I can't, Bob. (That was a weird question.) Music is made of sound. I think that's pretty obvious, don't you?

But, to describe music as pitch, duration, volume, and tone...well, that describes a lot of sounds that are not music, right? Based on that list of components, the beeper on my microwave qualifies as music. That doesn't make sense to me.

I studied music in college, too, plus I got some theory along with my assigned pieces while studying piano, and always the "basic elements of music" that were told to me were:

melody
rhythm
harmony
and sometimes dynamics as a fourth one

The list Mike uses seems like a description of the components of sound, and I think it's clear that music is more than just sound.

I was not familiar with the list Mike posted, and I didn't quite understand it, so I thought I'd throw in the one I am familiar with and see how it fits into the picture. The one I posted is not my personal list. It's in a lot of books--and all over the internet for that matter. I didn't expect Mike to tell me I'm totally wrong and he's right, and that there's only one list of components of music. That was a weird statement. I was just trying to participate in the discussion and make sense of what Mike posted. I'm eager to learn new things, but I like it to make sense.

--Jean

[This message has been edited by JL (edited 07-29-2004).]