Introducing Philosophy of Music
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Philosophy of Music Education
University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository Honors Theses and Capstones Student Scholarship Spring 2017 Philosophy of Music Education Mary Elizabeth Barba Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/honors Part of the Music Education Commons, and the Music Pedagogy Commons Recommended Citation Barba, Mary Elizabeth, "Philosophy of Music Education" (2017). Honors Theses and Capstones. 322. https://scholars.unh.edu/honors/322 This Senior Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses and Capstones by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Philosophy of Music Education Mary Barba Dr. David Upham December 9, 2016 Barba 1 Philosophy of Music Education A philosophy of music education refers to the value of music, the value of teaching music, and how to practically utilize those values in the music classroom. Bennet Reimer, a renowned music education philosopher, wrote the following, regarding the value of studying the philosophy of music education: “To the degree we can present a convincing explanation of the nature of the art of music and the value of music in the lives of people, to that degree we can present a convincing picture of the nature of music education and its value for human life.”1 In this thesis, I will explore the philosophies of Emile Jacques-Dalcroze, Carl Orff, Zoltán Kodály, Bennett Reimer, and David Elliott, and suggest practical applications of their philosophies in the orchestral classroom, especially in the context of ear training and improvisation. -
Global Music Theory: Issues, Possibilities, and Fundamental Concepts
Chapter 1 Global Music Theory: Issues, Possibilities, and Fundamental Concepts Global Musicianship: Imperative and Dilemma This book does not purport to constitute a theory for all music. It is not a work of ethnomusicology. Nor is it a study in natural science or mathematics, though it does draw on basic ideas from those disciplines, especially from acoustics and human perceptual theory. Those looking for validation of the concepts and methods in this book by means of formal proofs will likely be disappointed. Rather, this is a book by a musician for musicians, one that attempts to address an increasingly pressing problem in an age of what might be called “global musicianship”: how to offer a practical approach to analytical understanding that might be useful for a very wide variety of musics, and which is at the same time manageable for the purposes of music education, especially at the collegiate level. In the remarkable introduction to his book Analytical Studies in World Music, composer, theorist and ethnomusicologist Michael Tenzer astutely notes that: In coming years it is conceivable that we will want a world music theory … [and] it would have to be an umbrella set of practical concepts for teaching … The purpose of such a theory would be in the first place to start making sense of our complex cross-cultural musical selves and perceptions. We are often told of the world’s vast and rapid changes but rarely advised on how to make sense of them as musicians. A world music theory would be a response to economic and cultural transformation making it desirable for musicians to acquire competence not just passively hearing, but contemplating and integrating any music. -
Towards a Definition of 'Music'
E:\M55\COURSES\musdef.fm 02-03-29 Towards a definition of ‘Music’ Taken from provisional course text ‘A Short Prehistory of Popular Music’ Philip Tagg, Institute of Popular Music, University of Liverpool, February-March 2002 What is ‘music’? ‘Music’: a culturally specific concept Although no society of which we have any knowledge has ever been without what we call music, the concept of music is by no means universal. Many cultures have no word equivalent to what we seem to mean by it. For example, the Tiv nation of West Africa and the Ewe of Togo and Eastern Ghana do not seem to have had much need to single out music as something needing a special word of its own any more than we Brits seem to be in need of three different words for the basic types of snow, each of which the Inuktitut language refines conceptually into several sub- categories.1 To be fair, it should be said that the Ewe do actually use the English word ‘music’, but only as an untranslated loan word to denote foreign phenomena like singing hymns or the sounds issuing from a cassette player or the radio. The music (in our sense of the word) they make themselves in traditional village life has no equivalent in the Ewe language. ‘Vù really means ‘drum’ and há is the word for club or association. A vù há is the club you belong to in the village. You could belong to a club with fast or slow drums, de- pending on your character and family. -
Noise in Music Or Music in Noise? a Short Discussion on the Incorporation of “Other” Sounds in Music Making
