Music Religion

Can the question really be answered "what is music?". In some ways I think yes. There is the Oxford definition being that music is vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony and expression of emotion. But is music, constrained to and fixed up to just one point of definition?

I enjoy the one derivative meaning "A sound perceived as pleasingly harmonious". Yes, that for me is music. Music is in what we feel, think, see, imagine, and wonder. Music can be silence, it can be a deafening roar, or it can be the monotonous sound produced by a single action.

"One good thing about music, is when it hits, you feel no pain" said Bob Marley. It's true. Have you ever had one of those crummy days and heard a song that just surpassed any inadequacies you could have previously felt? Music is so infused in all that we do, we often don't even notice it. 

One of the major ways music affects me, is that, and I’m sure it’s the same for a lot of people, I always seem to have a song in head whether I like it or not. Sometimes though, it comes at the worst of times, i.e. while writing an exam or test. I actually make a point of not listening to any music before a big exam as I just know I will have that song in and around my brain quicker than you could say Jack Flash and cannot seem to shake it. I suppose you could say music is intoxicating, but at the same , cant it also be mellow and pleasant and light and airy?

Aldous Huxley said "After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible, is music". Music has words,and doesn't. It is muted or screaming and can be both. I think that's why so many people are joined by music, because it isn't a word, it isn't an interest, it is who you are within yourself. The self that no sees, when the music stops.