Music theorists of almost all ages employ a concept of "Nature" to justify observations or statements about music. The understanding of what "Nature" is, however, is subject to cultural and historical differences. In tracing these explanatory strategies and their changes in music theories between c. 1600 and 1900, these essays explore (for the first time in a book-length study) how the multifarious conceptions of nature, located variously between scientific reason and divine power, are brought (...) to bear on music theory and how they affect our understanding of music. (shrink)

The work of Robert Hooke on acoustics and music theory is a larger subject than might seem the case from studies of his career so far available. First, there are his experiments for the Royal Society which can be defined as purely acoustical, which anticipate later experiments performed by men such as J. Sauveur and E. Chladni. Second, there are passages in many of his writings which by extensive use of musical analogy attempt to account for all physical (...) phenomena of the universe, which operates on the principles of ‘harmony’ and ‘dissonance’. It is in this context that the hitherto unpublished manuscript presented at the end of this paper should be considered. This essay, which combines both the older tradition of the ‘praise of music’ and the newer consideration of the physical nature of musical sound, illustrates a particular aspect of Hooke's thought which exercised a profound influence on all his studies. (shrink)

John Cage and Henry David Thoreau draw attention to the indeterminacy of wild nature and imply humans cannot entirely control the natural world. This paper argues Cage and Thoreau each encourages his audience to recognize their own human limitations in relation to wildness, and thus each helps his audience to develop greater humility before nature. By reflecting on how Thoreau’s theory relates to Cage’s music, we can recognize how Cage’s music contributes to audiences’ environmental moral (...) education. We can appreciate the role of music in helping audiences to develop values conducive to environmentally sustainable practices. (shrink)

Aristides Quintilianus' dates are not known, but he can hardly be earlier than the first century A.D. or later than the third. Several passages in the early pages of his de Musica1 purport to record facts about the practice of much older theorists, in contexts which make it clear that his references are to the period before Aristoxenus. Since our knowledge of music theory in that period is extremely sketchy, it is obviously worth trying to assess the reliability (...) of Aristides' information. Two of his references have often been recognized as being of special interest, and there is a third, to which, I shall argue, the other two are intimately related. The first records two systems of notation, alleged by Aristides to have been used by oί ρχαîoι. The second is the famous, or notorious, account of certain ‘divisions of the tetrachord’ which were employed by oί πνυαλαιότατoι πρς ρμoνίας. It is these, Aristides tells us, which are mentioned by Plato in the Republic.2 The remaining passage is superficially rather less exciting: it records the names and initial notes of the ρμoνίαι, or forms of octave scale, said to have been distinguished by oί παλαιoί, and says something about a method by which the πoιότης of each can be made clear. The information given here about the nature of the ρμoνίαι is familiar: it is to be found, for example, in Cleonides Eisagoge 19. 4 ff., where rather more detail is given, and where the names of the ρμoνίαι are again ascribed to oί ρχαîoι . I shall suggest, however, that Aristides' version has independent interest. What he tells us in the first two passages is found nowhere else. (shrink)

Aristides Quintilianus' dates are not known, but he can hardly be earlier than the first century A.D. or later than the third. Several passages in the early pages of his de Musica1 purport to record facts about the practice of much older theorists, in contexts which make it clear that his references are to the period before Aristoxenus. Since our knowledge of music theory in that period is extremely sketchy, it is obviously worth trying to assess the reliability (...) of Aristides' information. Two of his references have often been recognized as being of special interest, and there is a third, to which, I shall argue, the other two are intimately related. The first records two systems of notation, alleged by Aristides to have been used by oί ρχαîoι. The second is the famous, or notorious, account of certain ‘divisions of the tetrachord’ which were employed by oί πνυαλαιότατoι πρς ρμoνίας. It is these, Aristides tells us, which are mentioned by Plato in the Republic.2 The remaining passage is superficially rather less exciting: it records the names and initial notes of the ρμoνίαι, or forms of octave scale, said to have been distinguished by oί παλαιoί, and says something about a method by which the πoιότης of each can be made clear. The information given here about the nature of the ρμoνίαι is familiar: it is to be found, for example, in Cleonides Eisagoge 19. 4 ff., where rather more detail is given, and where the names of the ρμoνίαι are again ascribed to oί ρχαîoι. I shall suggest, however, that Aristides' version has independent interest. What he tells us in the first two passages is found nowhere else. (shrink)

Issues about the nature and ontology of works of art play a central part in contemporary aesthetics. But such issues are complicated by the fact that there seem to be two fundamentally different kinds of artworks. First, a visual artwork such as a picture or drawing seems to be closely identified with a particular physical object, in that even an exact copy of it does not count as being genuinely the same work of art. Nelson Goodman describes such works (...) as being “autographic.” Second, other artworks such as musical or literary works seem to be copyable without any such limitations: for example, two identical copies of a novel could each equally be a genuine instance of that novel; such works are “allographic,” in Goodman’s terminology. Nevertheless, it seems clear enough that a deeper understanding of both kinds of artworks requires the pursuit of analogies or similarities between them, in spite of their differences. Any such analogies that may be found will provide critical tests for more general theories about the nature of artworks. I show how to resolve such analogies for the orientational concept of inversion. (shrink)