University of Alberta Noise in Music or Music in Noise? A Short Discussion on the Incorporation of “Other” Sounds in Music Making Essay Submitted as part of the Music History exam of the Qualifying Exams, for the degree of Doctor in Music Composition Faculty of Arts Department of Music by Nicolás Alejandro Mariano Arnáez Edmonton, Alberta January 2017 “We affirm that the world’s magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing car whose hood is adorned with great pipes, like serpents of explosive breath— a roaring car that seems to ride on grapeshot is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.” (Marinetti 1909) Introduction When a physical source produces periodic or aperiodic vibrations in the air within a certain frequency, and there are human ears near by, they receive a meaning assigned by our brain. When we have the necessity of verbalize the sonic image produced by those vibrations, we need to choose a word available in our language that best describes what we felt sonically. Words associated with this practice of describing what we perceive are commonly “sound”, “noise”, “music”, “tone”, and such. The question is, what does make us to choose within one word or another? Many inquiries will arise if we analyze our selection. For example, if we say “that is music” we may be implying that music is not tone, or noise, or even sound! Personally speaking, I find a deep and intimate sensation of peace when hearing the sound of water moving in a natural environment, it generates that specific feeling on my human brain and body. -
Understanding Music Past and Present
Understanding Music Past and Present N. Alan Clark, PhD Thomas Heflin, DMA Jeffrey Kluball, EdD Elizabeth Kramer, PhD Understanding Music Past and Present N. Alan Clark, PhD Thomas Heflin, DMA Jeffrey Kluball, EdD Elizabeth Kramer, PhD Dahlonega, GA Understanding Music: Past and Present is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribu- tion-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This license allows you to remix, tweak, and build upon this work, even commercially, as long as you credit this original source for the creation and license the new creation under identical terms. If you reuse this content elsewhere, in order to comply with the attribution requirements of the license please attribute the original source to the University System of Georgia. NOTE: The above copyright license which University System of Georgia uses for their original content does not extend to or include content which was accessed and incorpo- rated, and which is licensed under various other CC Licenses, such as ND licenses. Nor does it extend to or include any Special Permissions which were granted to us by the rightsholders for our use of their content. Image Disclaimer: All images and figures in this book are believed to be (after a rea- sonable investigation) either public domain or carry a compatible Creative Commons license. If you are the copyright owner of images in this book and you have not authorized the use of your work under these terms, please contact the University of North Georgia Press at [email protected] to have the content removed. ISBN: 978-1-940771-33-5 Produced by: University System of Georgia Published by: University of North Georgia Press Dahlonega, Georgia Cover Design and Layout Design: Corey Parson For more information, please visit http://ung.edu/university-press Or email [email protected] TABLE OF C ONTENTS MUSIC FUNDAMENTALS 1 N. -
Philosophy of Music Philosophy 365 Syllabus
Philosophy of Music Philosophy 365 Syllabus John Douard Texts: New Jersey Books will have the texts. The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works, by Lydia Goehr, Oxford University Press., ISBN: 9780195324785 Listening to Popular Music, or How I learned to stop worrying and love Led Zeppelin by Theodore Gracyk, U. of Michigan Press, ISBN: 978-0-472-06983-5 Improvisation: It’s Nature and Practice in Music, by Derek Bailey, Da Capo Press, ISBN: 978-0306805288 Derek Bailey: On the Edge: Video based on Improvisation: http://ubu.com/film/bailey.html I will also email a packet of papers on specific issues. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ In this course, we begin with a consideration of the concept of the musical work. We will then examine improvisational music: jazz, rock and hip hop; but also music generated as improvisations in the classical canon, Indian raga, and African indigenous music. Most courses on the philosophy of music focus on “classical” or “art” music. These terms usually are used in an ethnocentric way to refer to formal Western music, and it is in that context in which the concept of the musical work evolved in the early 19th century. A focus on improvisation will permit an interrogation of the concept of a musical work, by setting it against the essentially imperfect productions of improvisations. We will conclude with a conversation about the politics of music and the role of the audience in musical production. The purpose of this course is to deepen your understanding of music by reflecting on fundamental philosophical questions, but also to deepen your philosophical understanding by examining questions about an ubiquitous human practice. -
Kant Expressive Theory Music
