Your missing the point. Music doesn't happen, there is always something there, your not getting the word intelligence, it doesn't just apply to book smarts and peoples education level.
Think about the guy in an orchestra playing the timpani, he only has to hit 2 drums with sticks but to do it in time and in correct time he has to continually be counting the time signature in his head, and how many bars they've been through, and remember to actually hit the drums at the right point.
Say the time signature is 6/8. This is a compound time signature, which means rather than counting beats per bar (e.g. common time, 4/4 which is [1, 2, 3, 4] [1,2,3,4] and so on) you count the 'break down' notes per bar. The number on the bottom tells you the type of note, this case is eighth notes, the number on top tells you how many there is per bar, in this case 6. So you have to count 6 eighth notes per bar, constantly in your head throughout the piece (unless of course the signature changes during the piece). This is [1 and 2 and 3 and] [1 and 2 and 3 and] and so on, whilst obviously counting the number of bars at the same time.
This can be broken down further to 16th notes, in which case you count [1 e a and 2 e a and 3 e a and] and so on (e and a are used as they are quick to say whilst counting but use whatever). Then you have 32nd notes and cut time (basically halving all values- play twice as fast
). Again, always registering the number of bars.
Thats why alot of jazz can just sound random, its exploring time by breaking things down further and further. Then you get syncopation which is kind of playing notes where there shouldn't be a note. So you have to count time, count bars AND play notes in between time counts, then you can shift notes around the beats, back and forth so playing just before or just after the beat.
World music, african, indian etc. is always good for that, they're far less concerned with melody and more concerned with rhythm. They use a lot of polyrhythms which is effectively putting 2 time signatures on top of each other (easier than it sounds actually) which is where it gets its hypnotic quality from.
Then you can explore scales and sounds on top, whilst still keeping time of course.
Non performance music (i.e. programmed electronic music) still has the rhythm, its not counted but the notes have to be placed correctly according to time, even a simple 4/4 beat demonstrates this.
The better you get the less you physically count, it just becomes an instinct but it takes alot of work to actually get there.
Your example, the guy rapping about his day, lyrics. Lyric writing isn't really the same as writing poetry, despite what most people think. The rhythmic structure of poetry is often different to words set to music. The lyrics must work with the rhythmic structure of the piece. Course you can use straight poetry with music, theres lots of good examples of this in Emo Punk and post rock (bands like Indian Summer and Slint- also a good lesson in time signatures and counting) but they still tend to relate back to the music, even if its very loosely.
Basically rhythm is everything, whether you hear it or not doesn't matter. Notes, words, sounds can almost be irrelavent if the piece is done properly- random scaleless notes in 4/4 time is hardly very interesting but move that into something more rhythmic and you have a piece of music- check out A Certain Ratio for some kick ass scaleless funk for example.
So the intelligence in music can come from different areas but its always there. More music nerdy type pieces can start to do away with timing in some senses but that is where its intelligence lies- you can't just ditch timing but they know when and where they can let the timing drift or even loose the NOTE timing all together, but whilst still keeping time so the music structure is still there
Whether or not any of this is taught or done instinctively doesn't matter, its the same end result. Generally most people in the western world 'live' in 4/4 time- most traditional western music is concerned with melodic structure rather than rhythmic, its just instinctive for us to use 4/4 but in the caribean the music is often based around triplets (reggae for example) so they can instinctively 'live' in a different signature.
Even simple sounding 4/4 house music has its intelligence in rhythm- although the beat could just be 4/4 its the use of other sounds that layer together and create rhythmic interest. Think about the way other sounds come in and out- that is in time but also the actual sounds- electronic music can be very clever in the way that the actual sound itself has its own timing and creates 'sub rhythm' if you like. A point many fail to spot when calling it repetitive. Basically if you have enough interest in one bar, why not loop it over and over? If its good you want to keep hearing it. Look for Rhythm and Sound/Basic Channel/Chain Reaction releases for examples of this, completely sparse dub and techno- music broken down to absolute fundamentals in a sense, one bar loops going on for 15 mins at a time, using stuff like roulette balls to create the rhythm. Oh yeah and brain shaking bass
. Its very hard to spot why it is good but you don't have to understand it, just listen, pure bliss.
Basically the point is whether music is exploring timing or melody, using words or sounds etc. etc. there is always a fundamental point to it. Which is my point about its either music or its not, forget genre. Music is basically using sound to convey feelings (I deliberately don't use emotion there). If that is not there then you haven't got music. The reason for not using emotion is there is a classical style which attempts to convey no emotion at all by abandoning structure which in turn leads to its own type of feelings, very difficult to describe. Benard Hermann is credited with inventing it when scoring the Psycho sound track (he also invented a load of other stuff there too, the man is a proper genius).
Obviously different pieces of music have varying degrees of intelligence in them, thats why some pieces of music are better than others but it depends on what people are looking for in music and how receptive you are. Not everyone needs to use some bastard awkward signature to get there point across and just because someone uses a bastard awkward signature it doesn't make for good music. There are plenty of examples of technical wizards who forgot the music- Yngie Malmstein for one, extremely fast guitarist, uses lots of notes but doesn't have a clue about music, his records are utter shit as theres no intelligence there.
In the same way if your guy isn't doing anything lyrically and theres nothing in the backing 'music' then theres no intelligence there and it'll just be shit, no interest what so ever. Mike Skinner of the streets pulls this off perfectly though, he's just talking about his everyday life, where he lives etc. but people can relate to that, and he has some great backing music- the opening track on Original Pirate material always bring a tear to my eye where the strings swell and he does the 'clench fists' bit. You could dismiss it as just being simplistic but it takes a real skill to be able to take everyday things and turn them into something great like that. Other lyricists like that are Bob Dylan and Connor Oberst (Bright Eyes/Desaparicidos). They just sound like they're just talking to you but to say exactly what they want to music like that takes a real gift.
Sorry thats so long and rambling I have a bitch of a hang over today.
