What is music in general - beyond the division of types of music by cultural boundaries, genre, or particular school of thought, as music theory? Music in basic explanation, pertains to sound, rhythm, harmony, melody; composition, improvisation, dynamics and structure. Moreso, music can be based completely on tonality of scales and chords, and/or can also have atonality and even complete dissonance, noise. Speculating further into its metaphysical dimension, music is the interacting of oscillating, vibratory motion which connects and communicates to all things in this world. It contains in it all kinds of qualities found in the World of Ideas (referencing Plato); it contains a synthesis of creation (tonality) and destruction (atonality); it can instill different kinds of emotions to listeners, and also be used for the spiritual healing of the soul (referencing Pythagoras). It is both felt and created in the eye of the beholder, and yet it is resonated and created in the universal macrocosmic realm which creates identity and being. This is music in its truly real and inner essence - all binded by will of the musician, listener, and Absolute (God).
The trueness of music is sacrificed when broken down or emanated into different genres of music; ways of playing (technique, melody/harmony/rhythm), and ways of particular thought in music theory. However, even then there is still an underlying trueness found in those different types: classical, jazz, rock, blues, world, electronic, avant-garde. It’s further sacrificed of trueness when it’s used for utility, and specifically the societal purposes of molding citizens into conformity; specifically to mold them to obedience, adherence to societal values, and mobilization to a militaristic force, for war or revolution. This is extended into the full-blown commercialization of music that is seen in modernist societies today; almost completely bereft of any deep meaning in place of promoting hedonism, materialism, degradation, and nihilism.
The issue with music, past and present, is that it has been molded into different specified varieties; though good to have an existing plurality, it can stifle the complete fullness and potential of what music can actually be. If there were musicians that were to meld different genres and styles of music, and yet transcend them to being music in its universal way, then newer ideas and a deeper sense in music would be uncovered. Of course, as individuals there always exists variety and particularism, and there always exists different genres of music, and different traditions and schools - it goes hand in hand in the Absolute as whole and infinite.