philosophy of aesthetics Archives

Here you’ll find a range of contemporary philosophical perspectives in relation to how imagination may play a role in our apprehension of musical works.

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As a musician, I know from where I am playing

What I do not know is

From where are you listening?

Michael Nyman

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Framework

Philosophy is generally considered to be the use of logic and reason in understanding such things as the nature of the world and existence. The word philosophy comes from Middle English: from the Old French philosophie, via Latin from Greek philosophia, the love of wisdom.

There are many kinds of philosophy, but here we are concerned with only two. Why? Because a philosophy of music and its collection of epistemic roots, logic and discourse modalities is intimately entwined with a philosophy of aesthetics which has its own accumulation of go to epistemic roots, logic and discourse conventions.

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Knowledge Domains

This article introduces the work of a recognised scholar Prof. James O. Young (University of Victoria, Canada) who specialises in the academic study at the intersection of two research fields: Philosophy of Music and Philosophy of Aesthetics. I have drawn on a paper he published in 2016* a gift from a colleague and friend in Canberra.

It was the clarity of Prof. Young’s writing and meta-analysis that encouraged me to keep reading. In terms of framework, I’ve simplified the discourse whilst retaining the author’s original sub-headings in addition to my own as sign posts to help you navigate your own way through. I found these helpful in terms of dipping one’s toes into these western philosophical waters, so I hope this approach does the same for you.

When psychologists say that imagination plays a role in listening to music, they seem to mean that the mind is active when listening.

When philosophers say that imagination plays a role in listening to music, they mean something quite different. (Young:192)

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Exclusions

To be clear, in the following discussion, song titles and song lyrics on Spotify, Apple Music and other streamed-music services are not included in our definition of imagined.

However, if you are a musician and composer-arranger and the river of your song title-ing imagination has run a little dry, take a look at, for example, the DSGFX AI Song Name Generator to stimulate your thinking, or to solve your problem more or less straight away.

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Resemblance Theory

A great deal of philosophy of music is concerned with the relationship between music and emotion. Music is often described using emotion predicates, such as joyful, agitated or melancholy. But there are differing views about the sense in which music is emotion-al.

From the 17th Century, some philosophers believed that music is expressive of emotions, some believe that music expresses emotion, some believe that music arouses emotion and still others believe that emotion is represented in music.

Music could be expressive of emotion by resembling expressive behaviour. Such analyses of a relationship between music and emotion have been given a number of names, one of which is resemblance theory (Cochrane 2010). In simple terms, a work of music could be expressive of, say, melancholy since it resembles some vocal or nonvocal behaviour that typically expresses, for example, melancholy.

Many musical works could be experienced as resembling, in a variety of ways, human vocal behaviours that are expressive of various emotions (Juslin and Laukka (2003). Some advocates of resemblance theory argue that we humans have a predisposition to hear music as expressive of emotion (Kivy 1990). Davies (1994) argues that music can arouse a wide range of ordinary emotions.

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However, contemporary philosophers of music have introduced the concept of imagination rejecting the view that resemblance theory (as described above) can fully explain the complex connection between music and emotion. These philosophers argue that the emotions expressed in music are of some imagined person or entity. (Young:195).

Some musicians emphasise the role of imagination in listening. Some musicians and philosophers argue that listeners imagine personae in music, and that doing so is essential to understanding and appreciating the full expressive character of the music. Other writers refute the idea that listeners imagine personae, but still hold that imagination plays an important role in understanding music.

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Persona Theories

Whilst the idea of personae in western art music goes back to at least the 19th Century, contemporary philosophers such as Robinson (2005) introduced the idea that a musical work could express the emotions of other personae, not just that of the composer or performer. If music expresses an emotion, there must be a person whose emotions are expressed, right? This is the trajectory of such logic.

Philosophers such as Robinson (2005) and Cochrane (2010) argue that emotion cannot exist without a person who experiences the emotion (Young:195) and that a persona theory has an advantage over resemblance theory because the persona has a full and fluctuating range of emotions.

So now, if we do assume that personae do play a role in understanding the relationship between music and emotion, then the following question arises:

Q: Does imagination play a role in the introduction of personae?

Ridley, A. (1995) was one of the first philosophers to write about personae in music, distinguishing them from the composer. He speaks of hearing music as an expression of a persona.

Levinson (1996) generally argues that personae are heard in the music, rather than being imagined.

Trivedi (2001) believes that listeners imagine personae in music. From this view, the music itself is the persona. Later, Trivedi (2006) goes on to suggest that imagination has other roles in our experience of music, such as listeners imaginatively identifying with the music and imagining that their own emotions are expressed.

Q: How commonly do listeners hear or imagine a persona in music?

There is experimental evidence suggesting that some listeners imagine personae in music. See Juslin and Vastfjall (2008) for a range of ways by which music can arouse emotions. Other listeners do not (see DeNora 2000).

