 Philosophy of music is the study of fundamental questions about the nature and value of music and our experience of it. Like any “philosophy of X”, it presupposes knowledge of its target. However, unlike philosophy of science, say, the target of philosophy of music is a practice most people have a significant background in, merely as a result of being members of a musical culture. Music plays a central role in many people’s lives. Thus, as with the central questions of metaphysics and epistemology, not only can most people quickly grasp the philosophical questions music raises, they tend to have thought about some of those questions before encountering the academic discipline itself. (This is as good a place as any to note that I, like most in the English-speaking philosophical world, focus exclusively on Western musical traditions. For criticism of this tendency, see Alperson 2009. For some exceptions to it, see S. Davies 2001: 254–94) and Feagin 2007.)