This is beside the point however. I think I've shown that claiming that something is music just because the artist says it is music, is not a valid argument by itself. There are other criteria to meet, or else music has no definition.

Yeah, that doesn't sound pretentious at all. I feel like that should be the plaque on a statue of some guy riding a horse, pointing toward the horizon.

Music is whatever you want it to be. Once you start saying that music stops *here*, then you're closing yourself out of a world of new music. Whether something is or isn't music is not even an arguing point as far as I'm concerned. Whether it's clever, ****, melodic, or any other thing about it is a different story. It is most certainly a valid point by itself when an artist puts something out as music. You can go ahead and keep attempting these mental gymnastics but when it comes down to it I'm never going to disagree with an artist on whether their art is art. It's a shame that speaking out against a close minded view of music earns me the label of pretentious.

So? I don't have to consider something music to enjoy my sense of hearing. I'm not missing out on anything I'm just classifying it as something else.

What that all amounts to is that music has no definition. If music has no definition then you're not arguing about music (as you've just said, but contradicted many times), you're arguing for the prestige of being able to call something music.

Okay, Soulflower.

Whatever music is, 4'33" is part of it. *shrug*