Introduction. A radical tendency in modern approaches to understanding the mechanisms of the brain is the tendency of some scientists to believe that the brain is a receptor capable of capturing thoughts; the nature of the occurrence of the thoughts themselves, however, is not to be clarified. However, speech expressing thoughts is undoubtedly the result of the work of the brain, so studies of the frequency structure of speech can be the basis for considering the material structure of the (...) brain as a kind of “antenna”. In this approach, the problem of noise protection against the background of the undeniable frequency similarity of speech and music appears to us from somewhat different positions. This study raises the question of how essential the overall height of the musical system is to the perception of music (are there musical systems that are harmful or useful, in terms of their effects on the psyche). This question is also relevant to speech perception.Methodology and sources. The main sources in which the work of the brain and the essence of consciousness are considered from the positions indicated above were for us the work of American and British neurophysiologists and psychiatrists (Sam Parnia, Peter Fenwick). These scientists are studying the phenomena that accompany clinical death, and argue that at these moments the brain functions to the greatest extent as a receiving “antenna”. Assuming that any antenna is to be tuned, we are trying to identify possible ways to “tune” the brain. To do this, we propose to study the frequency characteristics of speech (in the simplest case, when singing vowels in a calm state) for their belonging to a particular musical system, as well as the peculiarities of music perception depending on the musical system (on the height of the note “la”). Varying the frequency characteristics of speech in a particular musical system can be considered, in our opinion, the main way to “tune” the brain. The methodology of the method is based on the use of frequency analysis of sound and the basic provisions of the elementary theory of music.Results and discussion. The main conclusion made by Western psychiatrists is the brain is not an organ of thought, consciousness exists independently from outside, the work of consciousness cannot be explained by the functioning of the brain – it requires a hardware check. If the neural network is an “antenna” that captures thoughts, and its “adjustment” at the physical level can be carried out (and is carried out) through sensory systems (including the hearing organ), the study of the frequency structure of speech will answer a number of important questions, including including related and higher brain functions (insight, creativity). Our experiments (Saint Petersburg Electrotechnical University, FIBS, department of EUT) showed that the influence of the “increased” or “lowered” musical-speech system on brain activity is insignificant. The study revealed the equiprobability of the frequency structure of speech. Since our brain lacks some characteristic set of frequencies – elements of a uniformly temperamental system, it is not necessary to talk about the harmful (or any other noise) effect of the “raised” and “lowered” systems due to deviation from the “internal standard”.Conclusion. In response to the assumptions made by Western experts, we proposed a frequency interpretation of the processes occurring in the brain, which, perhaps, will explain in more detail such phenomena as inspiration, discovery, etc., which occur with minimal activity of consciousness. Despite the limited methods of hardware study of factors that influence the activity of the brain and largely determine its higher functions (for example, creativity), the results of the brain's work in relation to music (both in terms of its creation and in terms of our reaction to it) are quite analyzable, which was shown in this study. The “musicality” of speech is extremely vividly represented in its frequency structure and allows one to reveal, to one degree or another, the features of the brain. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Democracy and Music Education: Liberalism, Ethics, and the Politics of PracticeHeidi WesterlundPaul G. Woodford, Democracy and Music Education: Liberalism, Ethics, and the Politics of Practice ( Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2005)Paul G. Woodford's Democracy and Music Education needs to be warmly welcomed in the field of philosophy of music education. It contributes to the discussion centering on ethics and music education—a discussion that (...) after multiculturalism, pluralism, praxialism, and other recent "isms" still awaits its appearance in a stronger sense. Woodford writes that the aim of the book is to enhance democratic ends by inviting music educators to contribute "to wider intellectual and political conversations about the nature and significance of music in our lives and those of our children."1Woodford borrows ideas from many thinkers creating an interesting synthesis and lines of thought throughout the book. His main resource in developing a liberalist music education is, however, along the ideas of the American pragmatist and educational philosopher, John Dewey. Woodford's choice is well thought out. Dewey deserves to be redeemed and recognized in music education, not the least because of various distorted interpretations of his views that have commonly been accepted in the profession in the past. Woodford argues that the music appreciation movement, which aimed at developing good musical taste equally in all children, has not in any particular way been a Deweyan democratic movement. Music educators have not acknowledged their role as agents in the [End Page 235] transformation of school and society. Instead, he states, they have continued to subscribe to the older aesthetic and utilitarian rationales and yet neither approach prepares students "to question and challenge authority and thereby to transform musical society."2It is noteworthy that Woodford does not elaborate on Dewey's central concept, experience, but unexpectedly draws upon concepts such as abstract reason or the autonomous individual to reconstruct music education. Critical conversation becomes celebrated against performance-oriented music education. The book leaves open the discussion between utilitarian and aesthetic rationales and carefully avoids Dewey's notion of the aesthetic and experimentation, which could have brought new angles in understanding his notion of democracy and its relation to the social and musical.3 Woodford tries to maintain a middle ground in the North American philosophical battlefield of music education stating that music educators "should listen more closely to one another while avoiding extremes."4 His critique targets critical theorists, radical feminist writers, and modernist as well as postmodernist ideas, while Woodford himself seeks a middle way between laissez-faire and elitist or autocratic concepts of music education.As a whole, Woodford's conceptual toolkit for promoting ethical aspects in music education are less akin to Dewey's thoughts and more to the Greek philosophers and their notions of virtues. Woodford writes, "democracy depends on the existence of good faith and generosity of spirit, of character and love for one's fellow men and women."5 These virtues are "the glue that can bind us together as society."6 How is this achieved in music education? Teaching love becomes a practical problem: explaining love requires it to be modelled and experienced, Woodford writes. However, he leaves this cornerstone of his conceptual scheme to rest on the notion of intellectual conversation.Allow me to explain briefly in what way Dewey's philosophical project differs from the Greek philosophical ethos and why abstract reason and intellectual conversation are not central concepts in Dewey's pragmatism (this does not mean that they cannot be celebrated as Woodford has done). For Dewey, the virtue of love signifies devotion, interest, and courage since genuine interest challenges us to overcome the obstacles that stand in the way.7 Interest and devotion are not just attitudes or intellectual modes in the sense of mental states, but linked to doings and active transactions with and in the environment. Interest is co-extensive with action and devotion with dedication to shared projects. This devotion to shared doings and their significance is the socially inclusive ethical side that Dewey brought to the individualistic humanistic theory of self-realization and to the theory of experience. The vision of humanistic self-realization, as has been presented in... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Harmony Between Rousseau’s Musical Theory and his PhilosophyJohn T. ScottRousseau is best known as the author of philosophic works, but he was a musician and musical theorist before he burst onto the European literary scene with his First Discourse. While he earned celebrity as an anti-philosophical philosopher, he continued to consider music as his primary vocation and avocation throughout his life. Rousseau testifies to the harmony (...) between his musical work and his philosophy in his Dialogues, where he explains that his musical writings and compositions are animated by the same feelings and ideas as all of his works—that they too are based on the principle of his “system” that “man is good although men are wicked.” 1 His mature musical theory not only incorporates his philosophy of human nature and development but also extends it through an examination of the role of the passions in human communication. Rousseau’s musical theory is an important, yet often overlooked, facet of his philosophy.The relationship between Rousseau’s musical theory and his philosophy as a whole has seldom been extensively analyzed. 2 His only widely known writing relating to music is the Essay on the Origin of Languages, but even that work has in general not received a full accounting because it has rarely been interpreted in light of his other musical writings. The Essay emerged out of both the Second Discourse and the contemporaneous musical polemics of the mid-1750s. The simultaneous elaboration of his “system” and his continued work on music was the context in which Rousseau’s mature musical theory developed. After an account of Rousseau’s pre-systematic musical writings and [End Page 287] a discussion of the development of his musical theory, I will turn to an examination of the Essay. Finally, I will conclude by discussing Rousseau’s novel aesthetic theory and its impact.Rousseau’s Presystematic Musical Writings“Jean-Jacques was born for music.” 3 Rousseau’s musical writings might be characterized as his attempt to account for his native love for music. In his Confessions he speaks of “the taste or rather passion for music” that he had almost from birth and says that it was while in Italy, after running away from Geneva at age sixteen, that his passion began to declare itself. 4 Rousseau increasingly indulged his love for music over the next several years, although six months in a choir school at about the age of seventeen was almost the only formal musical instruction he received. He acquired and painstakingly mastered Rameau’s Treatise on Harmony, and studied informally with a young organist with Italian training, recalling how he compared his friend’s “principles” to those of “my Rameau.” 5 At least in retrospect, then, Rousseau noted the contrast between French and Italian music that would later bring him into conflict with his youthful hero.Rousseau soon took up the profession of a music teacher and copyist, a trade to which he would return after abandoning philosophy. Copying music acquainted him with the difficulty of the ordinary visual system of notating music, and he therefore devised a numerical system. It was with his system of notation and a play, Narcisse, that Rousseau set out for Paris in 1741. He gained an audience for his “Plan Regarding New Signs for Music” (1742) at the Academy of Sciences, and while it was favorably received, the report of a select committee concluded that his system was not entirely new and was less practical in most respects than the ordinary system. 6 Rousseau was nonetheless convinced of his system’s utility and published it as the Dissertation on Modern Music (1743). This work contains a digression on musical expression where he explains that we are not “touched” by sounds themselves but by the harmonic relationships they have among them. He sends his reader to Rameau’s writings, where the source of musical expression is “sufficiently explained.” 7 In his mature musical writings Rousseau expounds a theory explicitly opposed to Rameau’s theory of musical expression.Several incidents in the next decade before the discovery of his “system” seem to have contributed to Rousseau’s subsequent break with Rameau. [End... (shrink)

