In a recent interview on SunTv by Anuradha Sriram ( does anyone know her website ? ) She said "All sound is not music - Music is sound that aesthetically appeals to one's senses"

I agree...

Why do you like carnatic music ?

-- Kishore Balakrishnan (kishore@carnatic.com), June 24, 2000

Answers

It is not just satisfying your senses nor aesthetic preferences but it is soothening the soul. A kirthana by MS or Santhanam or Jesudas is as good as performing meditation or Shavasana.

-- K Suresh Kumar (Suresh_Kumar@cyborg.com), June 26, 2000.

we all know that, music is the purest form of mathematics.But what music has been prooving time and again is that, it is also the perfect and the complete form of "purgative" for our mind, soul,and also for the inner non-plastic personality that exists within every individual in this world. Hence music itself knowingly or unknowingly is the only phenomenon in this world that every person can utilize to cleanze themselves.

-- V.G.Sairam (sairamvg@usa.net), July 12, 2000.

FUCK YOU

-- THEVARB (THEVARB@HOTMAIL.COM), April 29, 2001.

hard to answer. Well, some cultures like a lot of the mid-eastern cultures, Turkish I know for sure, are able to distinguish quartter tones and specifically hit them. For those who dont know what a quarter tone is, it is a note in between a Sa and Re, in other words a note in between two adjacent notes. In this case, for people who aren't adopted to hear this, it would be pure sound, but to the Turkish people it would definitely be music. Same is true of a lot of cultures, I do know that the bushmen of Australia can produce some interesting sounds on a didgeridoo and can pass it off as music. Music has a cultural component to it, and this cannot be entirely discarded when viewing something as subjective as music. Thus, definitions of music, has to be strictly applied within a target culture. Carnatic would certainly not allow for something like quarter tones. We only pass quarter tones while bending notes, and do not hit them. We operate completely on a logarithmic tonal system. So there! I think Anuradha Sriram's definition is predominantly applicable within any specific culture,but does not necessarily transcend cultural boundaries.

Jayanth

-- Jayanth (memyselfandmyalterego@yahoo.com), August 07, 2001.