Female Schatz writes:

>I agree that music should be more than mere noise, but I'm not sure how to
>tell whether or not it is more than noise.  Music has an orderly structure
>to it, but so does Morse code.  Is morse code music?

Bad example.  Richard Rodgers's "Victory at Sea" and Barrington Pheloung's
title theme for the Inspector Morse series both incorporate Morse code -
in Rodgers's case, the sound of Morse code over radio transmission.

>Music has expressive characteristics but so does screaming.  Is a
>person screaming at the top of their lungs music? Music is designed human
>conscious design, but if I told someone to sit and bang on a trash can
>for a half hour then would I have just composed my first symphony?

It depends, as always.  What is the person screaming? Also, what are the
actual sounds someone has banged out? How much did you have to do with
those specific sounds? After all, if you told Oscar Peterson just to play
the piano, no one would give you credit for what Peterson played.

As to the rest of the post, I agree completely.

Steve Schwartz