I'm trying to remember whether it was Plato, Socrates or Archimedes who claimed to be able to hear the music of the spheres, which those around him couldn't. I suffer from that too, but I know it's tinnitus.

Meanwhile, back at the subject, music has multiple meanings for me:

* The carrier wave on which beautiful words can happen. Sadly, if the tune's good, I often miss the words, and Herself accuses me of going deaf.

* The background on TV shows or films, which covers studio noises-off*, and tells me the mood of the moment. If it's obvious, it's not doing its job right, or it's an extra character (who may be a joker: "dum dum *daaa*", or "badum tish", or the sudden silence after "Knock it off, Addams" towards the end of the first Addams Family film).

I'll skip over hold muzak, which I've ranted about elsewhere, and which methinks would be deemed off-thread.

* In the Beeb's tapes of I CLAVDIVS, what little music there is is in the foreground. I find the soft rumble of the studio air conditioning has the "once heard, never inaudible" nature.