[thesethings]

I wasn't aware that either of these quests for universals have been a failure. My friend did a relatively recent music thesis about universals.

I'm not in either field, but a belief in universal "deep structure" has helped me learn both language + music stuff. Even if they don't exist, I'm going to stick with what helps me :D

[cynicalkane]

Well, you could say music must have rhythm, yet there's music with almost no rhythm at all. You could say music is about melody, but there's lots of examples of music with no melody. And as I hinted above, there's cultures where notes don't really have definite pitches.

I can't really think of anything that universally defines "music", other than that it's sound with an aesthetically pleasing structure.