ABSTRACT
We should at the outset distinguish the question “What is music?” from some others with which it might be confused. One of these is the question of what kind of thing a piece of music is-that is to say, what ontological or metaphysical category (e.g., particular, universal, mental, physical) it belongs to and what its identity conditions are. This question . . . can to a large extent be dealt with independently of the distinction between music and nonmusic, and vice versa. We can determine what it is to count something as an instance or occasion of music without deciding precisely what ontological characterization pieces of music should receive.
