sorry, my following reply sat a long time in my email account.
On Sun, 30 Jan 2011, ailo wrote:
I guess what I meant was, can we define music generally so that everyone can agree on what is the definition of music?
Well, if «everyone» also includes those people who purposefully want you to fail at coming up with a unanimous definition, you can't. There are also those who just won't listen to you because they are busy preparing the answer « it can't be defined. period. » without any explanation (they don't enjoy explanations any more than definitions, anyway).
I know I can generalize for myself, but I think I can't do it for everyone else.
There are also problems of common meaning of the words, whereby people will accidentally agree or disagree because they have different impressions about what you mean with the words that you used for writing the definition.
I suppose people like to avoid it mostly because it can discourage people to do their own thing.
I would rather bet on this phenomenon : http://www.google.ca/search?q=%22art+can%27t+be+explained%22Which is more of the mystical mindframe of non-explanations and epistemological hopelessness.
By extension, the word « art » is often used to mean whatever skill is considered unexplainable or mysterious.
If we need to do it for a specific practical purpose, then we have no choice.
A definition of art needs not dictate a single purpose, and a single purpose does not dictate a single approach, and a single approach does not dictate a single outcome. When you acknowledge a definition of art that just tries to be vaguely universal, you still have plenty of decisions to make.
A definition of art needs not to be dumb like « music is whatever Beethoven was doing and that can't be done anymore because he died » or « we play both kinds of music : Country and Western ».
Words like beauty and ugliness are commonly used. When we say, I like ugly things, does that make these things wrong? [...]
(I didn't know what to reply to the rest of your email.) _______________________________________________________________________ | Mathieu Bouchard ---- tél: +1.514.383.3801 ---- Villeray, Montréal, QC
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