The art of arranging sounds in time so as to produce a continuous, unified, and evocative composition, as through melody, harmony, rhythm, and timbre.
Or:
Vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion.
Or:
The hidden arithmetical exercise of a soul unconscious that it is calculating Leibniz (a contemporary of J.S. Bach)
What Is Music? Where does the border between music and sound lie? Is there something other worldly or mystical about music? Can music create altered states of perception, or the possibility of experiencing these? How is music the language of us all? What is music’s place in a rational, scientific culture? What is the value of music?
All these questions deserve some updated answers...
John Cage thought that any sound can be music: He said that,'There is no noise, only sound' in an attempt to make us aware of the musical possibilities contained in the sounds and acoustic spaces that surround us all day long.