Larry. What do you understand for "new" music? a) the popular music (songs, dances, jazz, rock etc.)? b) the "classical" modern/contemporany music (Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Ives, Bartok, Boulez, Stockhausen, Cage etc.)? The word "classic" has origin in Latin world. It means a financial position of the one person in the Roman cities. Thus the people would have an education and military hierarchy. In the Renaissance, the word "classic" became the meaning of the educational books: the Greek-Latin Literature (poetry, epopees, theater, laws, philosophy). Remember: the English word "class" is to take lesson... Also, the word "classic " named the Aesthetics based in Aristotle/Horatius poetics. In the 19th and 20th centuries the great work of the Art, independently of the style, is named "classical", because its humanistic and cultural importances. But the urban music expanded. This urban music is named POP MUSIC and its characteristics are: a) 90 % is songs and dances (10 % is instrumental music, but based in previous songs/dances) b) has a singer; he/she is most important (rarely we remember the composer, arranger or the writer) c) the form is ABA song with tonal melodic line and harmony (with regional flavor), folk dance rhythmic d) electronic apparatus (keyboard, eletric guitar, studio effects etc.) e) the divulgation is in radio, movies, tv, dvd and others medias Edson Ortolan [log in to unmask]