Which brings up another related issue.  Language is an organic entity
that creates word-meanings by consensus.  (The consensus reality of
vocabulary, I guess.) Music operates that way to a certain extent as
well, in that conventions grow up around particular musical gestures: a
plodding minor key passage is perceived as sad, doleful etc.  by convention;
but just as there's nothing dismal about the collection of sounds that
are created by the letters d-i-s-m-a-l other than the collective view
of the meaning of those sounds, there's nothing intrinsically sad about
a slow minor passage--unless there are imbedded meanings related to our
biological rhythms.  Still, there are enough examples of young or otherwise
naive listeners whose perception of a given passage does not fit the
conventional view to indicate that if music has meaning, it's assigned
by convention, not intrinsic, or maybe only vaguely intrinsic.  (I keep
seeing the counter-argument that a sprightly passage from, say, a Vivaldi
violin concerto, would rarely be called dismal.)

Dave Wolf