Music often pictures emotion through representing its expression and is thereby able to bear insight into significant aspects of emotional life. Scruton's arguments for denying that music is significantly representational is shown to fail, musical pictures having their own sort of determinacy. Musical representation is dramatic. Musical sounds play the role of expression. They themselves are portrayed as expressing the emotions which we thus represented. But musical drama is distinct from literary drama.

Music often pictures emotion through representing its expression and is thereby able to bear insight into significant aspects of emotional life. Scruton's arguments for denying that music is significantly representational is shown to fail, musical pictures having their own sort of determinacy. Musical representation is dramatic. Musical sounds play the role of expression. They themselves are portrayed as expressing the emotions which we thus represented. But musical drama is distinct from literary drama.