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Mental Discipline and Musical Meaning City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 5-2015 Mental Discipline and Musical Meaning Alice Harriet Jones Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/995 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] MENTAL DISCIPLINE AND MUSICAL MEANING by ALICE JONES A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Msuical Arts, The City University of New York 2015 © 2015 ALICE HARRIET JONES All Rights Reserved ii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Music in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts. Tara O’Connor Date Chair of Examining Committee Norman Carey Date Executive Officer Stephen Blum, Advisor Sylvia Kahan, First Reader George Lewis Supervisory Committee iii Abstract MENTAL DISCIPLINE AND MUSICAL MEANING by Alice Jones Advisor: Stephen Blum Musical meaning, or what a musical experience communicates to a listener, is predicated on a shared habitus of listening between the musical creator (i.e., composer, performer, or improviser) and the listener. The meaning a listener takes away from a musical experience is partly dependent on the vessel transmitting it (i.e., who is performing, the quality of performance, or the visual aspects of performance), and a musical creator’s actions are the result of his or her training, past experiences, enculturation, attentional focus, and bodily control in the heightened mental state in which creativity occurs. Even in traditions that consider the musician to be a conduit for inspiration from an otherworldly source, the musician must still undergo training in order to allow for a free, uninhibited flow of music. Music practitioners’ evaluative statements, in which they describe the ways in which a musical experience was meaningful for them, often implicitly include an expectation of this mental discipline on the part of the musical creator. A practitioner-listener uses the appearance of both the music and the musician, the expectation of a musical logic governing the musical sounds, and the emotions or feelings of transport that he or she experiences to infer a musical creator’s mental state and mental discipline, relying on his or her own musical experiences as a guideline. Most broadly, this dissertation is an ethnomusicological study of the cultural and social contexts, cognitive dimensions, and aesthetic judgments found in 18th-century German flute iv pedagogical treatises and published writings from shakuhachi players. More specifically, it is an axiological examination of the role habitus plays in the forming of aesthetic judgments among practitioners whose writings include an implicit expectation of mental discipline in a “good” musical experience, drawing upon the work of Jean-Jacques Nattiez and Kendall Walton, in particular. This dissertation offers a description of the kinds of mental states in which creativity occurs, includes a theory of musicking as the bringing forth of one’s inner self or core consciousness, and demonstrates ways in which practitioners suggest that another musician’s inner self (i.e., mental discipline and mental state) can be discerned in a musical experience. Flute treatises by Johann Joachim Quantz (1697-1773) and Johann Georg Tromlitz (1725-1805) raise broad issues of aesthetics in terms of the ways in which serious music of the 18th century aspired to capture ideals of nobility, the ways in which musical judgment was used a means of assessing a listener’s social status, the ways in which mental control in musical execution and composition were defined, and the ways in which a musician’s mental discipline can produce a transcendent musical experience. The issues raised in these treatises resonate with concerns equally touched upon by contemporary music philosophers (Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Christian Gottfried Körner, Johann Mattheson, and Johann Georg Sulzer) and also perpetuate aesthetic concerns from the Renaissance. The writings of shakuhachi players Hisamatsu Fūyō (1791-1871), Watazumi (1910-92), Andreas Fuyu Gutzwiller (b. 1940), Christopher Yohmei Blasdel (b. 1951), John Singer (b. 1956), Ralph Samuelson, and Gunnar Jinmei Linder present a range of concerns that define the modern shakuhachi habitus. Their statements which allude to discernible aspects of mental discipline in their own playing and in the playing of others are driven by four major concerns: the primacy of the performance as the meaningful act of musicking, a player’s membership in v social groups (ryūha), the shakuhachi’s traditional role as a tool for spiritual meditation, and practitioners’ multiple senses of history. In this dissertation, the issue of mental discipline is examined in shakuhachi playing with regard to a player’s inner mental experience, the execution of gestures that result in musical sound, and the experience of achieving enlightenment (suizen). vi Acknowledgements The CUNY Graduate Center has been an enormously supportive and inspiring place to be, and this dissertation is partly the result of the generosity, humor, and wisdom of the institution’s faculty, staff, and student body. In particular, I must single out my advisor, Dr. Stephen Blum, whose alacrity and depth of knowledge in seemingly every field of musical knowledge was a source of intimidation and aspiration for me from the start of my first semester here. The other members of my committee, Dr. Sylvia Kahan and George Lewis, were exacting, encouraging, and probing in their questions, comments, and insight. I am humbled by the time and respect they showed my work, and any errors that remain are my own. Dr. Tara Helen O’Connor has given me more of her time, musical insights, life wisdom, and dog-sitting talents than any teacher should ever have to, and I feel overwhelmed by how grateful I am to have her to call on. I would not be a flutist without LeAnne Morales. My family is the strongest source of my personal mental discipline quirks. Thank you, Jordan and Jana, for supporting me, even when you had no idea what I was talking about. Mom and Dad, I wish every day that you could be able to read this and be proud. vii Note on Japanese Names, Italicizations, and Quotations Throughout the text, Japanese names have been given in the traditional style of family name followed by given name (e.g., Yamaguchi Gorō). This is true in the footnotes as well (e.g., Kamisangō Yūkō rather than Yūkō Kamisangō). I have maintained original formatting of quotations with regard to italicization, underlining, parentheses, and spelling. Some Japanese words have undergone changes in Romanization, so older texts may refer to the same concept or person with a different name. Where it seemed necessary, I have added clarification in square brackets [ ]. Foreign terms have been italicized (e.g., honkyoku, sprezzatura) except in the case of a quotation of another writer’s work. Writers on the shakuhachi, in particular, exhibit a wide variety of italicization, capitalization, and spelling choices, especially as many of the sources cited in this dissertation are not academic in nature. This is also true for Japanese names, with some writers referring to Yamaguchi Gorō as Gorō Yamaguchi, for example. Wherever possible, I have maintained the original author’s stylistic choices and added clarification in square brackets where it seemed necessary. This is also true for British spellings and hyphenated words (e.g., flute-player) in quotations from British sources. viii Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... vii Note on Japanese Names, Italicizations, and Quotations ............................................................ viii Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... ix List of Tables ............................................................................................................................... xiii List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. xiv Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2: Mental States and Mental Discipline ............................................................................ 9 Mental States and Creativity ....................................................................................................... 9 Physiological Features of Heightened Mental States ................................................................ 13 Controlling one’s Mental State ................................................................................................. 17 Performance Anxiety .............................................................................................................. 21 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................
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