Philosophy of music
Philosophy of music is the study of "fundamental questions about the nature and value of music and our experience of it".[1] The philosophical study of music has many connections with philosophical questions in metaphysics and aesthetics. The expression was born in the 19th century and has been used especially as the name of a discipline since the 1980s.[2]
Some basic questions in the philosophy of music are:
- What is the necessary and sufficient conditionsfor classifying something as music?)
- What is the relationship between music and mind?
- What is the relationship between music and language?
- What does music history reveal to us about the world?
- What is the connection between music and emotions? (in the 19th century a debate began over whether purely instrumental music could convey emotions and depict imaginary scenes)
- What is meaning in relation to music?
Contributions to music philosophy have been made by
Philosophical issues
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Definition of music
"Explications of the concept of music usually begin with the idea that music is organized sound. They go on to note that this characterization is too broad, since there are many examples of organized sound that are not music, such as human speech, and the sounds non-human animals and machines make."
However, noise music may consist mainly of noise. Musique concrète often consists only of sound samples of non-musical nature, sometimes in random juxtaposition. Ambient music may consist of recordings of wildlife or nature. The arrival of these avant-garde forms of music in the 20th century have been a major challenge to traditional views of music as being based around melodies and rhythms, leading to calls for broader characterizations.[citation needed]
Absolute music vs program music
There was intense debate over "absolute music" vs. "program music" during the late romantic era in the late 19th century. Advocates of the "absolute music" perspective argued that instrumental music does not convey emotions or images to the listener, but claimed that music is not explicitly "about" anything and that it is non-representational.[3] The idea of absolute music developed at the end of the 18th century in the writings of authors of early German Romanticism, such as Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder, Ludwig Tieck and E. T. A. Hoffmann.[3][4]
Adherents of the "
Other Romantic philosophers and proponents of absolute music, such as
Meaning and purpose
In his 1997 book How the Mind Works, Steven Pinker dubbed music "auditory cheesecake",[6] a phrase that in the years since has served as a challenge to the musicologists and psychologists who believe otherwise.[7] Among those to note this stir was Philip Ball in his book The Music Instinct where he noted that music seems to reach to the very core of what it means to be human: "There are cultures in the world where to say 'I'm not musical' would be meaningless," Ball writes, "akin to saying 'I'm not alive'."[8][page needed] In a filmed debate, Ball suggests that music might get its emotive power through its ability to mimic people and perhaps its ability to entice us lies in music's ability to set up an expectation and then violate it.[9]
Aesthetics of music
In the pre-modern tradition, the aesthetics of music or musical aesthetics explored the mathematical and cosmological dimensions of rhythmic and harmonic organization. In the eighteenth century, focus shifted to the experience of hearing music, and thus to questions about its beauty and human enjoyment (
Aesthetics is a sub-discipline of philosophy. In the 20th century, important contributions were made by
There has been a strong tendency in the aesthetics of music to emphasize the paramount importance of compositional structure; however, other issues concerning the aesthetics of music include
It is often thought that music has the ability to affect our
See also
Notes
- ^ a b Andrew Kania, "The Philosophy of Music", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spring 2014 edition, edited by Edward N. Zalta.
- ^ Daniel Martín Sáez, "The Expression »Philosophy of Music«. A Brief History and Some Philosophical Considerations", International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, vol. 52, nº 2 (December 2021), pp. 203-220.
- ^ ISBN 0-684-31377-4, vol.1, p. 5
- ^ Dahlhaus, Carl (1991). The Idea of Absolute Music. University of Chicago Press. p. 18.
- ^ "Nietzsche and Music". Archived from the original on 17 July 2011. Retrieved 17 May 2011.
- ^ Pinker 1997, p. 524.
- ^ Bennett, Drake (2006-09-03). "Survival of the harmonious". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 2008-03-15.
- ISBN 0199896429.
- ^ "Music's Mystery". The Institute of Art and Ideas. Retrieved 19 November 2013.
- ISBN 9780521399241. "Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is acknowledged as one of the supreme masterpieces of the Western tradition. More than any other musical work it has become an international symbol of unity and affirmation."
References
- ISBN 978-0-393-04535-2.
