>>>>From: davids@pavell.com (David Schuyeteneer)
>>>Music is the appreciation of structures in aesthetic psychofictional
>>space.
>
>I like this one ... though I'm not entirely sure I'm using the same
>definition of psychofictional as you are. Mine has something to do with 
the
>internal metaphorizations that form psycic consciousness.
>
>>From: "Paul Winkler" 
>>Hmmm... so is a psychedelic experience... or schizophrenia (in a good
>>mood)... (mind you I have not experienced either of these so I could 
be
>>mistaken).
>
>Indeed. I have firsthand knowledge of the former, and done a bit of 
reading
>on the latter (recommended: _The Origin of Consciousness on The 
Breakdown
>of the Bicameral Mind_, by Julian Jaynes), and neither (to me) seem
>centrally concerned with appreciation of aesthetic structures. 
Certainly
>psychedelics _enhance_ appreciation of sensory experience, but that is 
more
>a side effect than the defining center.

Whoops. I realize I made an error by not recognizing the importance of 
the word "aesthetic" in the original statement.

>
>My crack at it: Music is human-organized sound, or the threat thereof.
>
>Substitute "promise" for "threat" if you like. I think this covers
>listening to Cage and reading the score to Beethoven's 4th. Less pithy
>might be "Music is human-organized sound propagating through time 
either as
>compression waves in air or as the imagined experience of hearing those
>waves."

I've been trying my own hand (?) at some sort of definition today and 
haven't got any further than "Music is a cognitive framework for 
interpreting experienced or imagined sound." Which is not at all 
satisfactory. It doesn't really distinguish music from any other sound 
at all.

For that matter, your definitions above definitely include speech.

>Note that this doesn't attempt to define what "art" is, nor what "good
>muisc" is.

Fine by me. Though if we COULD define "art," it might help the 
definition of music to mention that it's a subset of art.

Oh, drat, I can't resist. I'm going to quote Scott McCloud's definition 
of art from Understanding Comics: "...any human activity which doesn't 
grow out of either of our species' two basic instincts: survival and 
reproduction!"

Of course, he goes on to qualify that quite a lot, for instance, "Yet in 
almost everything we do there is at least an element of art."

>>Though if anyone wants to argue that chemically induced experiences 
are
>>music, I would love to hear it.
>
>All "experiences" are chemically induced, actually. What did you eat 
for
>breakfast?

CHOCOLATE FROSTED SUGAR BOMBS, OF COURSE!!!! WHY DO YOU ASK?!?!?!?!

--PW

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>>Me:
>>My crack at it: Music is human-organized sound, or the threat thereof.
>>
>"Paul Winkler" :
>For that matter, your definitions above definitely include speech.

Absolutely, but only the part of speech that is the _sound_ of speech,
stripped of its cognition/meaning component -- which means that there's
room for Dutiful Ducks and Rainbow Bandit Bombs under the umbrella.

In general practice, of course, we consider speech primarily for its
meaning component (its "content"), which is why at first glance its
inclusion would seem to corrupt the definition I pose above.

Unwilling to let me separate "speech" into sound and meaning? Don't we
separate monophonic song into sonic (the "music") and cognitive (the
meaning of the words) spheres -- especially if we don't speak the language
of the lyrics?

>>Note that this doesn't attempt to define what "art" is, nor what "good
>>music" is.
>
>Fine by me. Though if we COULD define "art," it might help the
>definition of music to mention that it's a subset of art.

Hm. One might argue that there are whole traditions of music which are
outside the conceits of "art" as we understand it in Western culture.

>Oh, drat, I can't resist. I'm going to quote Scott McCloud's definition
>of art from Understanding Comics: "...any human activity which doesn't
>grow out of either of our species' two basic instincts: survival and
>reproduction!"

But what about love songs?

>"Music is a cognitive framework for interpreting experienced or imagined
>sound."

I would so much prefer to define music in terms of what it is
intrinsically, rather than how the mind prepares for, experiences, or
reacts to its reception. The bullet rather than the wound.

Dave

--
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