Bob Draper wrote: >What does it mean organised sounds? Chiming clocks produce organised sound >but they are not music in my view. I have stood in the street and heard >a car starting and been reminded of a piece of music. Likewise when >a workman bangs a nail into wood or a bird chirps. Look, Bob, you know and I know that you are just being difficult. No. Don't argue. You are. Organised sounds is the best way (I have heard) for defining music. Clearly chiming clocks make sounds, cars make sounds (no matter how much it may remind you of Money for Nothing), workmen make sounds, and birds make sounds (to us - maybe music to each other - and don't even think about using that confession as a basis for saying that someone could make a sound which did not appear to be music to me but would be music to someone else because it would never happen because I would realise that they were organising sounds.) >I hope that most people will accept that music is in the ear of the >beholder. So, given this we find that the foundations of many of our >discussions here are insecure. By your own choice. It is the intention of the person making the noise which defines whether it is music or not. Whether it is good music or not... or should I say likable music or not... >Thus, we cannot hope to arrive at an acceptible definition of a >composer's/conductors greatness or arrive at a concensus about >over/underrated works. Well, we can't do that, not because we cannot agree what is music or not but because CM more than any other 'genre' covers the ultimate in musical greatness, and at that level you cannot hope to be totally objective. Perhaps in a few millenia when our brains are that much more developed we might be able to say for sure whether Beethoven was greater than Mozart or whomever you may wish to set against each other. You may find that Beethoven was as great a composer for his era/style as Mozart was for his. We are at a stage now though that we can claim beyond a shadow of a doubt that Beethoven was a greater composer than (s)he who wrote the music for the Spice Girls. David Stewart [log in to unmask]