Filozofija umjetnosti u mišljenju Anande Kentisha Coomaraswamyja povezana je tradicionalnom filozofijom. Estetika, u modernom smislu, nema veze s tradicionalnom filozofijom umjetnosti, čiji temeljni princip nije »umjetnik je posebna vrsta čovjeka«, nego »svaki je čovjek posebna vrsta umjetnika«. Coomaraswamy nastoji redefinirati suvremeni pristup umjetnosti. Suvremeni umjetnici ne stvaraju svoja djela u skladu s Vječnim Istinama. Apstraktna umjetnost nije ikonografija transcendentalnih formi nego stvarna slika razjedinjenog uma. U cilju redefiniranja pristupa umjetnosti, temeljni se jezik umjetnosti mora promijeniti; edukatori i kustosi moraju biti (...) odgovorni za poučavanje o istinskoj prirodi umjetnosti; umjetnost ne može biti jednaka estetskom iskustvu; društvo se mora reorganizirati u društvo bazirano na vokaciji, što je analogno Platonovu mišljenju.Philosophy of Art in the thinking of Anande Kentish Coomaraswamy is connected with traditional philosophy. Aesthetics in modern sense has nothing to do with traditional philosophy of art which basic principle is “The artist is not special kind of man” but “Every man is special kind of artist”. Coomaraswamy wants to redefine contemporary approach to art. Contemporary artist does not create in accordance with Eternal Truth.art is not iconography of transcendental forms but real picture of disoriented mentality. In order to redefine approach to art basic language of art must be changed; educators and curators must have responsibility to teach about true nature of art; art can not be equal with esthetic experience; society must be reorganized into one that is based on vocation in analogy with Plato’s thought. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:On "Methodolatry" and Music Teaching as Critical and Reflective Praxis Thomas Regelski State University of New York, Fredonia Introduction: Professions and Professionalism Most teachers, including those in music, like to think of themselves as professionals. However, the "professionalization" of teachers traced by sociology generally refers to only the transition early in the twentieth century from two years ofteacher preparation in normal schools to four years in newly (...) created professional schools, departments, orprogramsofeducationinuniversities. Traditional sociological theory still considers teaching to be at best a "semiprofession."1 In the "ideal" descriptionofsociologist Max Weber, professionals shared these traits: They were self-employed providers of services, diey entered dieir profession because diey were 'called' to it out of some deep personal commitment, and dieir qualifications were based upon tiieir possessionof'expert' andesotericknowledge. In addition, dieir knowledge base could be acquired only by a select few who underwent long and rigorous study. Their services dealt widi serious, often life or deadi matters, and dieywere remunerated by fees from clients. Communication between professionals and dieir clients was legally privileged so uiat courts oflaw could not require its disclosure. Most important, entrance to mese professions was controlled by professional peers, who set requirements for entry, training, and certification. Boards ofpeers also developed reviewprocesses to maintain standards and competence. 2 A further criterion of a true profession is that praxis3 relies upon underlying theory4 and the fundofwidelyacceptedpractice-basedknowledge generated by theory that is required to deal with the extensive variety ofpredictably unique problems and needs presented by those served. Teaching clearly deviates substantially from these conditions. The theory serving as the basis of any profession is not amatterofsimple speculation; it is rooted in research and theoretical principles-fundamentals that importantly include commonly recognized and accepted action ideals of the profession's ethical and other guiding philosophicalconsiderations. Uponsuchtheoretical bases, professional praxis generates ever-new praxial knowledge. Because ofthe particulars of the situatedness governing both the practitioner andthose served, praxis-based knowledge always takes idiosyncratic form for a particularpractitioner -but, importantly, within the general theoretical, ethical, and philosophical stance ofthe profession. As a result, there are no "standard results " for any practitioner or for the overall profession. Furthermore, there are no standard methods ;just "standards ofcare" rooted in the profession 's theoretical and ethical premises. Music educationhas evolvedno such shared action ideals concerning ends and so the issue of theory-guided practice or of a professional ethic remainsambiguous, evencontroversial.1 Without professionally based consensus on ends, no stable criteria exist for selecting means and evaluating results and, thus, no ethic of accountability can apply. As aconsequence, results areconsiderably unpredictable-and not infrequently negative-and the appropriateness and usefulness ofmuch what is taught and learned is regularly disputed. This is not at all to say or to argue that music education has historically brought about mainly negative results, or that individual music©Philosophy ofMusic Education Review 10, no. 2 (Fall 2002): 102-123. Thomas Regelski 103 teachers are never successful. It wouldbe wrongheaded not to acknowledge the existence ofmuch well-intentioned, hardworkby individual teachers who are both musically competent and 'naturals' in working with students. This paper addresses instead mainly structural weaknesses in the field of music education that result in it as a field falling far short of at least the general kinds of professionalism found in helping professions. The comparisons made here to helping professions are made only in a very general way. However, overall, the field ofmusic education fails to compare well with the most obvious traits of familiar professions. As shall be argued, judgments concerning successful practice in music education should depend in large part on criteria provided by theoretically substantiated auricular goals and ideals and by implied and explicit process criteria of both an ethical and practical nature.6 Lacking such criteria, the question or degree of teaching success remains vague. As a result music education fails to promote predictable and pragmatic "right results" that students, parents, and the public at large can easily recognize as the professional "value-added" to general education and society by music education and this creates the increasing need foradvocacyofschool music. Philosophy, Theory, and Professional Praxis Whetherornot teachingcan everfullymeet the sociological conditions ofbeing a true profession, it would profit from and... (shrink)

Known today mostly as an author of Romantic short stories and fairy tales for children, Prince Vladimir Odoyevskiy was a distinguished thinker of his time, philosopher and bibliophile. The scope of his interests includes also history of magic arts and alchemy, German Romanticism, Church music. An attempt to understand the peculiarity of eight specific modes used in chants of Russian Orthodox Church led him to his own musical theory based upon well-known writings by Zarlino, Leibniz, Euler, Prony. He (...) realized his theoretical ideas in an enharmonical piano with nineteen notes for every octave. His call for a different musical scale remained largely ignored in the nineteenth century, until the topic was raised anew by twentieth-century composers and musicians. (shrink)

Community-level legal and policy innovations or “experiments” can be important levers to improve health. States and localities are empowered through the 10th Amendment of the United States Constitution to use their police powers to protect the health and welfare of the public. Many legal and policy tools are available, including: the power to tax and spend; regulation; mandated education or disclosure of information, modifying the environment — whether built or natural ; and indirect regulation. These legal and policy interventions can (...) be targeted to specific needs at the community level and are often relatively low-cost, but high impact interventions. As every community is different, effective laws and policies will vary. This freedom allows states and localities to, as Justice Louis Brandeis argued, truly serve as “laboratories of democracy.”. (shrink)

