Most of the time, it is no longer uplifting, inspiring or life-changing.It has become just noise - noise that we can't escape, can't turn off, can't choose.
In order to appreciate music, you must be able to listen to silence, hear it and enjoy it. Unfortunately, silence no longer seems to exist. I would even go so far as to say that music organizes our lives into meaningless chunks of existence. Waiting on the phone to be connected to a person, one hears a series of computerized notes sometimes resembling a fugue. The different home delivery services blare out of recognition popular tunes from their loud-speakers. On the bus-ride home from work, the radio is turned up - mostly a stream of commercials. In the waiting-room of the dentist or the doctor, at the shoe shop trying on shoes, whilst you are eating a meal at the local restaurant, music accompanies your every move. When a new pop song is released, it is presented as a video so you have to watch music as well. And it all sounds the same - tinny, empty, unnerving sounds that grate on the ears rather than placate and uplift ruffled senses.
The 5th century philosopher, Boethius, divided music into three categories: Musica Universalis, the order of the universe as God created it in measure, number and weight; Musica Humana, the proportions of the human body; Musica Instrumentalis, manifestations of mathematical proportions in sound - sung or played. Everything was music for him. Others have defined music as "organised sound"(Edgard Varese), "the organization of sound into forms that carry culturally derived meanings, cultivated for aesthetic or utilitarian purposes" (Micheal Linton). And from the 19th century onwards " the artful or pleasing organization of sound and silence". In 1990, Jean-Jacques Nattiez said " just as music is whatever people choose to recognize as such, noise is whatever is recognized as disturbing, unpleasant or both". And that seems to be the case today in regard to music in the 21st century. I feel it is time to re-define music yet again.
I would add a further two categories, since whether a sound or sounds constitutes "music" is a subjective choice on the part of the listener:
Voluntary Music - the music that I wilfully listen to, with attention or as a distraction, pleasing, stimulating, calming, conveying moods, emotions, thoughts, concepts and impressions to the listener;
Manipulative Music - advertising for example, where the product is defined and recognized by the accompanying music, computer products and software with tunes that characterize them, alarms and doorbells announcing the arrival of someone, the atmospheric music in the larger shops and malls attracting and luring customers, to name just a few.
There is rather a quaint relic from bygone times still on the streets of Montevideo - the knife-sharpener, who gets around on a bike with his grinding machine blowing on a five-note flute to announce his arrival in the neighbourhood.
Of course, there still remains the option of selecting a piece of music and actively listening to it when and where you choose.
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