On 7 Feb 2005 at 12:06, Andrew Stiller wrote: > whether other critters can be said to > make music depends a lot on how music is defined.
Ah, finally a statement that shows that you *do* actually understand the topic of discussion. Speech uses sound to convey meaning (the prose of sound). Music uses sound to convey meaning (the poetry of sound). But no one would confuse everyday speech with music (though some might find a certain kind of metaphorical music in speech). Prose vs. poetry -- non-human animals may very well be using the prose of sound, but they aren't producing poetry in sound. Well, I'll qualify that somewhat: whales and porpoises may very well have enough intelligence to manipulate sounds for esthetic purposes (i.e., composing music). That is, they are intelligent enough to have an esthetic sense. But I know of no other non-human animals whose intelligence level is high enough to suggest the possibility of that level of abstraction. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