In this essay, Timothy Justus reviews the book Brain and Music (2012) by Stefan Koelsch, first providing a sketch of the book’s contents, including examples of Koelsch’s empirical work from four core areas (1) musical syntax, (2) musical semantics, (3) music and action, and (4) music and emotion. Justus then proceeds to discuss the continuous nature of cognitive domains and the continuous nature of mental activity.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Otto Rudolph Ortmann, Music Philosophy, and Music EducationDavid J. GonzolWhat is music? What should we teach when we teach music? How should we? In the early twentieth century, these most foundational questions relating to music education were addressed by the highly regarded, though less well known, educator and researcher, Otto Rudolph Ortmann. In 1922, he published an article in which he outlined a (...) class='Hi'>theory of musical experience, developing aspects of the physics of sound, qualitative theory, and Gestalt psychology, prefiguring important ideas in music philosophy. Ortmann highly valued his theory, utilized it in other research throughout his career, and influenced others such as Carl Seashore. Few, however, seem to be aware of his work or its implications for music education.1The seminal 1922 article, "The Sensorial Basis of Music Appreciation," was written while Ortmann was teaching at the Peabody Conservatory of Music and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.2 While this article has received little attention, much of his other research has been widely and well received.3 "Papa Ortmann," well beloved of family and students, had a career Gerig characterized as "a wedding between Materia Medica and Frau Musica."4 A prolific [End Page 160] researcher, superb musician, and excellent teacher, he published articles on music theory (one of which was reprinted and extended in 1983), musicology, music reading, ear training, synesthesia, and jazz.5 His research on piano performance, particularly his two books,6 is regarded as definitive; it has been discussed in a thesis and four dissertations; some of it has been replicated. In Famous Pianists and Their Technique, Gerig devoted a chapter to Ortmann.7 Ortmann's theory of listening types, in effect a theory of music cognition,8 was accepted by Robert Neidlinger, Doreen Rao, and Bennett Reimer.9 In the 1992 Handbook of Research on Music Teaching and Learning, F. R. Wilson and F. L. Roehmann praised the significance of Ortmann's body of research as undiminished in importance in music education.10It may be that Ortmann's "Sensorial Basis"theory received little attention at the time because too few were interested in such theories or in the synthesizing of science and psychology or the touching on philosophy that he employed. Although he influenced Seashore, the philosophical issues he began to explore would be developed more strongly only decades later, by philosophers such as Monroe Beardsley, Peter Kivy, and Jerrold Levinson. It seems that Ortmann's theory not only prefigures some ideas in recent music philosophy, but supports them as well. If it does, then our increased understanding of music can provide a firmer basis for developing better music education-one of Ortmann's aims. In this article I will describe his theory, sketch how it aligns with subsequent research, and consider its value today. Ortmann attempted a comprehensive explanation of music's nature; as far as his explanation is accurate, that far it can help us understand music and in turn music education.Three "Attributes"At the turn of the 1900s, it was popular to refer to "attributes" of sound. Ortmann posited that all sensation, including sound, has three types of attributes. The primary attribute he termed extensity, by which he meant the breadth of the sensation that is perceived. Extensity has three forms, transtensity (frequency), intensity (strength), and protensity (duration). These can be perceived individually but also as sound's secondary attributes, chief of which is quality. Tertiary attributes of sound are made through association, either by (a) contiguity, linking a sound's quality with things experienced near in time to the sound, or by (b) similarity, associating the quality with sensations of like extensity (for example, the expressive brightness of a sound and a light). Ortmann believed that tertiary attributes form "the threshold of musical imagination, and imagination in turn, of musical enjoyment."11 Accordingly, he concluded that music could express many things, and that this is dependent on listeners, their individual histories, and their entire field of sensations. [End Page 161]The Primary Attribute of ExtensityIn the Renaissance, Benedetti and Galileo found that pitch was related to frequency, and in 1702, Sauveur was the first to state that overtones affect timbre. In 1863, Helmholtz... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 13.1 (2005) 37-75 [Access article in PDF] The Nature of Paradigms and Paradigm Shifts in Music Education Elvira Panaiotidi North Ossetian State Pedagogical Institute, Russia The advent of the praxial philosophy of music education in the mid-1990s and its systematic development in David Elliott's Music Matters: A New Philosophy of Music Education1 created an unprecedented situation in (...) class='Hi'>music education in North America. Having brought to an end the monopoly of one theoretical approach, that of music education as aesthetic education (MEAE), it challenged the music education community with a choice. While Elliott tried to convince music educators of the falsity of MEAE and of the advantages of his own conception, Bennett Reimer and his proponents defended their position. The polemic between "aestheticians" and "praxialists," represented by the exchange between Reimer and Elliott in the Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, 2 brought to light a methodological deficiency in music education theory, namely, its inability to provide tenacious theoretical footing which could help settle the dispute. How do changes in the theory and practice [End Page 37] of music education occur? What are the rational standards by which to judge theories? What is the nature and logic of a dynamic development in music education theory and practice? These and similar questions have remained largely unapproached by music educators.The present paper is an attempt to initiate a discussion on these issues by exposing one possible metatheoretical strategy. As the title suggests, the strategy I am going to employ is based on the concept of paradigm. This Greek term which was once used to describe Platonic ideas, nowadays broadly circulates in descriptions of transformative processes in nearly every domain of life: we hear about paradigm shifts in musicology, the job market and tax policy, genetics, and so on. It is usually used as a kind of unproblematic category with a precisely defined and commonly accepted meaning, so that no indication of the origin of its usage in a given context is provided. In most cases, however, it turns out that "paradigm shift" is equivalent to and stands for "change" of whatever type, scope, or depth and is preferred because it is a mode or perhaps because it sounds more pretentious. In contrast to this tendency, both "paradigm" and "paradigm shift" are taken here most seriously and their usage is intimately related to the tradition in philosophy of science established by Thomas S. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.3 This may appear dubious after we have been recently told that the impact of this book and the very concept of paradigm have "been largely, but not entirely, for the worse," namely, "to dull the critical sensibility of the academy" and "to kill the historicist impulse."4 "Kuhnification," it has been argued, is responsible for the suppression of free inquiry and bringing about "paradigmitis," a syndrome characterized by "a collective sense of historical amnesia and political inertia."5 Nonetheless, it is my contention that the paradigm approach per se is not dismissed by the criticism of Kuhn's conception and can be modified in such a way as to be made fruitful for structuring music education discourse and the explication of theory development in music education. To show how this is possible is the task before me.Underlying this project is the idea that theory development in music education can be adequately grasped and appraised in terms of more general units than specific theories which I shall call paradigms. That I am giving preference to this term and not choosing another from the group of providers of the conceptual framework that have been suggested throughout the history—"research tradition" (Laudan), "research programme"(Lakatos), "comprehensive cosmological point of view" (Feyerabend)—is that I find it more pertinent: it is neutral enough and allows for modifications which are necessary in view of the specific nature of music education discourse.In what follows, I will begin with an examination of Peter Abbs' account of paradigms and paradigm shifts in arts education. I... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 13.1 (2005) 37-75 [Access article in PDF] The Nature of Paradigms and Paradigm Shifts in Music Education Elvira Panaiotidi North Ossetian State Pedagogical Institute, Russia The advent of the praxial philosophy of music education in the mid-1990s and its systematic development in David Elliott's Music Matters: A New Philosophy of Music Education1 created an unprecedented situation in (...) class='Hi'>music education in North America. Having brought to an end the monopoly of one theoretical approach, that of music education as aesthetic education (MEAE), it challenged the music education community with a choice. While Elliott tried to convince music educators of the falsity of MEAE and of the advantages of his own conception, Bennett Reimer and his proponents defended their position. The polemic between "aestheticians" and "praxialists," represented by the exchange between Reimer and Elliott in the Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, 2 brought to light a methodological deficiency in music education theory, namely, its inability to provide tenacious theoretical footing which could help settle the dispute. How do changes in the theory and practice [End Page 37] of music education occur? What are the rational standards by which to judge theories? What is the nature and logic of a dynamic development in music education theory and practice? These and similar questions have remained largely unapproached by music educators.The present paper is an attempt to initiate a discussion on these issues by exposing one possible metatheoretical strategy. As the title suggests, the strategy I am going to employ is based on the concept of paradigm. This Greek term which was once used to describe Platonic ideas, nowadays broadly circulates in descriptions of transformative processes in nearly every domain of life: we hear about paradigm shifts in musicology, the job market and tax policy, genetics, and so on. It is usually used as a kind of unproblematic category with a precisely defined and commonly accepted meaning, so that no indication of the origin of its usage in a given context is provided. In most cases, however, it turns out that "paradigm shift" is equivalent to and stands for "change" of whatever type, scope, or depth and is preferred because it is a mode or perhaps because it sounds more pretentious. In contrast to this tendency, both "paradigm" and "paradigm shift" are taken here most seriously and their usage is intimately related to the tradition in philosophy of science established by Thomas S. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.3 This may appear dubious after we have been recently told that the impact of this book and the very concept of paradigm have "been largely, but not entirely, for the worse," namely, "to dull the critical sensibility of the academy" and "to kill the historicist impulse."4 "Kuhnification," it has been argued, is responsible for the suppression of free inquiry and bringing about "paradigmitis," a syndrome characterized by "a collective sense of historical amnesia and political inertia."5 Nonetheless, it is my contention that the paradigm approach per se is not dismissed by the criticism of Kuhn's conception and can be modified in such a way as to be made fruitful for structuring music education discourse and the explication of theory development in music education. To show how this is possible is the task before me.Underlying this project is the idea that theory development in music education can be adequately grasped and appraised in terms of more general units than specific theories which I shall call paradigms. That I am giving preference to this term and not choosing another from the group of providers of the conceptual framework that have been suggested throughout the history—"research tradition" (Laudan), "research programme"(Lakatos), "comprehensive cosmological point of view" (Feyerabend)—is that I find it more pertinent: it is neutral enough and allows for modifications which are necessary in view of the specific nature of music education discourse.In what follows, I will begin with an examination of Peter Abbs' account of paradigms and paradigm shifts in arts education. I... (shrink)

