Broadly, here are some groups of definitions:

* Those that define music as an external, physical fact, for example "organized sound", or as a specific type of perception;
* Those that label it, according to context, as a social construction or subjective experience;
* Those that label it as an artistic process or product, with the related psychological phenomena;
* Those that seek a platonic or quasi-platonic ideal of music which is not rooted in specifically physical or mental terms, but in a higher truth.

The definition of music as sound with particular characteristics is taken as a given by psychoacoustics, and is a common one in musicology and performance. In this view, 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 people.

Traditional philosophies define 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.

John Cage is the most famous advocate of the idea that anything can be music, saying, for example, "There is no noise, only sound," though some argue that this somewhat fascistically imposes the definition on everything. 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."

In support of the view that music is a label for a totality of different aspects which are culturally constructed. Often a definition of music lists the aspects or elements that make up music. Molino (1975: 43) argues that, in addition to a lack of consensus, "any element belonging to the total musical fact can be isolated, or taken as a strategic variable of musical production." Nattiez gives as examples Mauricio Kagel's Con Voce [with voice], where a masked trio silently mimes playing instruments. In this example sound, a common element, is excluded, while gesture, a less common element, is given primacy.

The platonic ideal of music is currently the least fashionable in the philosophy of criticism and music, because it is crowded on one side by the physical view - what is the metasubstance of music made of, if not sound? - and on the other hand by the constructed view of music - how can one tell the difference between any metanarrative of music and one which is merely intersubjective? However, its appeal, finding unexpected mathematical relationships in music, and finding analogies between music and physics, for example string theory, means that this view continues to find adherents, including such critics and performers as Charles Rosen and Edward Rothstein.



In traditional North American Indian cultures music is a part of everyday life. Chanting and singing accompany religious rites and festivals, and an oral tradition provides a record of history. The concept of music as a performance art is as unusual among Indians as it was among the seventeenth-century New England settlers who also placed music in the context of their religious observances by chanting psalms in the meetinghouse as an important communal activity.

By the close of the century, however, psalm singing had become cacophonous, for worshipers could no longer read the metrical patterns in such sources as the Bay Psalm Book. Although the "correct" rendering of tunes was less important than religious fervor, many ministers and musical reformers supported the teaching of musical notation to restore order in the meetinghouse. "Regular singing" soon gave rise to the development of singing schools and the creation of music for secular entertainment.

The revolutionary war saw a flowering of musical creativity: supporters of the American cause often changed the words of British songs, such as "Yankee Doodle," to taunt their adversaries. William Billings, a Boston tanner, composed an anthem called "Chester" that expressed his confidence in the ability of the new nation to shake off the "iron rods" and "galling chains" of tyranny. The immediate postrevolutionary cultural climate was one of optimism that Americans could create their own culture free of English influence. Just as Noah Webster called for an American language that would serve the needs of an American people, Billings called for individual American creative voices.

Nevertheless, European influences dominated concert music after the Revolution. Alexander Reinagle of Philadelphia composed ballad operas on the English model; Benjamin Carr of New York edited a journal and ran a successful music business; and Johann Christian Gottlieb Graupner helped found Boston's Philharmonic Society and the Handel and Haydn Society. James Hewitt of New York composed a patriotic suite, The Battle of Trenton, which quoted "Yankee Doodle."

Religious music, which had occasionally deviated from European models with such American innovations as the fuguing tune, reverted to a more familiar style. Composers Andrew Law, Samuel Holyoke, and Oliver Holden advocated dignity in religious music and used melodies by Handel, Haydn, and Mozart for settings of religious texts. The emphasis on musical propriety continued throughout the nineteenth century. John Sullivan Dwight, a transcendentalist reformer and conservative cultural critic, argued that Associationists and other transcendentalist reformers should learn Handel's Messiah in order to comprehend their mission. Dwight and other arbiters of good musical taste believed that popular music, especially military music, was a bad influence on citizens of the Republic. He felt that the lessons of democracy had to be learned and that the "right" music would have a salutary influence--good Beethoven would create better Americans.

Outside of the formal concert realm, Americans created their own music, sometimes for performance but often as an everyday activity. Stephen Foster's sentimental art songs were popular with audiences, and pianist and composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk was idolized prior to the Civil War for his good looks and astonishing technique. He used North and South American popular tunes in such works as "Creole Eyes," "Souvenir de Puerto Rico," "The Union" (which quotes the "Star-Spangled Banner"), "Hail Columbia," and "Yankee Doodle"--all rendered in a pianistic style reminiscent of the music of Franz Liszt; his "Le Banjo" imitates banjo strumming and quotes "Camptown Races."

The antebellum period also saw the continued development of African-American vocal music. Plantation slaves used the call-and-response style to tell stories in work songs, and individuals sang in the pre-blues style of the field holler. Music was an integral part of the religious life of slaves, and spirituals such as "My God Ain't No Lyin' Man" articulated their relationship with their faith.

In the 1850s, the call for an independent American music was heard again, this time from composer William Henry Fry, whose New York lectures in the early fifties inspired an interest in the development of an American musical language. But the drive for cultural independence fell short.

With the coming of the Civil War, marches and sentimental songs that spoke of home, sweethearts, and mothers became popular. Many of these were printed by composer-entrepreneurs such as George F. Root, whose Chicago publishing house was among many that thrived on the middle-class market of households with a piano in the parlor. By the second half of the century, many successful American composers had studied in Europe and saw no reason to abandon the romantic style despite the ongoing arguments for an American music. Three men who earned their livelihoods as professors--John Knowles Paine at Harvard, Horatio Parker at Yale, and Edward MacDowell at Columbia--achieved respectability with works that bore considerable resemblance to similar pieces being composed in Europe at the time.

By the end of the century, there were major orchestras in New York (the Philharmonic-Society was founded in 1842), Boston (1881), and Chicago (1891). In smaller communities, performances by local bands reflected the popular taste for dances, marches, and symphonic excerpts--a repertoire popularized by John Philip Sousa. In troupes throughout the country, vaudeville performers combined comedic episodes, scenes from Shakespeare's plays, dancing, and minstrel songs performed in black face. In a racially divided society, black vaudeville entertainers like Bert Williams could command high fees on the stage but could not enter restaurants near the theaters where they performed.

Concert music and opera were still the province of European, mainly German, conductors, performers, and managers. But a small group of composers--Henry F. Gilbert, Arthur Farwell, Charles Wakefield Cadman, and their colleagues--thought that the tools with which to compose American music lay in African-American culture, backwoods mountain or hill communities, and Indian tribal villages.

As these "Americanists by quotation" looked for materials to develop, new currents were stirring among black musicians. The cakewalk dance and the pianistic style known as ragtime emerged, with highly syncopated rhythms attractive to composers who thought these varieties of black music could be the material for a new American concert music. The stage was set for the emergence of jazz out of the marching-band traditions of New Orleans and its appearance in works for the concert hall. Debate still raged about whether there was an American music and what form it should take. But that debate would soon be subsumed under discussions about the utility of the many varieties of modern music for creating an American musical expression.