Kant’s Expressive Theory of Music Samantha Matherne Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (2014, pre-print) Abstract: Several prominent philosophers of art (e.g., Kivy, Dahlhaus, Schueller) have worried whether Kant has a coherent theory of music on account of two perceived tensions in his view. First, there appears to be a conflict between his formalist and expressive commitments. Second (and even worse), Kant defends seemingly contradictory claims about music being beautiful and merely agreeable, i.e., not beautiful. Against these critics, I show that Kant has a consistent view of music that reconciles these tensions. I argue that, for Kant, music can be experienced as either agreeable or beautiful depending upon the attitude we take towards it. Though we might be tempted to think he argues that we experience music as agreeable when we attend to its expressive qualities and as beautiful when we attend to its formal properties, I demonstrate that he actually claims that we are able to judge music as beautiful only if we are sensitive to the expression of emotion through musical form. With this revised understanding of Kant’s theory of music in place, I conclude by sketching a Kantian solution to a central problem in the philosophy of music: given that music is not sentient, how can it express emotion? §1. Introduction As philosophers like Peter Kivy and Stephen Davies have emphasized, one of the central issues in the philosophy of music is the problem of expression.1 Frequently when we hear a piece of instrumental music, we describe it as expressing an emotion, e.g., Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ symphony sounds triumphant or Chopin’s Étude in E Major (Op. -
Musical Affects and the Life of Faith: Some Reflections on the Religious Potency of Music
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Asbury Theological Seminary Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers Volume 21 Issue 1 Article 2 1-1-2004 Musical Affects and the Life of Faith: Some Reflections on the Religious Potency of Music Mark Wynn Follow this and additional works at: https://place.asburyseminary.edu/faithandphilosophy Recommended Citation Wynn, Mark (2004) "Musical Affects and the Life of Faith: Some Reflections on the Religious Potency of Music," Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers: Vol. 21 : Iss. 1 , Article 2. Available at: https://place.asburyseminary.edu/faithandphilosophy/vol21/iss1/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at ePLACE: preserving, learning, and creative exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers by an authorized editor of ePLACE: preserving, learning, and creative exchange. MUSICAL AFFECTS AND THE LIFE OF FAITH: SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE RELIGIOUS POTENCY OF MUSIC Mark Wynn The paper argues that the religious suggestiveness of music can be illumi nated by reference to a number of themes drawn from contemporary phi losophy of music, in particular the idea that the affective states expressed in music lack material objects, are often grasped "sympathetically," may escape verbalisation, and lack action-guiding content. Together these themes suggest that music may express, and enable its hearers to take on, an affectively laden "world-view." The paper explores the thought that such "attitudes" may be religiously important not only in setting the affec tive tone of our relationship to the world, but also in relationship to God. -
Editors' Introduction: Adorno, Music, Modernity
Editors' Introduction: Adorno, Music, Modernity The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Gordon, Peter E., and Alexander Rehding. 2016. “Editors’ Introduction: Adorno, Music, Modernity.” New German Critique 43 (3 129) (November): 1–4. doi:10.1215/0094033x-3625283. Published Version doi:10.1215/0094033X-3625283 Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:34391749 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Editors’ Introduction: Adorno, Music, Modernity New German Critique: Special Issue on Adorno and Music Peter E. Gordon and Alex Rehding (Harvard University) “As a temporal art,” Adorno observed, “music is bound to the fact of succession and is hence as irreversible as time itself. By starting it commits itself to carrying on, to becoming something new, to developing. What we may conceive of as musical transcendence, namely, the fact that at any given moment it has become something and something other than it was, that points beyond itself—all that is no mere metaphysical imperative dictated by some external authority. It likes in the nature of music and will not be denied.”1 Such remarks serve to remind us once again that Adorno was at once a philosopher and a musicologist: amongst all the members of the Frankfurt School he possessed not only a sociological and social-theoretical awareness of the dialectical relation between music and society, but also an incomparable feel for the inner power of music. -
19Chronology of Works in Aesthetics and Philosophy Of
