Wow. That's a lot to digest and think about and a lot of good opinions but I'd like to try and steer this discussion a bit differently. What I was suggesting, though maybe not clearly enough, is to compare a musical composition (in this case more specifically non-lyrical simply because lyrics are usually, and I might dare say almost always, more lucid than instrumental music) to a thesis based or narrative essay. Then I guess the question I would like to pose, because I really hope it has an answer, is how does one go about creating thoughts and concrete ideas that can be understood by the listener through music. What does a fifth or an augmented 9th harmony really mean or represent? In the way trumpets may come to represent royalty, what is a flute?

To hopefully begin to answer this question I'll present two stories:

On a trip in Israel after jamming with two bedoins I had my violin out and was sitting with one who played a really bizzare instument that was composed of one string which can be plucked or bowed and sits on top of a few resonating stings to sound like a sitar. I mentioned to the bedoin that his instrument resembled a sitar and asked if the two were related. He told me that a sitar is a sad instrument and is always crying while his (the name of which obviously escapes me) was one that represented happiness.

A man I know who has played piano for 40+ years and is a fantastic musician was discussing the use of 7th, 9th, 13th, etc. chords. He descirbed the added tones as colour. In addition while discussing Debussy with him his only comment was that Debussy was all about colour.

So my question repeated: How does one begin to write music that is to be expressive and understood? How does one achieve lucidity in music without words?