I am generally unsympathetic to the project, pursued by many recent philosophers of music, of attempting to specify the identity conditions for musical works – of attempting to specify the conditions that something, typically a performance, must satisfy if it is to count as an instance of this or that work. Call this the identity-project. Elsewhere, I have suggested that any such project is fundamentally misconceived. Here, however, I want simply to explore a couple of the difficulties with which the (...) identity-project is confronted, and to point out some of the costs that are likely to be incurred in trying to overcome them. (shrink)

Music is said to consist of melody, rhythm, and harmony. Sound is assumed to be something that automatically follows once musical structure is determined. Sound, which is what actually impinges on our eardrums, has been so long forgotten in the history of musical theory. It is ironic that we do not talk about the music which we hear every day but rather are exclusively concerned about the abstracted structure behind it. This is a legacy of ancient Greek ideas about music, (...) which most contemporary musical discourses are based on. Under this tradition, imperceptible music has priority over perceptible music in reality. On the contrary, music was explained in the framework of sound, tone, and music in ancient China. Although different thinkers tried to define music in a variety of ways, sound was never completely expelled from their musical theorizations. On one hand, music was regarded as a continuum of sound and tone, namely, perceptible music and intelligible music in its structure. On the other hand, music was considered as something that could not be reduced to its structure or notation but could be associated with much broader contexts. This article explores two different traditions in ancient Greece and China in terms of their musical ontology. By answering the question, “What is music as such?” differently, they developed different views on issues such as the relationship of music and emotion, the role of music in society, the symbolization of music, and so on. (shrink)

An impressive variety of theories of ontology of musical works has been offered in the last fifty years. Recently, the ontologists have been paying more attention to methodological issues, in particular, the problem of determining criteria of a good theory. Although different methodological approaches involve different views on the importance and exact role of intuitiveness of a theory, most philosophers writing on the ontology of music agree that intuitiveness and compliance with musical practice play an important part when judging theories. (...) A multitude of diverse claims exist regarding folk intuitions and matters of musical practice in the literature on the ontology of musical works. In this review paper, a systematized collection of about one hundred empirical claims extracted from the theoretical literature is presented. All of the empirical claims are categorized thematically. The paper also includes a short discussion on the role of appeals to common intuitions in methodological literature, as well as some suggestions for future research. (shrink)

Is there such a thing as the perfect performance of a musical work? It is the thesis of this paper that there is not. The thesis is advanced as the implication or concomitant of an already developed view of musical performance in the Western tradition, outlined in my book, Authenticities (1995).

Aaron Ridley has recently attacked the study of musical ontology—an apparently fertile area in the philosophy of music. I argue here that Ridley's arguments are unsound. There are genuinely puzzling ontological questions about music, many of which are closely related to questions of musical value. While it is true that musical ontology must be descriptive of pre-existing musical practices and that some debates, such as that over the creatability of musical works, have little consequence for questions of musical value, none (...) of this implies that these debates themselves are without value. (shrink)

I argue that the work of art in rock music is a track constructed in the studio, that tracks usually manifest songs, which can be performed live, and that a cover version is a track (successfully) intended to manifest the same song as some other track. This ontology reflects the way informed audiences talk about rock. It recognizes not only the centrality of recorded tracks to the tradition, as discussed by Theodore Gracyk, but also the value accorded to live performance (...) skills, emphasized by Stephen Davies. (shrink)

In the ontology of music the Aristotelian theory of musical works is the view that musical works are immanent universals. The Aristotelian theory (hereafter Musical Aristotelianism) is an attractive and serviceable hypothesis. However, it is overlooked as a genuine competitor to the more well-known theories of Musical Platonism and nominalism. Worse still, there is no detailed account in the literature of the nature of the universals that the Aristotelian identifies musical works with. In this paper, I argue that the best (...) version of Musical Aristotelianism identifies musical works with structural universals. I first motivate the view by outlining its explanatory benefits. I then argue that Musical Aristotelianism is preferable to Musical Platonism and present a novel account of musical works as structural universals by developing D. M. Armstrong’s theory of structural universals. I discuss the consequences of Musical Aristotelianism with respect to on-going issues in debates about musical works and defend the view against an influential objection, concluding that Musical Aristotelianism is a genuine competitor in debates about the nature of musical works. (shrink)

