Most of us think we know the difference between music and noise.
Bach, the Beatles, Johnny Cash, Miles Davis, Celine Dion,
Youssou N'Dour... you may not like all of them, but they're
clearly music. The garbage truck on a Saturday morning when
you're not quite ready to wake up, or the din from the
neighbors' party (even if there's music playing), are clearly
noise. But then there are sounds that aren't so clearly one
thing or the other. There aren't too many people who'd consider
a car alarm to be music - although there are mockingbirds who've
learned to imitate the alarm's annoying and familiar themes; and
there are many people who find birdsong, or ocean waves, to be
intensely musical. But music is by definition "organized sound,"
meaning there is a human intent and agency involved. That car
alarm sounds like it does because of a human's intent (a human
who is now hopefully in one of the lower rings of hell); there
is no human intent behind birdsongs or ocean waves. (Whether
there is avian intent behind bird