Flora Levin explores how and why music was so important to the ancient Greeks. She examines the distinctions that they drew between the theory of music as an art ruled by number and the theory wherein number is held to be ruled by the art of music. These perspectives generated more expansive theories, particularly the idea that the cosmos is a mirror-image of music's structural elements and, conversely, that music by virtue of its (...) cosmic elements - time, motion, and the continuum - is itself a mirror-image of the cosmos. These opposing perspectives gave rise to two opposing schools of thought, the Pythagorean and the Aristoxenian. Levin argues that the clash between these two schools could never be reconciled. Her book shows how the Greeks' appreciation of the profundity of music's interconnections with philosophy, mathematics, and logic led to groundbreaking intellectual achievements that no civilisation has ever matched. (shrink)

A new theory of aesthetics and music, grounded in the collision between language and the body. In this book, Tim Hodgkinson proposes a theory of aesthetics and music grounded in the boundary between nature and culture within the human being. His analysis discards the conventional idea of the human being as an integrated whole in favor of a rich and complex field in which incompatible kinds of information—biological and cultural—collide. It is only when we acknowledge (...) the clash of body and language within human identity that we can understand how art brings forth the special form of subjectivity potentially present in aesthetic experiences. As a young musician, Hodgkinson realized that music was, in some mysterious way, “of itself”—not isolated from life, but not entirely continuous with it, either. Drawing on his experiences as a musician, composer, and anthropologist, Hodgkinson shows how when we listen to music a new subjectivity comes to life in ourselves. The normal mode of agency is suspended, and the subjectivity inscribed in the music comes toward us as a formative “other” to engage with. But this is not our reproduction of the composer's own subjectivation; when we perform our listening of the music, we are sharing the formative risks taken by its maker. To examine this in practice, Hodgkinson looks at the work of three composers who have each claimed to stimulate a new way of listening: Pierre Schaeffer, John Cage, and Helmut Lachenmann. (shrink)

Leonard B. Meyer has proposed that when musical tendencies or expectations are inhibited by musical ambiguity or the unexpected, those inhibitions and their subsequent resolutions are likely to be provocative or engaging. Music, Tendencies and Inhibitions will explore the relevance of this theory to music and various other disciplines, and to psychological and natural processes. Each chapter consists of two parts: a presentation and consideration of an aspect of Meyer's theory, and a more associative or rhapsodic (...) section of "Reflections" on this aspect. The book will focus on Meyer's aesthetic rather than his music-theoretical proclivities, and is intended for academics and students in various fields as well as educated non-academics. The music scene is fluctuating, Meyer suggests, in that new and original styles or techniques are continuously emerging or developing on a small scale; it is static in that many of these developments seem unrelated, and are not likely to be grasped or progress as a whole. It will be posited that this theory foreshadowed and reflects important ideologies of contemporary culture, including postmodernism. (shrink)

Summary I outline an approach to the phenomenology of improvised music which takes typification and the development of multi‐ordered phenomenological structures as central. My approach here is firmly in line with classical Husserlian phenomenology, taking the discussion of types in Experience and Judgment (Husserl, 1973) and Brudzińska (2015) as guide. I provide a phenomenological analysis of musical types as they are found in improvisational contexts, focusing on jazz in the 20th century. Styles are higher‐order musical types. Musical types are (...) structures that are temporally “thick,” relying on sedimented typification and knowledge, driving expectations as definitional. In most forms of music (including improvised music), musical styles involve maintaining a balance between confirming expectations and flouting expectations. I show that improvised music has a phenomenal structure which is enriched by the communicative and “ real‐time” nature of improvised music. Improvised music can be seen as an exploration of a possibility space rendered by the juxtaposition of the musical types afforded by a performance environment (instrumentation, harmonic and melodic traditions, etc.). I show that improvisation in music is a multi‐vectoral form of communication. The communication is founded in what Dieter Lohmar calls “non‐linguistic thinking.” The expression is constituted in the results of active and synthesis. The culmination of improvisational exploration of possibility spaces is the precisification and enrichment of styles‐as‐types, while in some cases developing new styles in the process. (shrink)

Aesthetics: Music and ideas. Formalism. Perception, meaning, and the subject matter of art. The technical factor in art. The aesthetic function of language. The problem of belief. On defining metaphor.--Criticism: Cordelia absent. A poem by Frost and some principles of criticism. Critical communication. "Pretentious" as an aesthetic predicate. Superlatives. Some problems of interpretation.--Ethics and moral psychology: Natural pride and natural shame. Deontology and the ethics of lying. Ethical and aesthetic criticism.--Appendices.--A. Analytical philosophy and the study of art.--B. Notebooks and (...) letters. (shrink)

According to certain models of the musical work-performance relationship, musical works persist through time. Dodd and Thomasson argue that perdurantist accounts of musical persistence—according to which musical works persist by having temporal parts at every time they exist—are untenable, and Tillman argues that musical endurantism—according to which persisting works are wholly present at each time they exist—avoids Dodd’s worries. In this paper, I argue that both Dodd’s and Thomasson’s arguments—and Tillman’s response—rely on assumptions linking theories of persistence to common-sense views (...) about musical works and, moreover, that these assumptions are unwarranted. As a result, only an attitude of neutrality towards questions about the nature of musical persistence is warranted. (shrink)

“Each and every important work of art leaves traces behind in its material and technique,” Theodor W. Adorno postulates in Aesthetic Theory, as he describes the way a composition is both a result of its own time and reacts critically to the time it belongs to. This quote demonstrates a reversal: rather than merely an expression or an outcome of an artist’s idea, art itself is regarded as a source for change. The work may come to affect its own (...) tools and materials and the social space around it. The primary question of this article is: what is it in musical composition that leaves the traces? This article attempts to move the focus away from discussion of finished works, and instead, depict how composition as a discipline engages in dialogue with its handcraft, historicity, and surrounding social world. I call this aspect of composition that possesses critical potential a lingering reflection. Slow and heteronomous in its nature, it presents a counterpoint to ideas that seem solid, are easily accessible and unquestioned. (shrink)