The ontological nature of works of music has been a particularly lively area of philosophical debate during the past few years. This paper serves to introduce the reader to some of the most fertile and interesting issues. Starting by distinguishing three questions – the categorial question, the individuation question, and the persistence question – the article goes on to focus on the first: the question of which ontological category musical works fall under. The paper ends by introducing, and briefly considering, (...) meta-ontological questions in the ontology of music. (shrink)

Resumen En el presente artículo reflexiono sobre cómo el concepto de “obra” ha llegado a ocupar un lugar determinante en el pensamiento sobre el arte y en el modo de experimentarlo y comprenderlo. Presento igualmente algunos elementos de reflexión sobre la ontología de la “obra” para centrarme en el caso de las obras musicales, “mutantes ontológicos”, que han sido objeto de atención preferente de la filosofía analítica. Esta reflexión, sin embargo, al poner en primer término las consideraciones ontológicas relativas las (...) condiciones de identidad de la obra han acabado desarrollando tesis que renuncian a los componentes estéticos y atentan contra nuestras convicciones y prácticas más asentadas. Por ello, finalmente apelo a la conveniencia de privilegiar un enfoque histórico para comprender que hay más música que obras musicales.In this article I reflect on how the concept of "work" has come to occupy a determining place in our thinking about art and in the way we experience and understand it. I also present some elements of reflection on the ontology of the "work" in order to focus on the case of musical works, "ontological mutants", that have been the object of preferential attention of analytical philosophy. This reflection, however, by putting in the foreground the ontological considerations concerning the conditions of identity of the work, has ended up developing theses that forget the aesthetic components and go against our most established convictions and practices. For this reason, I finally appeal to the convenience of privileging a historical approach in order to understand that there is more to music than musical works. (shrink)

This article focuses primarily on improvisation in the arts as discussed in philosophical aesthetics, supplemented with accounts of improvisational practice by arts theorists and educators. It begins with an overview of the term improvisation, first as it is used in general and then as it is used to describe particular products and practices in the individual arts. From here, questions and challenges that improvisation raises for the traditional work-of-art concept, the type-token distinction, and the appreciation and evaluation of the arts (...) will be explored. This article concludes with the suggestion that further research and discussion on improvisation in the arts is needed, particularly in the areas of non-jazz improvisation. (shrink)

This paper explores early Australasian philosophy in some detail. Two approaches have dominated Western philosophy in Australia: idealism and materialism. Idealism was prevalent between the 1880s and the 1930s, but dissipated thereafter. Idealism in Australia often reflected Kantian themes, but it also reflected the revival of interest in Hegel through the work of ‘absolute idealists’ such as T. H. Green, F. H. Bradley, and Henry Jones. A number of the early New Zealand philosophers were also educated in the idealist tradition (...) and were influential in their communities, but produced relatively little. In Australia, materialism gained prominence through the work of John Anderson, who arrived in Australia in 1927, and continues to be influential. John Anderson had been a student of Henry Jones, who might therefore be said to have influenced both main strands of Australian philosophical thought. (shrink)

The relationship between 1. recipes, 2. ingredients and 3. dishes may be understood in analogy to the relationship between elements in the performing arts: for example, in music, 1. musical works, 2. ‘musical ingredients’ and 3. performances. The recipe’s inventor is a ‘composer’ and the cook is a ‘performer’. As I will argue, both in musical performances and in the preparation of dishes, the application of norms requires ‘creative’ adaptation to the concrete specific situation and the final product emerges from (...) practical interactions that involve transformations of their own normative bases. Hence, both in culinary practices and performing arts like music, the improvisational case is paramount for understanding how their normativity, as paradigmatic of the normativity of human practices in general, works. (shrink)

Aaron Ridley posed the question of whether results in the ontology of musical works would have implications for judgements about the interpretation, meaning or aesthetic value of musical works and performances. His arguments for the conclusion that the ontology of musical works have no aesthetic consequences are unsuccessful, but he is right in thinking (in opposition to Andrew Kania and others) that ontological judgements have no aesthetic consequences. The key to demonstrating this conclusion is the recognition that ontological judgments are (...) a priori and aesthetic judgments are empirical. A priori judgements have no empirical consequences. Neither fundamental ontology of music nor higher- order ontological reflections have any aesthetic consequences. (shrink)