What is music?
 

Since Wikipedia always seems to get referenced sooner or later when it comes to online discussions, let me open this one with Wikipedia's definition of music:

Music is an art form consisting of sound and silence expressed through time. Elements of sound as used in music are pitch (including melody and harmony), rhythm (including tempo and meter), and sonic qualities of timbre, articulation, dynamics, and texture.

Basically, the reason I ask this question is because I seem to have been getting into a lot of arguments about it lately (with people in real life, gasp!) Basically, what I want to know is how far can a musician stray from the conventional idioms associated with music before what he has created stops being music. Is music, for instance, that relies solely on texture and dynamics and neglects tempo and pitch, still music? This ranges from free improv like AMM to drone like Boris (dronevil) and Sunn 0))) to noise. And then, of course, we have something like Cage's infamous piece, 4'33", which consists of a pianist sitting in front of his piano for 4 and a half minutes without playing anything.

So what do you think? Are chords necessary to make music, is melody, harmony? Can silence be music? Is it even possible to define music?

I think you can call just about anything music but that doesnt make it realised or fully formed. In my opinion the truest form of music is one that includes all of these elements.

In my mind music is sound that conveys or induces a thought or feeling.

Thats a really good definition ^

In my opinion minimalist music or drone or whatever can often be just as powerful (if not more so) than more traditional "fully formed" music, simply because it deconstructs music to its barest elements. I've always approached noise music as the logical conclusion of punk rock, in that it takes the most cathartic and visceral part of punk or just rock n' roll in general, the distortion and feedback, and strips everything else away. I don't really feel like there is any "true" form of music, different forms of music simply seek to evoke different responses.

There is a whole section in your brain devoted for the assimilation of music-so essentially music is food for the brain

:D

I like that definition.

I should probably have said the most musical form of music. Its probably more accurate to say that.:)

A persons music tastes is supposedly indicative of their personalities. I don't know if any serious studies have been carried out on this subject. if they have , I would be fascinated to hear more.

muzik iz anotha form of expression