Wait,what? So who is Jonathan Peters (a dj, re-mixer, and producer) to tell us what music is? Excuse me, but I happen to think my air conditioner is making a kind of music. The dude works with Mac Quale (American Horror Story) , and Quale seems to think sounds and textures are music. Also- can we please move beyond this "universal language" thing? What is universal about sounds and contexts? For example, the 12 tone scale is western, while other cultures enjoy microtones but these sounds sound "out of tune" to the average westerner. Steve Reich thought the utterances of a victimof race riots was music as evidenced by his piece "Come Out". John Cage showed that chance ambient sound is music with the famous 4'33"... and well, there are hundres ofexamples. Why can't we reach for a more culturally and intellectually and conceptually expansive defenition of an artform here on Hacker News? What "emotion" was John Cage going for in his prepared piano pieces? What about Richard Serra, the sculptor? I read stuff like this time and again by truly intellectual people on HN and I am always surprised at how behind the developments in artistic thinking are here.And really, it is 2017-- how can anyone think "music" is a universal language. As a composer myself, this defenition of music shoves me into a time machine and thrusts me back to old Vienna where I'm having tea with Brahms and Clara Schuman! Please! I need my modern brain, modern concept of the history of music and art, and my ability to redefine the parameters of my artform! How would you like program in COBOL all day for the rest of your life, denying the existence of modern coding languages? By the way, do yourself a favor and listen to "come out"---- drop in at some middle or later point innthat composition or even anywhere in Reich's "clapping Music" and tell me what emotion one is meant to feel... get back to us on that please.