At the beginning of his career in the 1920s, Adorno sketched a plan to write a major work on the theory of musical reproduction, a task he returned to time and again throughout his career but never completed. The choice of the word reproduction as opposed to interpretation indicates a primary supposition: that there is a clearly defined musical text whose precision exceeds what is visible on the page, and that the performer has the responsibility to reproduce it as (...) accurately as possible, beyond simply playing what is written. This task, according to Adorno, requires a detailed understanding of all musical parameters in their historical context, and his reflections upon this task lead to a fundamental study of the nature of notation and musical sense. In the various notes and texts brought together in Towards a Theory of Musical Reproduction, one finds Adorno constantly circling around an irresolvable paradox: interpretation can only fail the work, yet only through it can musics true essence be captured. While he at times seems more definite in his pronouncement of a musical scores absolute value just as a book is read silently, not aloud his discourse repeatedly displays his inability to cling to that belief. It is this quality of uncertainty in his reflections that truly indicates the scope of the discourse and its continuing relevance to musical thought and practice today. (shrink)

Philosophers of music (and also music theorists) have recognized for a long time that research in the sciences, especially psychology, might have import for their own work. (Langer 1941 and Meyer 1956 are good examples.) However, while scientists had been interested in music as a subject of research (e.g., Helmholtz 1912, Seashore 1938), the discipline known as psychology of music, or more broadly cognitive science of music, came into its own only around 1980 with the (...) publication of several landmark works. Among the most important of these were The Psychol- ogy of Music (1980), a collection of papers edited by the psychologist Diana Deutsch, and A Generative Theory of Tonal Music (1983) by music theorist and composer Fred Lerdahl and linguist Ray Jackendoff. These works and others made possible the first attempts to apply scientific research to philosophical issues concerning music (e.g., Raffman 1993, DeBellis 1995). Since the 1980’s, of course, a great deal of research has been done in cognitive science, philosophy, and music. For philosophers, there are perhaps three topics with respect to which findings in the cognitive sciences are most likely to be germane—the nature of musical understanding, the role of emotions or feelings in music, and the evaluation of musical works. This brief overview will describe some of the scientific research that has been done on these topics, and then indicate how it might be philosophically significant. (shrink)

Guy Rohrbaugh and Allan Hazlett have provided two arguments against the thesis that musical works are types. In short, they assume that, according to our modal talk and intuitions, musical works are modally flexible entities; since types are modally inflexible entities, musical works are not types. I argue that Rohrbaugh’s and Hazlett’s arguments fail and that the type/token theorist can preserve the truth of our modal claims and intuitions even if types are modally inflexible entities. First, I consider two alternatives (...) for the type/token theorist proposed in recent literature about the topic: the created types’ solution and the created abstract objects’ solution. I argue that none of them is attractive for the type/token theorist because they do not preserve the theoretical advantages of type/token theories to explain musical works’ repeatable nature. Then, I focus on the arguments’ common premise that musical works are modally flexible entities. A deeper analysis of musical practice will show that this premise is not true: our modal claims do not imply that musical works could have had different intrinsic but, instead, extrinsic properties. Finally, I show how the nested types theory may offer a satisfactory explanation of this fact and how it captures the truth of our modal talk about musical works. (shrink)

This thesis is directed towards a philosophy of music by attention to conceptions and perceptions of space. I focus on melody and harmony, and do not emphasise rhythm, which, as far as I can tell, concerns time rather than space. I seek a metaphysical account of Western Classical music in the diatonic tradition. More specifically, my interest is in wordless, untitled music, often called 'absolute' music. My aim is to elucidate a spatial approach to the world (...) combined with a curiosity about the nature of the Pythagorean intervals. Thus one question I seek to answer is: What do the Pythagorean intervals import to music? In their original formulation by Pythagoras, and further, by Plato, their import seemed mystical and analogous to a 'harmony of the spheres.' In this spatial approach, the Pythagorean intervals are indicative of infinite depth. The faculty of hearing alone does not ordinarily spatially locate sources. Hearing is ordinarily combined with sight in order to spatially locate a sound. Yet we talk about music as if it were spatially located, that is, as if it were a visible object with a surface and themes or 'objects'. I explore the faculty of vision and consider in what ways the processes of vision might be similar to and distinct from audition. My source for this approach is David Marr's book 'Vision' and his theory of the 2 1/2-dimensional sketch. In a medium in which there is no spatial location, it is important to situate the listener. Newton solved the problem of location by demonstrating the effects of gravity. P. F. Strawson claims that an analogy of distance is required in hearing to situate the listener, that is, a sense of nearer to and further from a source or object that permits a perception of distance. I claim that in music, the key signature and the scalar relations of musical themes provide this analogy of distance. The works of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, and Newton are studied for their accounts of motion, bodies, and space. From these metaphysicians can be gleaned elements of music that include form, motion, timbre, dynamics, and attraction. By incorporating motion, I aim to show that although we may not know the true nature of space, we can learn from hearing music that space is perceptible in other than three dimensions. (shrink)

Articulates an imaginationist solution to the question of how purely instrumental music can be perceived by a listener as having emotional content. Both musicians and laypersons can perceive purely instrumental music without words or an associated story or program as expressing emotions such as happiness and sadness. But how? In this book, Saam Trivedi discusses and critiques the leading philosophical approaches to this question, including formalism, metaphorism, expression theories, arousalism, resemblance theories, and persona theories. Finding these to be (...) inadequate, he advocates an “imaginationist” solution, by which absolute music is not really or literally sad but is only imagined to be so in a variety of ways. In particular, he argues that we as listeners animate the music ourselves, imaginatively projecting life and mental states onto it. Bolstering his argument with empirical data from studies in neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science, Trivedi also addresses and explores larger philosophical questions such as the nature of emotions, metaphors, and imagination. Saam Trivedi is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Brooklyn College, City University of New York. (shrink)

The ancient Greeks already used to give ethnic names to their different scales, and observations on differences in music of the various nations always raised the interest of musicians and philosophers. Yet, it was only in the late nineteenth century that “comparative musicology” became an institutional science. An important role in this process was played by Carl Stumpf, a former pupil of Brentano’s who pioneered these researches in Berlin. Stumpf founded the Phonogrammarchiv to collect recordings of folk and extra-European (...) music and a dedicated journal, the Sammelbände für vergleichende Musikwissenschaft. Gifted in the field of science no less than in that of musicology, Stumpf developed an empirically-oriented approach to phenomenology, deeply divergent from Husserl’s and highly influential over the Berlin school of Gestalt psychology. A self-declared “outsider” among armchair philosophers, Stumpf experimentally investigated the perception of sounds and the origins of musical consonance. Developing the physiological studies of Ernst Weber on the sense of touch, Stumpf discovered that two sensations of tone, given at the same time, tend to mix in a certain degree. Musical consonance – he claimed – lays in this level of “tonal fusion”, not in the allegedly “natural” series of the harmonic partials of a vibrating chord, as suggested by the naturalists of all times from Pythagoras to Stumpf’s great contemporary Hermann Helmholtz. Accordingly, no musical system can claim for preponderance over the others: Stumpf’s researches in comparative musicology served to corroborate his theses on “tonal fusion” and the psychological foundations of consonance. Although Stumpf later revised and finally abandoned this theory, its permanent value lays in its opposition to dominant naturalistic approaches. The commitment for comparative musicology at the Berlin School is then no concession to a positivistic fashion for exoticism. The fundamentally Eurocentric stance of naturalistic theories of music is also fiercely contrasted by Stumpf’s pupil Erich Hornbostel, who suggests that music ought to be considered as culture, rather than as nature, and focuses attention on the eventually melting human cultures. The Berlin school flourished until the Nazis forced most of its exponents to emigration and, for tragically obvious reasons, heavily discouraged researches on these topics. (shrink)

