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What is Music?
What is music? According to Webster's II: New Riverside University Dictionary, music is "the art
of arranging tones in an orderly sequence so as to produce a unified and continuous
composition". In reality, music does not have any one concrete meaning. Music has different
meanings for different people. Music is unique in each person's life. To a musician, music is
their life. They eat, breathe, and live music. Music is their passion. For others, music is a hobby,
a pastime. Music is something that arouses interest and is pleasurable. The casual fan may
learn about music, how to read music, how to sing, or how to play a musical instrument, but they
do not have the all encompassing passion a musician possesses. Music is a means of
relaxation for some, while others simply enjoy listening to the sounds, melodies, and rhythms
that music brings to their ears, minds, and hearts.
The following definitions are taken from an article that defines music according to different
perspectives.
Music is science
It is exact, specific; and it demands exact acoustics. A conductor's full score is a chart, a graph
which indicates frequencies, intensities, volume changes, melody, and harmony all at once and
with the most exact control of time.
Music is mathematical
It is rhythmically based on the subdivisions of time into fractions which must be done, not
worked out on paper.
Music is a foreign language
Most of the terms are in Italian, German, or French; and the notation is certainly not English
&endash; but a highly developed kind of shorthand that uses symbols to represent ideas. The
semantics of music is the most complete and universal language.
Music is history
Music usually reflects the environment and times of its creations, often even the country and/or
racial feeling.
Music is physical education
It requires fantastic coordination of finger, hands, arms, lip, cheek, and facial muscles, in
addition to extraordinary control of the diaphragmatic back, stomach, and chest muscles, which
respond instantly to the sound the ear hears and the mind interprets.
Music is all of these things, but most of all
Music is art
It allows a human being to take all these dry, technically boring (but difficult) techniques and use
them to create emotion. That is one thing science cannot duplicate: humanism, feeling, emotion,
call it what you will.
Questions? Comments? Write to
kyoshi@mail.utexas.edu