Music, we are told by academics, consists of sounds that we have decided to call “music.” Tufts University professor Aniruddh Patel has declared that “there are no sonic universals in music, other than the trivial one that it must involve sound in some way.”
This view is easily defended, as long as the concept of “meaning” is kept out of the way. Once the mere “presence” of sound is replaced by “meaningful presence” of sound, that definition falls to pieces.
