Music is an experience of process which as a shaping of time is entirely directional. It is pure movement without moving and we grasp it by letting it move us. It communicates, often very specifically and intimately, but we can't say what it is that it says. It can move in a variety of directions, horizontally, as when it seems to unfold a tale, vertically upward as when it seems to raise us to a higher sphere, and downward as when it seems to place us in an unmoving present of numbed intensity, as well as inwardly into infinitely subtle recollections and adumbrations. As a form of motion it bears a close and complex relationship to emotion. It can present an emotion when the occasion for it is otherwise absent and when it does so it is deemed beautiful or of positive aesthetic value. In general, such value is produced by displacements of the occasion of a feeling or sensation, as is notable even in the cults of the taste and smell. The basic element of music is not sensation, however, but difference and the relationship of different elements in a predefined field of differences, so that it is closer to speech than to flavour. It is a commentary on meaning from just outside of meaning, and may mock it or adore it, or more usually merely ironise it.