What is Music, Anyway? 

Most of the time we think we know, until someone like this month's composer, John Cage, comes along with aural creations that may or may not fit the comfortable compartments we carry around in our heads.

According to the Cambridge Online Dictionary, music is: "a pattern of sounds made by musical instruments, singing or computers, or a combination of these, intended to give pleasure to people listening to it."

Merriam-Webster defines it as: "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."

Hmmm.  Pretty different interpretations.  So if a piece is not intended to give pleasure, is it not music?  Just because a composition consists of ordered sounds, does that make it music? 

How would you define music?

Whatever you may think of John Cage and other avant-garde musicians, you gotta admit they make you think. Which just might be their point.

Anyway, it gives you something to contemplate when you're faced with the odd four minutes and thirty-three seconds with nothing to do.