Helen Duggan writes:

>Classification is useful, in a number of ways, to the enjoyment,
>understanding and discussion of music, but it is in the nature of music
>that it is not necessarily easily pigeonholed.  Afterall there is not even
>universal agreement about what is and is not music, even within the Western
>tradition.

I agree, that's the challenge.  E-mail lists is a technology that
rivals the invention of the printing press.  Here are over 900 people
communicating almost simultaneously about music.  This has never happened
before in history.  If a vocabulary to explain music in new ways can't
come out of this group, then we must relegate music to those things
we will never understand despite the numerous examples of successful
creations.  I think its secrets lie in understanding how the mind reacts
to stimuli, in short, understanding music requires understanding our minds
and thus ourselves.  For example, what is the psychological impact of the
deceptive cadence?

To borrow from Thomas Mann (about writers) "A musicologist is someone for
whom understanding music is more difficult than it is for other people":-)

I like to explore the nature of music.  Since the mind understands
everything using identical mental facilities, this might be accomplished
using a surrogate domain.  I will list 2 column of terms and wonder how
that are matched.

   MUSIC               ART
   -------    -----------------------
   melody     brush strokes (texture)
   harmony    subject(s)
   tempo      color
   form       light source and shadowing
   rhythm     subject layout
   timbre     perspective (or lack of)

Would anyone like to try their hand at matching concepts in column 1 with
their equivalent in column 2.  Maybe we could reach agreement on this.  At
least we could argue the differences using terms we all understand.

I like mind games and thought experiments.

Bill Pirkle