Bernard Chasan wrote:

>But can music communicate?  Of course it can- very powerfully.  But
>you cannot use it to ask the waitress to bring you two scrambled eggs,
>toast, coffee, and orange juice.  Human curiosity is a wonderful thing.
>Far be it for me to question the importance of the "music as language "
>discussion, which has featured many fascinating perspectives, furnished
>much food for thought.  But in the final analysis why not accept that
>music is a thing in itself?

Well the OED does suggest that a thing can be "An individual work of
literature or art, a composition; a writing, piece of music, etc." But
what is the essence of that "thing."

For me, the thought that music has the potential to touch something very
deep in us is why we tend to shy away from music that tries to go very
deep.  It also might be that we don't want to take the time to dig deeply.

Perhaps not all of us can dig deeply, but it seems to me that we like to
let others think for us. In the case of music is it because we are afraid
of touching something deeper in ourselves?

Does this seem reasonable?

Karl