Small and Intentional Fallacy

Reading Small and his ideas on emotion and how it relates to the experience of music has me recalling a moment I played Cage's 4' 33'' and another day I played Varese's Poeme Electronique. In both cases the students thought the music was "wierd" and they asked me what it "meant." I responded by asking them what it meant to them. I told them that what the composer thinks it is has nothing to do with what the music is, because music's significance has to do with what you make of it. Of course small would say that they way we interpret and experience music may not be our own- but a cause of our community and what has been socially constructed as one way or the other, but I think it is interesting that students want to know the answers- and are at times not concerned with the why or how those answers (if there are any at all) came to be. Does this have to do with the control paradigm of teacher and student? Teachers have the answers and students ask the questions ideology. Or maybe it is about getting the A. The students want to know what is the "right" answer before they form their own opinions. ?