Chronology of 19 Works in Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art Darren Hudson Hick Notes on Selection This chronology, as with this Companion as a whole, focuses on those works that contribute to the Western tradition of aesthetics, and, beginning in the twentieth century, in the analytic current of thought within that tradition (as opposed to the Continental one). As with the history of Western philosophy in general, the study of philosophical problems in art and beauty dates back to the ancient period, and is infl uenced by the major philosophical and cultural move- ments through the centuries. Much of what survives from the ancient to the post-Hellenistic period does so in fragments or references. In cases where only fragments or references exist, and where dating these is especially problematic, the author or attributed author and (where available) his dates of birth and death are listed. Where works have not survived even as fragments, these are not listed. As well, much of what sur- vives up to the medieval period is diffi cult to date, and is at times of disputable attribution. In these cases, whatever information is available is listed. Aesthetics in the period between the ancients and the medievals tends to be dominated by adherence to Platonic, Aristotelian, and other theories rooted in the ancient period, and as such tends to be generally lacking in substantive the- oretical advancements. And while still heavily infl uenced by ancient thinking, works from the medieval period tend also to be heavily infl uenced by religious thinking, and so many issues pertaining to art and aesthetics are intertwined with issues of religion as “theological aesthetics.” Movements in art theory and aes- thetics in the Renaissance, meanwhile, were largely advanced by working artists, and so tend to be couched in observational or pedagogical approaches, rather than strictly theoretical ones. -
Introductory Notes to the Semiotics of Music
E:\M55\COURSES\SEMIO\Semiotug.fm 2012-09-29 01:55 Introductory notes to the Semiotics of Music by Philip Tagg —— Versio n 3: Liverpool/Brisbane, July 1999 THIS DOCUMENT (1999) IS OUT OF DATE. IT HAS BEEN REPLACED BY various chapters in ‘MUSIC’S MEANINGS’ (2012) http://tagg/mmmsp/NonMusoInfo.htm PLEASE USE ‘MUSIC’S MEANINGS, NOT THIS FILE. Introduction to version 3 This text was part of an ongoing project to produce a textbook in the semiotics of music. Although this text was used by music students, it was also written with students from other humanities and social science disciplines in mind. For this reason, the text con- tains no musical notation and uses a minimum of unexplained musicological terminol- ogy. Since this text never constituted a final version, it should be understood that many as- pects of the topic are left undiscussed here. There are also no joins between certain sec- tions and the last few pages are no more than notes and diagrams that require further explanation not contained within these pages. Please also note that references and the bibliography are incomplete. Readers are advised that relevant chapters in Music’s Meanings are more up to date, more reliable, more thorough, more substantial than this document. Why bother about music semiotics? The average citizen of the Western world hears three-and-a-half hours of music a day and spends an average of $75 a year on music. These figures include babies, pensioners and the deaf, so those belonging to other population groups are liable to spend even more time and money with music. -
The Changing Concept of Aesthetic Experience in Music Education
View metadata, citationNordisk and musikkpedagogisk similar papers at core.ac.uk forskning. Årbok 14 2012, 9–25 brought to you by CORE Nordic Research in Music Education. Yearbook Vol. 14 2012, provided9–25 by Open Digital Archive at Oslo and Akershus University College The changing concept of aesthetic experience in music education Hanne Fossum & Øivind Varkøy ABSTRACT The changing concept of aesthetic experience in music education The article’s goals are to contribute to the clarification of the term aesthetic experience used in the context of music education, and to discuss different interpretations of Kant in this context. As the musical aesthetic experience may be said to be at the core of music education, it should be of vital interest to music education research to clarify the term. Usage of this term in some Nordic literature confirms the impression of a strong influence by Anglo- American thinking at the expense of German ideas and discussions in the last decades. The article reveals how different understandings of the term in the Anglo-American and German fields, respectively, give rise even to contradic- tory statements concerning the meaning and implications of the term. Keywords: Aesthetic experience, music education, philosophy Introduction - tending participants take part in the ever-ongoing debate on professional and ideo- The philosophy of music education can be regarded as a discursive field where con logical issues. One of the features recurring time after time is the concept of aesthetic experience. The term aesthetic is often understood as synonymous with “beautiful” and belonging to an archaic philosophy of art (Varkøy 2010: 25.