What is the Definition of Music?

IB Class: Music

When I searched "define: music" on Google, the following are some of the definitions given:

1 The art or science of combining vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion.

2 A sound perceived as pleasingly harmonious.

When I was in Grade 10, my music teacher defined as music as "the organization of sound and silence". I think these three definitions would raise questions among certain musicians, hence, is there a universal definition of music of which agreed upon by the majority of musicians?

The first definition describes music as an art or science. For many years, music has been categorized as performing arts. Why, then, is it a science? Is it because musicians use a way that is similar to the scientific method to produce music? For example, a musician has in his mind about what he wants his music to express [purpose/aim]. He predicts that the best style to write his music in is a ballad [hypothesis]. He starts to write his music [experimentation]. He finishes writing his music [results]. His music is published and the public likes his music [conclusion that conforms with hypothesis]. Does this process show that music is science then? Does anything that follows a process similar to the scientific method will be considered as a science? Because something is considered as a scientific claim if it can be falsified, then can music, in any possible, be falsified?

The second definition states that music is "pleasingly harmonious". Question: Are all music pleasing to the ear? As a music student, I can definitely say no. Hence, I believe that I can say that this definition of music is inaccurate. The teacher's definition classifies silence as music. Is silence music? Is that why we have rests (pauses) in music? John Cage strongly believes that silence contributes a huge part in music. In fact, in 1952, he composed a piece of music called 4'33'', which consists of three movements of silence (although actually John Cage wanted to show in that piece that music is the sounds created by the audience during his 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence). Till this day, the piece of music remains controversial.

As a result, who defines music? Whose definition of music is correct? How do we know what is music? All in all, whose definition of anything is correct and how do we know what we know is what we think we know?

Source of image: http://yogainmyschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Music.jpg