There is experimental evidence that supports the idea that listeners hear music as nostalgic (Zentner et al. 2008). ‘Nostalgia’ being one of the more complex emotions on the Geneva Emotional Music Scale, a psychometric instrument used in the study of emotional responses to music.

Meyer (1956) suggests that in terms of their familiarity with certain common chord patterns, listeners form musical expectations for chords to resolve in certain ways:

The realisation or frustration of these expectations may arouse a variety of complex emotions. Anxiety may be arouses when listeners doubt that an anticipated musical outcome will be attained. Hope can be aroused when listeners look forward to a desired musical outcome. Levinson (1990) argues that in this way, music can be expressive of hope.

One reason offered for holding the view that personae are part of our experience of music, is that composers intend that personae be heard in their works, and so have crafted their compositions to make them audible.

Be it intentional or not, with reference to musical features selected and designed by the composer or compositor, it follows that one’s own imagination is still necessary to generate a personae and its emotional life. But does such creation (or day-dreaming perhaps?) have anything to do with the music’s composition and its apprehension?

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Imagination without Personae

Other theories of expressiveness have emerged where imagination plays an important role, but personae do not.

Walton (1994) argues that our experiences of music are filled and infused with imagining-s, and therefore the role that imagination plays in such experiences, opens up the possibility that music is a representational art.

He also holds that there is no hard distinction between program music, a type of instrumental art music that attempts to musically render an extra-musical narrative (e.g. Intermedia 14: La Patineuse a Glace), and absolute music (music that is explicitly not about anything and therefore considered non-representational). Here, the assumption is that if one listens with imagination, any music can be transformed into program music.

However, this theory of music as a representational art does not account for the fact that listeners actually experience emotions such as joy and sadness while listening to music. See Young (2014, chapter 2 ) for a review of the literature on the arousal of ordinary emotion by music.

Nussbaum (2007) also tries to demonstrate that music is a representational art, explicitly stating that all music is program music, or at least all western art music composed since 1650 is. He argues that the listener constructs models of layouts and scenarios in virtual music space in which [they move their] imagination (p21).

Noordhof (2008) references Collingwood (1938) who holds that an artist’s expression of emotion amounts to the creative artist becoming clear about precisely which emotion [they] feel. Creating a work of art involves going through a process of clarifying one’s emotions, a process that Noordhof describes as an emotion-guided creative process.

These philosophers bring to our attention that music is experienced in different ways by different listeners, and by the same listener on different occasions and when listening to different pieces of music.

If listeners approach music with the intention of hearing it as expressive of emotion or as representing emotion, they enhance their chances of hearing music in these ways …

On the other hand, if listeners approach music with the intention of experiencing it as pure, contentless form, they are unlikely to find anything more than musical form (Young: 200-1).

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So now an important question arises:

Q: How is it for you?

Does your imagination go somewhere when you listen to certain music?

Over to you …

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Personal Notes

Why have I chosen the category, Letter from Mongolia? Somehow, whether I am here/there or not, my inner world and its imagining-s, resonate and reverberate with certain people and places here/there. Resonating in terms of the lasting sounds or feelings of shared experiences and emotions. Reverberating because these continue to echoes on. For a more poetic way of expressing this kind of indeterminacy, see: Mongolian Poetry 10: Reflection. Original Mongolian (Cyrillic) and an English language interpretation.

As a classically-trained pianist, my creative imagination flows through three memory systems: (i) the aural memory system (solfege and moveable); (ii) the visual memory system/s (notation); and (iii) the tactile memory system/s (scales and the technically-nuanced ways we play an instrument, the sonority).

As the composer and pianist Michael Nyman puts it, composition revolves around an aesthetic way of playing which then dictates the dynamics, articulation and texture of everything [we] play. From here the creative and imaginative process continues by migrating these sonics, the musical sounds produced and reproduced, through the [Digital Audio Workstation] and other audio editing tools.

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Other Notes

In this article, I’ve intentionally omitted any culturally-predicated or aesthetically-determined visual imagery of ‘music and imagination.’ Why? So as to acknowledge that each of us has a fluid ensemble of different aesthetic tastes, values, preferences and critical judgements related to the music we listen to or create, wherever, or whoever, we are.

In the original research paper (Young 2016) the verb grasping (grammatically, the present participle) was used to signal that something was seized quickly and held firmly (for however long). Depending on the context of your own discourse, each of the following terms could also be used: appreciating, comprehending, fathoming, cognising, perceiving or realising. Which of these you choose to use, is up to you.

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References

*Young, J.O. (2016). Music and Imagination (Chapter 14) in The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Imagination (Routledge: London). 1st Edition. eBook ISBN 9781315657905. pp192-203.

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CP in Mongolia

Catherine Pleteshner, Independent Scholar and Musician

Tag Archives: philosophy of aesthetics

Letter from Mongolia 07: Music and Imagination