Wittgenstein's contribution to musical aesthetics is not often discussed, which is surprising, given his rare musicality and musical connections. His distinctive achievement is to have focused on the question of musical understanding, and to have connected this with two other philosophical problems: the nature of the first-person case, and the understanding of facial expressions. Wittgenstein's third-person approach to philosophical psychology leads him to emphasize the role of performance in the understanding of music, and also to introduce an ‘intransitive’ (...) concept of expression. At times Wittgenstein seems to be arguing for an entirely non-relational account of musical meaning; however, a proper analysis of the first-person case shows that his theory of musical understanding might allow that, at some level, you understand a piece of music only if you imaginatively grasp the state of mind expressed by it. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Democracy and Music Education: Liberalism, Ethics, and the Politics of PracticeHeidi WesterlundPaul G. Woodford, Democracy and Music Education: Liberalism, Ethics, and the Politics of Practice ( Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2005)Paul G. Woodford's Democracy and Music Education needs to be warmly welcomed in the field of philosophy of music education. It contributes to the discussion centering on ethics and music education—a discussion that (...) after multiculturalism, pluralism, praxialism, and other recent "isms" still awaits its appearance in a stronger sense. Woodford writes that the aim of the book is to enhance democratic ends by inviting music educators to contribute "to wider intellectual and political conversations about the nature and significance of music in our lives and those of our children."1Woodford borrows ideas from many thinkers creating an interesting synthesis and lines of thought throughout the book. His main resource in developing a liberalist music education is, however, along the ideas of the American pragmatist and educational philosopher, John Dewey. Woodford's choice is well thought out. Dewey deserves to be redeemed and recognized in music education, not the least because of various distorted interpretations of his views that have commonly been accepted in the profession in the past. Woodford argues that the music appreciation movement, which aimed at developing good musical taste equally in all children, has not in any particular way been a Deweyan democratic movement. Music educators have not acknowledged their role as agents in the [End Page 235] transformation of school and society. Instead, he states, they have continued to subscribe to the older aesthetic and utilitarian rationales and yet neither approach prepares students "to question and challenge authority and thereby to transform musical society."2It is noteworthy that Woodford does not elaborate on Dewey's central concept, experience, but unexpectedly draws upon concepts such as abstract reason or the autonomous individual to reconstruct music education. Critical conversation becomes celebrated against performance-oriented music education. The book leaves open the discussion between utilitarian and aesthetic rationales and carefully avoids Dewey's notion of the aesthetic and experimentation, which could have brought new angles in understanding his notion of democracy and its relation to the social and musical.3 Woodford tries to maintain a middle ground in the North American philosophical battlefield of music education stating that music educators "should listen more closely to one another while avoiding extremes."4 His critique targets critical theorists, radical feminist writers, and modernist as well as postmodernist ideas, while Woodford himself seeks a middle way between laissez-faire and elitist or autocratic concepts of music education.As a whole, Woodford's conceptual toolkit for promoting ethical aspects in music education are less akin to Dewey's thoughts and more to the Greek philosophers and their notions of virtues. Woodford writes, "democracy depends on the existence of good faith and generosity of spirit, of character and love for one's fellow men and women."5 These virtues are "the glue that can bind us together as society."6 How is this achieved in music education? Teaching love becomes a practical problem: explaining love requires it to be modelled and experienced, Woodford writes. However, he leaves this cornerstone of his conceptual scheme to rest on the notion of intellectual conversation.Allow me to explain briefly in what way Dewey's philosophical project differs from the Greek philosophical ethos and why abstract reason and intellectual conversation are not central concepts in Dewey's pragmatism (this does not mean that they cannot be celebrated as Woodford has done). For Dewey, the virtue of love signifies devotion, interest, and courage since genuine interest challenges us to overcome the obstacles that stand in the way.7 Interest and devotion are not just attitudes or intellectual modes in the sense of mental states, but linked to doings and active transactions with and in the environment. Interest is co-extensive with action and devotion with dedication to shared projects. This devotion to shared doings and their significance is the socially inclusive ethical side that Dewey brought to the individualistic humanistic theory of self-realization and to the theory of experience. The vision of humanistic self-realization, as has been presented in... (shrink)

In _Earworm and Event_ Eldritch Priest questions the nature of the imagination in contemporary culture through the phenomenon of the earworm: those reveries that hijack our attention, the shivers that run down our spines, and the songs that stick in our heads. Through a series of meditations on music, animal mentality, abstraction, and metaphor, Priest uses the earworm and the states of daydreaming, mind-wandering, and delusion it can produce to outline how music is something that is felt (...) as thought rather than listened to. Priest presents _Earworm and Event_ as a tête-bêche—two books bound together with each end meeting in the middle. Where _Earworm _theorizes the entanglement of thought and feeling, _Event _performs it. Throughout, Priest conceptualizes the earworm as an event that offers insight into not only the way human brains process musical experiences, but how abstractions and the imagination play key roles in the composition and expression of our contemporary social environments and more-than-human milieus. Unconventional and ambitious, _Earworm and Event_ offers new ways to interrogate the convergence of thought, sound, and affect. (shrink)

Everyone, according to W.A. Mathieu, is musical by nature--it goes right along with being human. And if you don't believe it, this book will convince you. In a series of interrelated short essays, Mathieu takes the reader on a journey through ordinary experiences to open our ears to the rich variety of music that surrounds us but that we are trained to ignore; such as the variety of pitches produced by different objects, like glassware, furniture, drums--anything you can (...) tap; or sounds that hover on the border of music, like laughter, the clinking of glasses in a toast, or the unintentional falsetto produced by yawning. Along the way the author teaches aspects of music theory that nonmusicians might ordinarily shy away from. He reveals the way of music to be a profoundly spiritual path--one that is everyone's birthright. (shrink)

Musical elements in the structure of G. MacDonald’s Phantastes and Lilith in the context of the theory of intermediality are studied. The following musical elements are analyzed: motif of fairy world’s music, images of music of nature, musical description of characters’ voices, insertions of songs, interpretation of music as an art. These musical elements act as a characterization of topoi, landscape, characters, technique of stylistic imitation and means of rhythmic organization of narration, expression of author’s (...) point of view. The paper concludes that music in G. MacDonald’s fairy romances is represented by means of intermedial imitation and intermedial thematization used for creation of full of sound fairy world and expression of Romantic view on music essence. (shrink)

The subject of musical emotions has emerged only recently as a major area of research. While much work in this area offers fascinating insights to musicological research, assumptions about the nature of emotional experience seem to remain committed to appraisal, representations, and a rule-based or information-processing model of cognition. Over the past three decades alternative ‘embodied’ and ‘enactive’ models of mind have challenged this approach by emphasising the self-organising aspects of cognition, often describing it as an ongoing process of (...) dynamic interactivity between an organism and its environment. More recently, this perspective has been applied to the study of emotion in general, opening up interesting new possibilities for theory and research. This new approach, however, has received rather limited attention in musical contexts. With this in mind, we critically review the history of music and emotion studies, arguing that many existing theories offer only limited views of what musical-emotional experience entails. We then attempt to provide preliminary grounding for an alternative perspective on music and emotion based on the enactive/dynamic systems approach to the study of mind. (shrink)

