Chris Bonds writes:

>Of course that could include (Bill Pirkle are you reading this?) birdsong
>if you assume that birds twitter sometimes just for the hell of it.  So I
>would have to add something like "by humans, for humans."

Of course, I am reading this.  I would not miss this for the world.  In
the sense, as some have suggested, that its the subjective nature of music
that makes it music, I can imagine people enjoying the melody in a bird
call, say, canaries, who are particularly good at it, vs a crow.  That is,
I hear a nice melody, and it evokes an emotion in me.  It, then, would not
matter whether it came from a canary, computer, or human, in the subjective
sense.  But we cannot walk both sides of this street.  To the extent that
the value in music is subjective, its source, form and substance are
irrelevant.  To the extent that music's value is less subjective more
objective, as it my def., its source, form and substance starts becoming
more relevant, eliminating smoke detectors.  Several contrary def.s talk
about music as apart from sounds.  I can imagine that in the sense of
"please hand me that piece of music" (paper with symbols).  Even when
heard in the mind, I hear sounds.

Music has many definitions.  Its an art form.  Its symbols on a piece of
paper.  Its grooves on a vinyl disc.  Its magnetized spots on a tape.  Its
light reflections on a CD.  Its electronic pulses in an electronic device.
Its vibrations of a speaker cone.  For me music is what makes my piano
bench so heavy.  I say this so as to assure the list that I am not narrow
minded about it.  I was proposing a def.  that would allow understanding
about how and why it is produced, allowing us to compare the great master's
work from the same common base.  Mozart's sound effects vs.  Chopin's, the
emotions in 20th music century vs.19th century music.  We could discuss CM
from the point of view of how much my piano bench filled with music weighs
compared to others, perhaps an interesting thread.

Image if the non-CM world discovered that a CM discussion list with over
1000 music aficionados could not even agree on a def.  or def.s for music,
even is the broadest sense of "sound effects evoking emotions or
demonstrating principles", they might say, "when you guys figure out what
classical music is, then you can try to get me to listen to it, meanwhile
I'll stick to R&R because I know what that is "sound effects evoking
emotions in me, like, say Hendrix":-):-):-)

This lack of agreement would imply that the more one understands something,
the harder is it to define.  This may be true "A musicologist is someone
who has more trouble understanding music than everyone else".  I am
reminded of the description of specialization - knowing more and more
about less and less until one knows everything about nothing.

Please understand that this is no big deal to me and my offering was my
def.  for consideration by those who have no def.  or may want another def.
to complement their own.  And we can have both a subjective def.  and an
objective def.  A perceptual def., a sensory def.  and conceptual def.  I
would, however, vigorously defend my offering as at least one definition of
music, and perhaps with slight modification, the definition when discussing
music objectively and apart from how it makes us feel individually.

Offered in a friendly way realizing that everyone has a right to a
definition of everything, I remain, Sincerely

Bill Pirkle