Satoshi Akima writes [about the degeneration of this thread]:

>We are all here because we want to enrich our lives with an ever deeper
>understanding of music, but spitting venom does nothing to help this cause.
>Similarly arguing about the definition of music is equally futile.  Yes, so
>let's concentrate on what's great and what's really wonderful about music.
>That's what I had started to do when I first posted on this thread and got
>dragged into an ideological fight by Jocelyn Wang.

I agree with this with the exception that we need a generally accepted
definition of music. Else we are sure to argue since I am talking about
apples and someone else is talking about oranges. I will restate my latest
offering simply to make my next point and not in the sense of pushing for
its acceptance.

   "Music is series of sound effects which are organized by the composer
   so as to control the evocation of emotions or feelings in the mind
   of the listener or to demonstrate a principle(s) of harmony, melody,
   rhythm or form"

If we had something like, this then we could discuss:

How different composers got sound effects, with examples How they are
organized by different composers, with examples What emotions are evoked
by certain music, with examples Different composer's principles of harmony,
melody, ...

This would foster your (Satoshi's) "we want to enrich our lives with
an ever deeper understanding of music" premise.  Its hard to understand
something when we can't even define what it is we are trying to understand.
We can have our own personal definition yielding a personal understanding
but that would just lead to more debate as we logically describe our
differing realities.  Some common ground it what is needed here.  If Bach,
Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Stravinsky and Bartok are in heaven discussing
music, surely they are finding things to agree on, or are the angels saying
"will you shut up about music, argue, argeu, argue - God is trying to some
rest."

It is likely that this list would require a definition that is beyond that
which would suffice for the general public.  Even a definition that would
encompass 90% of music would do.  A vocabulary is what we need so we are
at least using the same terms in the discussion IMHO

Bill Pirkle