Music? lets talk about like casual meaning, and actually it can be just a set of clabboring noises.
Like John Cage in Metal.
=), I played the water gong, it was awesome.
Nipple Gongs, Pipes, ect.
Anything can be made into music.

Music is soulful and every aspect of it comes from your attitude towards it. Music something to be proud of when you achieve high in it. All things have some kind of melody that runs through it to keep it living. Music is everywhere and its what brings life to things inert. The essentials of music are what you make them. You have to love music to be music. No?

From Britannica Encyclopedia:
Art concerned with combining vocal or instrumental sounds for beauty of form or emotional expression, usually according to cultural standards of rhythm, melody, and, in most Western music, harmony.

Music most often implies sounds with distinct pitches that are arranged into melodies and organized into patterns of rhythm and metre. The melody will usually be in a certain key or mode, and in Western music it will often suggest harmony that may be made explicit as accompanying chords or counterpoint. Music is an art that, in one guise or another, permeates every human society. It is used for such varied social purposes as ritual, worship, coordination of movement, communication, and entertainment.

Merriam-Webster says this:
Main Entry: mu·sic
Pronunciation: 'myü-zik
Function: noun
Usage: often attributive
Etymology: Middle English musik, from Old French musique, from Latin musica, from Greek mousikE any art presided over by the Muses, especially music, from feminine of mousikos of the Muses, from Mousa Muse
1 a : the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity b : vocal, instrumental, or mechanical sounds having rhythm, melody, or harmony
2 a : an agreeable sound : EUPHONY <her voice was music to my ears> b : musical quality <the music of verse>
3 : a musical accompaniment <a play set to music>
4 : the score of a musical composition set down on paper
5 : a distinctive type or category of music <there is a music for everybody -- Eric Salzman>

Anything else you need to look up in a dictionary or encyclopedia?

According to each of those definitions, there is some element that must be present in the sounds/silences to qualify it as music.
Examples:
Brittanica: there must be either beauty of form or emotional expression.
Webster: there must be continuity in all music.

What about music that is not seen as either beautiful in form or having emotional expression?
What about music that has no continuity?

I regret not being able to cite specific examples of such music, but one example is that of a child hammering on a piano. Although the overall sound may be seen by some as awful, disjunct, lacking emotional expression, etc. the child may still feel it as music.

Which concludes that these definitions do not allow enough subjectivity in determining what is music.

Now, can you find a dictionary or encyclopedia that has a more inclusive definition of music?

There is a book that I was told about by UTMusic that might be interesting.
It is called The Unanswered Question by Bernstein, I think.

I think that the definition of music is intended to be found by a single person, and not in some dictionary. It seems to require some elements:
1) The ability to express some kind of emotion, even if it is very minute. In the example of the little kid banging a piano, that could be called music because it has at least some emotion in it, whether anger, or perhaps emotional curiosity (if there is a thing). Emotion is what makes it an art form.

2) The ability to be transported through sound. paintings and sculptures are interpreted and experienced with light waves.

3) The ability to be experienced by someone at least once. A player or composer of a piece can experience the emotion simply by creating the sound or thinking the sound. If music is not experienced by anyone, then it must be created by an inanimate object such as a computer or a brook flowing, which leads to #4.

4) Music must be created or appreciated by an animated object. Those who say that a CD player may be making music are half right. It is not the CD player making music. The original artists are making the music, but the music has been recorded, copied, and distributed. CD players are just means of translating 1's and 0's into sound, and they are just spitting out music that other people have played. In the instance of a beginner at an instrument, they are just spitting out score that has been played before, but the raw score has been made with emotion(assumingly), unless you're talking about rudiments or exercises that are made for the sole purpose of improving the skills of a player. That may be called music based on what others around may feel based on it. it only takes a single person to feel some emotion with some sound for it to be music too. A person can have an emotional connection with rainfall or waves on a beach.

These elements come together to make...

Music, noun: A flow of sounds and/or silence that expresses emotion for the composer/s, player/s, and/or listener/s, but must be appreciated emotionally by any individual or group of individuals at any time and any place.

Marching band aint music, it's people marching around and reading directions how to make certain sounds with their instruments. HEHE

Welcome to Drumlines.org! However, with your first post, you couldn't be further from the truth. My suggestion is to read what is going on and refrain from making posts until you have something valid and educational to contribute. If not, post to your heart's content on the "Off-Topic" section.

Music doesn't have to be played for it to exist. Have you ever tried writing a drum challenge? You hear a pattern in your brain and write it down on paper. But where did the pattern come from? A rythim of noise created by an infant banging on a pot perhaps. So does this make noise music as well. When a dial-up modem connects, it makes noise, but some people have made actual music from these noises.

Skulldrummer - Welcome to Drumlines.org. We hope you enjoy your stay.

That's not what the thread is about. Please read through the entire thread before adding comments.