Bill Pirkle to Chris Bonds replying him:

>>>This definition [my def, of music] would include bird calls.
>>
>>So you're saying birds can be composers?
>>When a bird sings its song that's not music.
>>When a composer (e.g. Messiaen) notates it and puts it in a piece, that's
>>music
>
>I would expect that a lot of people on the list would disagree.

I agree.  If a bird song is music, then every sound in the universe is
music, and so...music is nothing.  If you want a definition of music, you
can't include everything on it: you must define, i.e.  "to fix limits".
Generally, I dont't believe much in definitions of art, but I like the
ancient greek concept of "tekhne": "a series of operations applied to some
material in order to reach certain values of beauty or utility".  I think
that this would be a good sarting point for a definition of music.  I agree
with Strawinsky: "art is not the song of a bird, but driving rightly the
simplest modulation".

Pablo Massa
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