Karl Miller replies to me:

>>As a language music is fuzzy and imprecise, as Dave's examples indicate.
>>To think of music as a language is to deny its nature and its unique
>>expressive power.  There is no denying that music, painting, literature
>>can form rich connections, but that occurs precisely because they bring
>>different strengths to the mix.
>
>Why do you write that music has unique expressive power?
>Simply from my direct experience.
>
>While music can be fuzzy...so can words.

Indeed, language can be very precise but a poet can use it for other
purposes.

>Music can, on one level, have specific meaning.  For example one
>particular pitch going to another particular pitch both having specific
>durations and overtone structures.  Could that progression of pitches
>be the meaning?

I plead the fifth!!!

Bernard Chasan