Ian Crisp wrote:

>In a footnote to a Karl Miller post, Dave Lampson wrote:
>
>>Like I said before: music is anything someone listens to as music.
>>Other definitions may feel better, but no other definition works.  -Dave]
>
>Turn it around.  What is needed in order to use Dave's definition to
>establish that some sound is not-music? We have to demonstrate that no-one
>listens to it as music; possibly that no-one ever did or ever will do.
>Clearly an impossible task - and a definition that does not allow the
>possibility of excluding some example from the defined set manifestly
>fails to perform the function of a definition.

How does one establish that something is ugly. Must it be that nobody
finds it beautiful.

For me, music is a quality of sound.

>Either Dave's definition is 100% relativist, having validity only for the
>individual and one person's use of it being independent of everyone else's,
>or it is not a definition at all.  In either case, it is of no use.  If it
>works, it cannot be connected to anything else; if it doesn't - well, it
>doesn't.

I don't understand.  It is connected to the individual.

One of the many reasons I prefer music of words...consider the often heard
phrase "...is music to my ears." While the origin of that phrase may have
been the sound of a cash register (in the olden days, cash registers were
mechanical and often had a ringing sound), it is often applied to other
things.

>Music, I have argued here before, is sound (plain speech excluded) with
>structure imposed upon it by conscious human design and with the capacity
>to act as a medium for the communication of some form of mood or emotion or
>mind-state between at least two out of the trinity of composer, performer
>and listener.

I would assume you would exclude "sound text pieces?"

>Such a definition easily encompasses tonal music, pantonal, atonal,
>twelve-tonal, whatever-you-like-tonal music; any organisational principle
>from sonata form through strict serialism to phase-shifting or Indian
>ragas or anything else I can think of; it can include any or all or any
>combination of melody and harmony and rhythm and timbre; it embraces
>everything from rap to the most high-flown pinnacles of Western classical
>music; and it neatly excludes natural sounds, animal noises (birdsong
>included), mechanical noises etc.  as music in themselves while still
>admitting the possibility of their being used as components within music.
>
>This definition does work.  It describes what music is and it draws a
>clear boundary line to distinguish music from non-music.  It can easily
>be extended (both intensionally and extensionally) to greater precision
>in distinguishing one kind of music from another.  In point of fact, it
>does the job.

By implication, are you suggesting that intelligence must be behind the
creation of the sound? If so...I believe there is intelligence behind
birdsong...maybe a that of a "bird brain"...but some intelligence.  (yes I
realize that birds have fairly large brains relative to their size...just
a mild attempt at humor on my part).

>[Thanks, Ian, I couldn't have asked for a better defense of my position
>than your verbose disagreement.  -Dave]

What bothers me most about Dave's comment is that I find myself agreeing
with it.

Karl

 [And when I and Karl agree about anything: WATCH OUT!  -Dave]