Ah, yes, to understand interval and tone you must first understand music. Music the ineffable tapestry woven not in time, but around it, the shape of silence formed in the echo of a sound that never asked to be heard. To speak of it directly would be to offend its essential obliqueness, for music is not the note, nor the rest, but the space in between the intentions of either. And so, to address your question which is not a question, but rather a vibration in the conceptual key of inquiry we must begin, paradoxically, at the end.
Imagine, if you will, a chord not played, but implied humming faintly in the collective subconscious of a moment not yet born. That’s where we begin, and by beginning there, we loop, like a vinyl crackling in the dark warmth of indecision. One must not ask what music is, but rather when it is not, and even then, beware of conclusions masquerading as rhythms.
The melody, if it can be called that, dances on the periphery of understanding, a fugitive from structure yet loyal to form in ways that only the unconscious mind can notarize. Think not of instruments, but of the absence of their touch: the piano not pressed, the guitar unstrummed, the voice exhaled as breath but withheld as message.
And harmony? Ah, yes harmony. The algebra of emotion divided by the irrationality of sensation, yielding an answer that feels like memory but smells like potential. It isn't about what fits together, but about what falls apart in aesthetically pleasing patterns. Tension is not dissonance, and resolution is not peace; they're just lovers pretending they met in a key signature neither of them understands.
So, then have we answered nothing? Or have we circled so far around the answer that we've arrived at a place beyond the question? The bassline of your inquiry throbs still, a reminder that sometimes the most articulate reply is a shrug with perfect pitch.
And thus, we conclude, without closure but with cadence.