My definition of music tends to be very broad. Very broad:
Music is art where sound is the primary medium.
So, music:
- A symphony
- A raging guitar solo
- A drum circle
- A rhythmic loop of found sounds
- Gregorian chant
Not music:
- A painting
- A mime performance
- John Cage’s 4’33” (I’m not saying it’s not art – but it’s not music)
Where do I fit unaccompanied spoken word? It depends – I think a lot of it is musical, where the sound of the voice is an important part of the work, and I think a lot of it isn’t, where the poem is primarily about the words and ideas.
I very carefully do not reference rhythm, or melody, or harmony, or any other technical elements in my definition. Doing so makes the definition far too narrow. I recall a professor in one of my community college music classes two decades ago stating that drumming wasn’t music, since the drums had beat and rhythm, but no melody or harmony. The problem wasn’t with the drums, it was with his uselessly narrow idea of what constituted music.
On the other hand, I have come across variations of an even broader definition than mine:
Music is the organized interruption of silence.
That is too broad to be useful, in my opinion. Accepting this would require us to consider the following things to be music:
- A conversation about budget spreadsheets
- A jackhammer tearing up some concrete
- A cow mooing
Each of those is organized, and each of those interrupts silence. And each of those can be incorporated into music, but I think that calling them music in and of themselves is not reasonable, and more importantly, is not useful.