What is music?

Aristotle aptly sums up Music saying:

"It is not easy to determine the nature of music or why anyone should have a knowledge of it."

The power of music to move men has been recognized in all cultures. In India, music was part of religion, right from Vedic hymns at the beginning of recorded history. As music developed in melodic and rhythmic intricacy, religious texts or the guideline of a story determined its structure.

The narrator is central in most Indian music, and his or her skill rivals that of the instrumentalists. The effects created by sounding tones simultaneously as in western music has not developed in South Asian music. The divisions of an octave (intervals) are more in Indian system than in Western music, and the melodic complexity in Oriental music is far beyond that of Western practice. Moreover, an element of improvisation is retained which is vital to the success of a performance. The spontaneous imitation carried on between an instrumentalist and narrator, against the insistent rhythmic subtleties of the drums is a source of excitement, which in large measure is because of the faithful adherence to the rigid rules that govern the rendition of ragas – the melodic patterns of Indian music.

The Music is the art of combining vocal or instrumental sounds, for beauty of form or emotional expression, in accordance to certain standards of rhythm, melody, and harmony. Other major components of musical sound are tone, timbre (tone colour), and texture (instrumentation).
Although there are no sounds that can be described as inherently unmusical, musicians in each culture have restricted the range of sounds that they will admit. Be it a simple folk song or complex electronic composition, all belong to music. They are human composed, conceptual and auditory, and these factors are present in music of all styles and of all periods, be it Eastern or Western.

The mind apparently seeks some organizing principle in the perception of music, and if a grouping of sounds is not objectively present it imposes one of its own. Experiments show that the mind instinctively groups regular and identical sounds into twos and threes, stressing every second or third beat, and thus creates, from an otherwise monotonous series a succession of strong and weak beats. In music, such grouping is achieved by actual stress, by periodically making one note (Swara) stronger than the others, as in Tala employed in Carnatic music. When the stress occurs at regular intervals, the beats fall into natural time measures.

Music is an art that permeates every human society. Modern music is heard in many styles, many of them contemporary, others of the past eras. Music is a protean art. It lends itself easily to alliances with words as in song, and with physical movement as in dance. Popular cultures consistently employ its possibilities, by means of radio, film, television, and the musical theatre.