Bob Draper wrote:

>This whole question of what is music is utterly inponderable.  We can
>never agree on a suitable definition.

I disagree.  Music is an art form, and I'm working on the idea of art
as a specialized human activity.  It's important to think in terms of
a "product" here.  Cage's works may consist of noise, but the idea that
he had a concept, a set of instructions, and a beginning and end (even if
not explicitly specified) gives his work a performance aspect, and thus
would have to be considered music.  He made noise special by calling our
attention to it for its intrinsic qualities rather than as a danger signal,
attention-getting device, etc.  Whether one responds to it "aesthetically"
depends on the person, of course, but that isn't the only defining quality
that makes it "art."

Chris Bonds