section_path: Terminology and definition/Contemporary understanding
section_name: Contemporary understanding
paragraph_text: Contemporary understanding
  
  The contemporary understanding of the term "classical music" remains vague and multifaceted. Other terms such as "art music", "canonic music", "cultivated music" and "serious music" are largely synonymous. The term "classical music" is often indicated or implied to concern solely the Western world, and conversely, in many academic histories the term "Western music" excludes non-classical Western music. Another complication lies in that "classical music" is sometimes used to describe non-Western art music exhibiting similar long-lasting and complex characteristics; examples include Indian classical music (i.e. Carnatic Music Hindustani music and Odissi Music), Gamelan music, and various styles of the court of Imperial China (see yayue for instance). Thus in the later 20th century terms such as "Western classical music" and "Western art music" came in use to address this. The musicologist Ralph P. Locke notes that neither term is ideal, as they create an "intriguing complication" when considering "certain practitioners of Western-art music genres who come from non-Western cultures".
  
  Complexity in musical form and harmonic organization are typical traits of classical music. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) offers three definitions for the word "classical" in relation to music:
  
  The last definition concerns what is now termed the Classical period, a specific stylistic era of European music from the second half of the 18th century to the beginning of the 19th century.