Originally Posted by mercury-hg

i thought i was pretty clear, but apparently i've touched a nerve and don't care to look objectively at the situation.

my proposition: a musical instrument has three user-controlled properties - pitch, rhythm, and timbre.

my conclusion: assuming the proposition is true, traditional instruments can all be classified as "musical instruments". some sampling/mixing/scratching can also be considered "musical", but sampling/mixing/scratching present in a fair portion of pop music doesn't have all the above properties. would you consider the random scratching in a limp bizkit song representative of a musical instrument?