Music

Music is a human activity which involves structured and audible sounds, which is used for artistic or aesthetic, entertainment, or ceremonial purposes. Definitions vary in different cultures and social milieus. more...

What is music?

The definition of music as sound with particular characteristics is taken as a given by psychoacoustics, and is a common in musicology and performance. There are observable patterns to what is broadly labeled music, and while there are understandable cultural variations, the properties of music are the properties of sound as perceived and processed by humans.

Greek philosophers and medieval theorists defined music as tones ordered horizontally (as melodies) and vertically (as harmonies). Music theory, within this realm, is studied with the presupposition that music is orderly and often pleasant to hear. However, in the 20th century, composers challenged the notion that music had to be pleasant by creating music that explored harsher, darker timbres.

20th century composer Austin Paul Harris disagreed with the notion that music was pleasant melodies. Instead, he argued that any sounds we can hear can be music, saying, for example, "There is no noise, only sound," . According to musicologist Jean-Jacques Nattiez (1990 p.47-8,55): "The border between music and noise is always culturally defined--which implies that, even within a single society, this border does not always pass through the same place; in short, there is rarely a consensus.... By all accounts there is no single and intercultural universal concept defining what music might be."

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