Stirling Newberry writes:

>What we formulate as "principles" are post-hoc exersizes.  It isn't that
>music is abstract, it is that discussing definitions of it with people who
>are bent on making music=sound is basically pointless.

I must have missed something here.  Are you saying that music is not at
least a series of sound effects? If it is then are they not organized in
some way.  by the composer? Wasn't this organization purposeful (for some
purpose) Don't sound effect automatically evoke emotions?

One could define music as "the output of a popular art form that is
distributed widely on CD, magnetic media, and paper for being heard." I
would buy into that definition too.  I was searching for a definition that
would aid in the "understanding" of music.  If my definition or something
similar was acceptable to describe even 90% of CM, then we could talk about
the nature of sound effects, the nature of organized sound effects, emotion
etc.

Bill Pirkle