Editing Definition of music (section)

===Organized sound===
{{See also|Musique concrète|Acousmatic music|Spectral music}}
An often-cited definition of music is that it is "organized sound", a term originally coined by [[modernist]] composer [[Edgard Varèse]]{{sfn|Goldman|1961|loc=133}} in reference to his own musical aesthetic. Varèse's concept of music as "organized sound" fits into his vision of "sound as living matter" and of "musical space as open rather than bounded".{{sfn|Chou|1966a|loc=1&ndash;4}} He conceived the elements of his music in terms of "sound-masses", likening their organization to the natural phenomenon of [[crystallization]].{{sfn|Chou|1966b|loc=157}} Varèse thought that "to stubbornly conditioned ears, anything new in music has always been called [[Noise in music|noise]]", and he posed the question, "what is music but organized noises?"{{sfn|Varèse and Chou|1966|loc=18}}

The fifteenth edition of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' states that "while there are no sounds that can be described as inherently unmusical, musicians in each culture have tended to restrict the range of sounds they will admit." A human organizing element is often felt to be implicit in music (sounds produced by non-human agents, such as waterfalls or birds, are often described as "musical", but perhaps less often as "music"). The composer [[R. Murray Schafer|R. Murray]]{{sfn|Schafer|1996|loc=284}} states that the sound of classical music "has decays; it is granular; it has attacks; it fluctuates, swollen with impurities—and all this creates a musicality that comes before any 'cultural' musicality." However, in the view of semiologist [[Jean-Jacques Nattiez]], "just as music is whatever people choose to recognize as such, noise is whatever is recognized as disturbing, unpleasant, or both".{{sfn|Nattiez|1990|loc=47&ndash;48}} (See "[[#Social construct|music as social construct]]" below.)

====Language====
{{Main|Musical language}}
Levi R. Bryant defines music not as a language, but as a marked-based, problem-solving method, comparable to mathematics.{{sfn|Ashby|2004|loc=4}}