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 [log in to unmask]