music , mind , thought and emotion

Your thread title explains it all. Music comes from the mental exercise of tapping ones emotions. If what you hear connects with some small part of your emotion it will, at the least, capture your attention momentarily. Should a composer/artist tap into the motherload of your emotions you will be captivated. This same phenomenon occurs with poetry and traditional art.

Detlof, There is no "what is" (matters or light/dark, etc..) only "how is". You can't define "it" (the one Asa talked about) in the higher definition (except/accept human def., languages). You only recognize "it" when you see "it" (in this case hear it).
When one listens to the music, "it" is all music. When one not listens to the music, "it" is all "one". Once one passes "that", one is a "free" man. Think of it as water and waves. When one are sad/happy (dark/light) the waves is high. When one are happy/sad the waves is lower. Ask oneself this, when one in not sad, not happy, where is the wave? Once one get that, all one's burning questions is answered! Music's, noises, "light/dark", "mirror", "beneath, it is not", "beneath is not"; all these are tools, and only tools they are...
One is a potential non-audiophile, then...Because; all one listen is music, then. There are no stages, no states, and no levels. Because, it there are stages, there are higher/lower stages. If there are states, there is higher/lower states, levels, etc. Only musical...or not musical.
I am writing all this. Asking for 3 cents in return is not too much, is it not? :-)

Detlof to me music is a mystery,my relationship with it has been a lifetime love affair however to quote Van Morrison

"It ain't why.......................It just is"

As for systems well yes I suppose there may be aspects that may enhance our enjoyment but at the basic levels you are talking I don't think it matters.
If there is a piece of music that touches you then it touches you however you hear it.
To boil it down to nothing.
Imagine you lose a close friend or split up with your partner and you hear their favourite song.
Do you really think it matters if it's on a $10 radio,a boom box or a state of the art sysytem?
I like hi-fi but I only use to enhance the experience of listening to music.
What effect that music has is down to the music and/or me.

Lugnut, I could not disagree with you:-)

Music & the visual arts, impart immediate effect upon us -- as opposed to, say, literature that requires a vehicle (reading).
Music in particular, being non-visual (whereas our basic defenses mostly are) can inspire spontaneous emotional action -- taking us unawares, before we have the time activate our behaviourist controls, as it were. The difference with noise, or even fearful sounds, is that the structure of sound that we call music MUST appeal to a number of innate characteristics of our race, and thereby impact upon emotions. One of these is the sense of sublime rythm (the latter in the ancient greek sense -- not timing...), or harmonious balance. Harmony in its original sense referred to the correct sequence and correlation of things. It is or not at all. Maybe this joins 6's "no-states/stages" because stages are a limitation by definition. Music appeals to an innate quest for balance, maybe? After all we are delivered with a physical two-dimensional balance, so music, our creation, reflects and can can speak to, this balance...
But the archetypal impact of music throughout the ages is probably and primarily emotional: think of follia, of ritual music, of walking over hot coals "under (partly musically generated) trance"... -- or the 3rd Reich's (ab)use of Wagner (not the best pieces at that!)...

Coming to Oz's point about learning to appreciate (Oz is more detailed on the subject, above)I beg to agree & slightly disagree, from personal experience.
When I first heard parts of Mahler's 5th symphony, I did not know Mahler, nor "classical music" nor, of course, had I any affinity with the finer points of musical appreciation... In fact, I couldn't talk yet, I was 1 yr old so cognitive skills had't been developed (I'm getting better now).
I was, reportedly, mesmerised: glued to a position with my mouth open -- and my parents used to play Mahler & Tchaikovski on an old auto player that repeated the record, so I would keep quiet & not come to mischief.

So, I hadn't yet developed an understanding/appreciation for this type of music.
On the other hand, as Oz suggests, appreciating O. Coleman required investment on my part; it is "sophisticated", i.e. does not speak to me spontaneously.

A note on the reproduction of music: I believe that there is no subjective "best" way/sound to reproduce music, to each one of us her/his own. This is a function of experience & inculcation.
But I also believe that there are objectively "better" systems in reproducing music. This is not a function; it's a matter of approaching reality. It's a matter that borrows on 6's last point.

The reason I dare assert the above is that I listen to acoustic music primarily -- and I also listen to a lot of live music. So I have an easy aural benchamrk. So, a violin is a violin or isn't. Dynamics are or not...etc. Even electric instruments are relatively easy to recognise sonically. BUT i don't have to worry about the producer's sound effects... where, I wouldn't have a benchmark!
This holds despite the recording or the remastering (we all know that, don't we advise as to the "quality" of the recording?).

I admit that music is stronger than its reproduction; I have been moved with a small Sony and with my own. Just that with my system these occasions are more frequent; sometimes the sensation of being there is enough to move me -- due to misplaced nostalgia?

If you've read this far, thank you. This subject fascinates me. Clink!