Rap and Music

According to reader Robert T. Leet, “rap ‘music’ is literally not music--no melody or harmony, no notes. It is rhythmic, rhyming talk . . .” (Letters, Jan. 10).

Poppycock!

I looked up “music” in my dictionary: “vocal or instrumental sounds having rhythm, melody or harmony.” That’s or, not and. A composition need not have all three components; any one is sufficient. Rap has little, if any, melody or harmony, but it most indisputably has rhythm, and therefore meets the definition.

Music in Western culture developed along lines that emphasized melody and harmony over rhythm. In some classical music, melody and harmony predominate to the point where rhythm nearly disappears altogether.

But in other cultures, particularly African, music developed with the emphasis on rhythm over melody. In some African music, and in much of today’s urban music whose roots trace back to African influences, rhythm predominates to the point where melody and harmony nearly disappear. It’s not a matter of music vs. not music, it’s a matter of emphasis on different elements of music.

Sure, you can’t hum a rap song. You also can’t tap your toes to Gregorian chant. But they’re both music.

GRINNELL ALMY

Santa Monica

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Let me offer the definition we were taught on the first day in Fundamentals of Music 101: Music is “organized sounds and silences that occur in a specific time and are reproducible.”

Even the most rudimentary track a rapper might fashion and rhyme to fits this criteria.

Also, with artists like Celine Dion, Garth Brooks and the Backstreet Boys selling bajillions of records, it doesn’t appear that most other strains of pop music are anywhere near dead.

DAN WILLIS

Los Angeles