Criticizing some psychological approaches that speak in too general terms about both music and religion, this article turns to a precise empirical observation and asks what psychology might possibly contribute to its understanding, after first necessarily questioning what terms such as ‘religion’, ‘religious music’, ‘religious experience’ encompass. Given the nature of the leading question, a cultural–psychological approach is chosen. After refuting a number of commonly heard assertions, and drawing on a number of psychological theories, the article then (...) discusses several empirical observations and argues that contemporary psychology has indeed achieved some progress in dealing with classical questions. (shrink)

Summary In this contribution, I discuss the perceptual potential of certain genres of experimental and contemporary music, commonly grouped under the label “sound-based music”. The sonic patterns typical of this music are mostly associated, during listening, with visual and tactile sensory qualities and can evoke mental representations as shapes in motion. These are the result of physical-acoustic energies organized according to a perceptual grammar whose organization follows a series of Gestalt and kinaesthetic principles. The paper explores the (...) nature of the relationship between sound patterns of sound-based music and their mental images. Based on morphodynamic theory, it is proposed the emergence of cognitive image schemas, which are at the centre of this relationship. The image schemas depict the forces and tensions of our experience of the world (e.g., figure-background, near-far, superimposition, compulsion, blockage), as being the cognitive and experiential response to the incoming sound patterns. The sense of this music activates precisely the basic structures of sensorimotor experience by which we encounter a world that we can understand and act within, leading to a rich series of high-level associations and responses. (shrink)

Around the middle of the eighteenth century, the leading figures of the French Enlightenment engaged in a philosophical debate about the nature of music. The principal participants-Rousseau, Diderot, and d'Alembert-were responding to the views of the composer-theorist Jean-Philippe Rameau, who was both a participant and increasingly a subject of controversy. The discussion centered upon three different events occurring roughly simultaneously. The first was Rameau's formulation of the principle of the fundamental bass, which explained the structure of chords and (...) their progression. The second was the writing of the Encyclopédie, edited by Diderot and d'Alembert, with articles on music by Rousseau. The third was the "Querelle des Bouffons," over the relative merits of Italian comic opera and French tragic opera. The philosophes, in the typical manner of Enlightenment thinkers, were able to move freely from the broad issues of philosophy and criticism, to the more technical questions of music theory, considering music as both art and science. Their dialogue was one of extraordinary depth and richness and dealt with some of the most fundamental issues of the French Enlightenment. In the newly revised edition of Music and the French Enlightenment, Cynthia Verba updates this fascinating story with the prolific scholarship that has emerged since the book was first published. Stressing the importance of seeing the philosophes' writings in context of a dynamic dialogue, Verba carefully reconstructs the chain of arguments and rebuttals across which Rousseau, D'Alembert, and Diderot formulated their own evolving positions. A section of key passages in translation presents several texts in English for the first time, recapturing the tenor and tone of the dialogue at hand. In a new epilogue, Verba discusses important trends in new scholarship, tracing how scholars continue to grapple with many of the same fundamental oppositions and competing ideas that were debated by the philosophes in the French Enlightenment. (shrink)

This dissertation defends the place of representation in music. Music’s status as a representational art has been hotly debated since the War of the Romantics, which pitted the Weimar progressives (Liszt, Wagner, &co.) against the Leipzig conservatives (the Schumanns, Brahms, &co.) in an intellectual struggle for what each side took to be the very future of music as an art. I side with the progressives, and argue that music can be and often is a representational medium. (...) Correspondence (or resemblance) theories of representation, such as the one I offer, have been much maligned in philosophy since the 1960s. Most theories assimilate representation under “meaning,” which has usually been thought to belong primarily to language. As a result, representational content has been taken to be purely conventional in the way that sentential meaning is. People want to know what music “means,” and these theories interpret this as “what does it refer to?” or “what propositions does it express?” I argue that propositional communication is only one (small) part of the issue. Once we overcome the bias of conceiving of musical works as essentially linguistic items, speech acts (performed) or sentence tokens (written), we can begin to take music on its own terms to discover how it represents—one way in which it “means.” The first step is to “naturalize” music’s representational content. Influenced by recent discussions in the philosophies of mind and science, I argue in Chapter 1 that composers represent extra-musical objects, events, and states of affairs through their works by exploiting antecedent relations (such as similarities in pitch, timbre, and structure) in order to secure reference to them. In Chapter 2, I survey and respond to the main challenges that those skeptical of music’s representational possibilities would raise against my theory of musical representation. In Chapter 3, I explore a number of ways through which music has been claimed to represent in order to show how my theory accounts for these diverse phenomena better than its conventionalist rivals, both in terms of the metaphysics and the epistemology. Chapter 4 extends this discussion by offering an account of how we perceive, understand, appreciate, and interpret sophisticated musical representations. I conclude by teasing out some of my theory’s implications and suggesting areas for further research. (shrink)

Peculiar Attunements places the recent turn to affect into conversation with a parallel movement in European music theory of the eighteenth century. During that time the affects--or passions, as they were also called--formed a vital component of a mimetic model of the arts. Eighteenth-century critics held that artworks imitated or copied the natural world in order to produce copies of the affects in their beholders. But music caused a problem for such theories, since it wasn't apparent that (...) musical tones could imitate anything with any dependability, beyond the rare thunderclap or birdcall. Struggling to articulate how it was that music managed to move its auditors without imitation, certain theorists developed a new affect theory crafted especially for music, postulating that music's physical materiality as sound vibrated the nerves of listeners and attuned them to the affects through sympathetic resonance. This was a theory of affective attunement that bypassed the entire structure of representation, offering a non-discursive, corporeal alternative. It is a pendant to contemporary theories of affect, and one from which they have much to learn. Inflecting our current intellectual moment through eighteenth-century music theory and aesthetics, this book offers a reassessment of affect theory's common systems and processes. It offers a new way of thinking through affect dialectically, drawing attention to patterns and problems in affect theory that we have been given to repeating. Finally, taking a cue from eighteenth-century theory, it gives renewed attention to the objects that generate affects in subjects. (shrink)

From climate change to fossil fuel dependency, from the uneven effects of natural disasters to the loss of biodiversity: complex socio-environmental problems indicate the urgency for cross-disciplinary research into the ways in which the social, the natural and the technological are ever more entangled. This ground breaking text moves between environmental sociology and environmental geography, political and social ecology and critical design studies to provide a definitive mapping of the state of environmental social theory in the age of the (...) anthropocene. Environments, Natures and Social Theory provokes dialogue and confrontation between critical political economists, actor network theorists, neo-Malthusians and environmental justice advocates. It maps out the new environmental politics of hybridity moving from hybrid neo-liberals to end times ecologists, from post environmentalists to cyborg eco-socialists. White, Rudy and Gareau insist on the necessity of a critical but optimistic hybrid politics, arguing that a more just, egalitarian, democratic and sustainable anthropocene is within our grasp. This will only be brought into being, however, by reclaiming, celebrating and channeling the reconstructive potential of entangled hybrid humans as inventive hominids, creative gardeners, critical publics and political agents. Written in an accessible style, Environments, Natures and Social Theory is an essential resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students across the social sciences. (shrink)