Further reading
- Adorno, Theodor W. 1976. Introduction to the Sociology of Music, translated by E.B. Ashton. A Continuum Book. New York: Seabury Press. ISBN 0816492662.
- Adorno, Theodor W. 1981. In Search of Wagner, translated by Rodney Livingstone. [London]: NLB. ISBN 0860910377.
- Adorno, Theodor W. 1992. Quasi una Fantasia: Essays on Modern Music, translated by Rodney Livingstone. Verso Classics. London and New York: Verso. ISBN 1859841597(pbk).
- Adorno, Theodor W. 1998. Beethoven: The Philosophy of Music: Fragments and Texts, edited by Rolf Tiedemann; translated by Edmund Jephcott. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0804735158.
- Adorno, Theodor W. 1999. Sound Figures, translated by Rodney Livingstone. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0804735581(pbk).
- Adorno, Theodor W. 2001. The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture, edited and with an introduction by J. M. Bernstein. Routledge Classics. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415253802(pbk).
- Adorno, Theodor W. 2002. Essays on Music, selected, with introduction, commentary, and notes by Richard Leppert; new translations by Susan H. Gillespie. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0520231597.
- Adorno, Theodor W. 2006. Philosophy of New Music, translated by Robert Hullot-Kentor. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0816636664.
- Adorno, Theodor W. 2009. Night Music: Essays on Music 1928–1962, edited by Rolf Tiedemann; translated by Wieland Hoban. London and New York: Seagull Books. ISBN 1906497214.
- Arena, Leonardo V., La durata infinita del non suono, Mimesis, Milan 2013. ISBN 978-88-575-1138-2
- Barzun, Jacques. 1982. Critical Questions on Music and Letters, Culture and Biography, 1940–1980, selected, edited, and introduced by Bea Friedland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-03863-7.
- Beardsley, Monroe C. 1958. Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism. New York, Harcourt, Brace.
- Beardsley, Monroe C., and Herbert M. Schueller (eds.). 1967. Aesthetic Inquiry: Essays on Art Criticism and the Philosophy of Art. Belmont, Calif.: Dickenson Pub. Co.
- Bloch, Ernst. 1985. Essays on the Philosophy of Music, translated by Peter Palmer, with an introduction by David Drew. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521312132(pbk).
- Bonds, Mark Evan. 2014. Absolute Music: The History of an Idea. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-934363-8.
- Budd, Malcolm. 1985. Music and the Emotions: The Philosophical Theories. International Library of Philosophy. London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul. ISBN 0415087791(pbk).
- Budd, Malcolm. "Music and the Expression of Emotion", Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Autumn, 1989), pp. 19–29.
- Chadwick, Henry. 1981. Boethius, the Consolations of Music, Logic, Theology, and Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198265492(pbk.)
- Clifton, Thomas. 1983. Music as Heard: A Study in Applied Phenomenology. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0300020910.
- Fronzi, Giacomo. 2017. Philosophical Considerations on Contemporary Music: Sounding Constellations. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
- Deleuze, Gilles. 1980. A Thousand Plateaus. London / Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
- Goehr, Lydia. 'The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works. An Essay in the Philosophy of Music' Oxford, 1992/2007.
- Kivy, P. Introduction to the Philosophy of Music, Hackett Publishing, 1989.
- Langer, Susanne K. 1957. Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art, third edition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674665031.
- Lippman, Edward A. 1992. A History of Western Musical Aesthetics. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0803279515(pbk).
- Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. 1967. The Birth of Tragedy, and The Case of Wagner, translated, with commentary, by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0394703693(pbk).
- Rowell, Lewis Eugene. 1983. Thinking about Music: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Music. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 0870233866.
- Scruton, Roger. The Aesthetics of Music, Oxford University Press, 1997.
- Shehadi, Fadlou (1995). Philosophies of Music in Medieval Islam. Leiden: ISBN 978-90-04-24721-5.
External links
- Media related to Philosophy of music at Wikimedia Commons
- Andrew Kania. "The Philosophy of Music". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Matteo Ravasio. "History of Western Philosophy of Music: Antiquity to 1800". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Matteo Ravasio. "History of Western Philosophy of Music: since 1800". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Matteo Ravasio, Analytic Perspectives in the Philosophy of Musice in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy