To me, It's all about the feel. Intellect interferes with ability to play. I grew up learning classical music and music theory. I can read sheet music and charts, and am very grounded in theory. And all that learning stifled my ability to play, since I was thinking about every note before I played it. I mean, I'm not chopped liver when it comes to music. I have had a couple offers to go on tour around the world, was the bassist on the Houston Rockets song "Clutch City" in 1994, and recently found out that my name is on a Roy Head album, which is a great credit to have. Not a bad resume to have. However, I was never able to fly like a bird until I met up with Edison Freeman. In my 5 years with his band, I felt the music like never before. Edison pushed me to do things differently, and now some of my bass lines are done with my hands automatically, without a single thought crossing my mind as I play them, and I even try new things on the fly because it just feels right. I could never do that before. I have learned that true musicianship comes from the heart, not the brain. Took me half a century to learn that, but better late than never.
To sum it all up, music is an abstract concept, which can mean many things to different people, and these concepts can change over time, depending on who you are. So the only answer I can give you is recursive. In looking up the word in my ideal dictionary, under the entry "music", it will say "see music".
