How Far Does Calling Music a Signal Get Us?

In audio engineering, music can be represented as a signal. We can ask about samples, spectra, and dynamic range. But those measurements cannot contain all of a song's meaning or personal value. One representation is not a substitute for another experience.

A waveform can show silence, density, and change over time. It cannot directly tell us whether a silence feels like a pause, suspense, relief, or something else. The limits of measurement and the limits of interpretation are different.

Technical analysis is still valuable. It lets us talk about specific properties of sound and replace some vague adjectives with observable features. But when we claim what those features feel like, uncertainty has to remain part of the argument.

I do not need engineering and music to become the same thing. The questions at their boundary are more interesting: what does the measurement reveal, and what does listening add? Keeping those two layers separate makes the relationship clearer.