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The creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of music vary according to culture and social context. Music ranges from strictly organized compositions (and their recreation in performance), through improvisational music to aleatoric forms. Music can be divided into genres and sub-genres, although the dividing lines and relationships between music genres are often subtle, sometimes open to individual interpretation, and occasionally controversial. Within "the arts", music can be classified as a performing art, a fine art, or an auditory art form.

Music is an art form consisting of sound and silence. Elements of music are pitch (which governs melody and harmony), rhythm (and its associated concepts tempo, meter, and articulation), dynamics, structure, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture.

The history of music predates the written word. The development of music among humans must have taken place against the backdrop of natural sounds such as birdsong and the sounds other animals use to communicate.Prehistoric music is the name given to all music produced in preliterate cultures

A range of paleolithic sites have yielded bones in which lateral holes have been pierced: these are usually identified as flutes[2], blown at one end like the Japanese shakuhachi. The earliest written records of musical expression are to be found in the Sama Veda of India and in 4,000 year old cuneiform from Ur.[citation needed] Instruments, such as the seven-holed flute and various types of stringed instruments have been recovered from the Indus valley civilization archaeological sites.[3] India has one of the oldest musical traditions in the world-references to Indian classical music (marga) can be found in the ancient scriptures of the Hindu tradition, the Vedas.

In the 20th century there was a vast increase in music listening as the radio gained popularity worldwide and new media and technologies were developed to record, capture, reproduce and distribute music. The focus of art music was characterized by exploration. Claude Debussy has become well-known and respected for his orientation towards colors and depictions in his compositional style. Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, and John Cage were all influential composers in 20th century art music. Jazz evolved and became a significant genre of music over the course of the 20th century, and during the second half of that century, rock music and rap music did the same.

Music theory encompasses the nature and mechanics of music. It often involves identifying patterns that govern composers' techniques. In a more detailed sense, music theory (in the western system) also distills and analyzes the elements of music - rhythm, harmony (harmonic function), melody, structure, and texture. People who study these properties are known as music theorists.

The word is such a vague term covering everything from the whistle of a janitor to the beauty of Beethoven's 5th. The American Heritage Dictionary describes music as "The art of organizing tones to produce a coherent sequence of sounds intended to elicit an aesthetic response in a listener." True as that may be, does it really give the description music deserves? To begin with, we know that music is an art, and there are facts to support that statement. To start, we must agree that an art is something specifically created to initiate an emotional response from the person(s) experiencing it. Now because hearing is a sense, and music is something we hear, music is, therefore, an art.