Music as a System
Music has many uses, and in all societies certain events are without it. A proper consideration of music should the musical sound itself; but it should also deal with the leading to its existence, with its particular forms and in each culture, and with the human behaviour that produces the sound.

to having a language, each society may be said to have a music - that is, a self-contained system within which musical takes place and that, like a language, must be learned to be understood. Members of some societies in several musics; thus, modern Native Americans take part in both Native American music and mainstream Western music.

Within each music, various strata may exist, distinguished by degree of learning ( versus untrained musicians), level of society (the music of the elite versus that of the masses), patronage (court or church or public commercial ), and manner of dissemination (oral, notated, or through mass ). In the West and in the high of Asia, it is possible to distinguish three basic strata: first, art or music, composed and performed by trained originally under the patronage of courts and religious ; second, folk music, shared by the population at large - particularly its rural - and orally; and, third, popular music, performed by , disseminated through radio, television, records, film, and print, and by the urban mass public.