Making a Space for Song

JEANETTE BICKNELL AND JOHN ANDREW FISHER Introduction: Making a Space for Song The topic of song, songs, and singing extends are historical reasons for this tendency. One was across a vast number of art forms and genres back the attraction of the concept of “absolute mu- into prehistory. It stands astride the high-low art sic” developed within nineteenth-century roman- continuum, ranging from classical music to pop- ticism and idealism. This concept embodies the ular and folk music. Unlike other art forms that philosophically intriguing claim that the master- include both high and low genres (such as movies pieces of the emerging instrumental canon, such and novels), song and songs have always had mul- as Beethoven’s symphonies, possess a unique tran- tiple functions other than being objects of aes- scendence and profundity. Such claims directed thetic appreciation. The uses of vocal music range attention away from vocal music forms and to- from the sacred (sung as hymns as well as heard as ward the problem of accounting for the meaning, masses, anthems, and so on), to communal (camp- emotional expressiveness, and value of purely in- fire songs and soccer fans’ chants), to ceremonial strumental musical works. When this was followed (Jerusalem sung at public events, Barber’s Agnus by twentieth-century modernism, with its focus Dei performed at memorials), to music for enter- on autonomous artworks and formal innovation, tainment and for dancing; unlike other art forms, there was little reason to turn philosophical atten- songs and singing play a role in everyday life. Ellen tion toward the less pure forms and multiple uses Dissanayake remarks that anthropological studies that populate the realm of vocal music.2 of “small-scale societies amply illustrate the ubiq- Indeed, a significant reason to broach the topic uity (and complexity) of communal singing dur- of song is that it highlights the narrowness of aes- ing most daily activity.”1 When Dick Clark said, thetics as it was practiced through much of the “Music is the soundtrack of your life,” he was un- twentieth century. Arguably, no artistic engage- doubtedly referring to songs. ment is more commonly experienced than the Because of the universality and centrality to experience of song, not only listening but also human culture of song, our topic is very differ- singing: individually or in groups, singing along ent from other topics that have expanded the with a singer on the radio or singing a song in purview of aesthetics in recent years. Our topic one’s head. It is so fundamental to human cul- is not a novel art form emerging from new tech- ture that some hypothesize that singing predates nologies (video games, computer art), nor a new or is coextensive with the origins of language.3 form emerging from popular culture (reality TV Speculation connecting the origins of song and shows), and it is certainly far from a new avant- language has always been rife.4 Given its promi- garde art form, such as conceptual art. On the nent place in human society, it is not surprising contrary, vocal music is an ancient and familiar el- that songs and singing have unique philosophi- ement of every culture and central to music itself. cally interesting features. For example, songs in Yet song has been passed over by philosophers performance can have referential dimensions that of art who otherwise have been intensely inter- other art forms do not have (as Theodore Gracyk’s ested in both music and literature. Instead, phi- article in this issue shows). losophy of music has tended to limit its scope to In what follows, we sketch the crucial ways that a subclass of Western art music, largely focusing vocal music differs from most other art forms. on issues concerning instrumental music. There These explain why, with the possible exception of C 2013 The American Society for Aesthetics 2 Song, Songs, and Singing opera, vocal music has tended to be overlooked both for aesthetics and for philosophy of music until recently in philosophy of music. Conversely, that art songs do not. these differences are what make vocal music, es- The legacy of Immanuel Kant’s Third Critique pecially songs, an exciting topic for aesthetics and looms large in the history of music. His influence the philosophy of music. deeply affected both the field of aesthetics and the ideology surrounding the practice of classical music.8 The Kantian picture of aesthetic judgment i. are songs ﬁt for aesthetic judgment? in particular helped to invert the relative status of vocal and instrumental music. Whereas instru- No attempt will be made here to define songs or mental pieces tended to be regarded in earlier singing; both are enormously complex as phenom- times merely as sources of pleasurable, but mean- ena and as evolving concepts. Although singing is ingless, sounds and vocal music carried the burden not limited to vocalizing text, for the purposes of possessing important meanings and hence value of this issue we can safely assume that it is. In (or disvalue), after 1800 the instrumental works of the same spirit, “song” will be taken to include the romantic composers came to be regarded as all music that involves singing text. By far the truly great art on a par with literature and the most difficult and complex concept is “songs,” plastic arts.9 Vernacular songs, by contrast, were and hence any generalization about songs has firmly relegated to the emerging concepts of pop- to be understood as limited to some particular ular and folk music, and as such, were considered historical–social context and some particular cat- lacking in artistic status. egory of songs.5 Still, it is useful to distinguish The Kantian characterization of pure aesthetic art song from non-art song because non-art song judgments promotes a particular model of aes- is the more philosophically challenging category. thetic appreciation. Several features of this frame- The category of art song is typically taken to re- work are especially salient for understanding the fer to vocal works in classical music and includes relegation of vocal music. Pure aesthetic judgment art songs, such as lieder, as well as opera, can- is to be a disinterested appreciation of an object. tatas, choral works, and so on. If we treat the The pleasure received in the experience signals classical music tradition as beginning when such that the object is beautiful only if it is based on the music began to be considered a fine art, that is, form of the object and not on other motivations became “serious” music, which is around 1800 ac- or causes. This provides a basis for finding purely cording to the view propounded by Lydia Goehr, instrumental musical works aesthetically valuable. we would be forced to leave out much that is liter- Moreover, pure aesthetic judgment is based nei- ally serious vocal music, especially religious music ther on an emotional reaction nor on the related (from Perotin´ and Palestrina, through Cherubini, motive of finding that the object satisfies one’s andsoon).6 However, even if we move the vague desires, for example, to express a belief. In short, boundary of art song back to the beginning of the to achieve the universality that Kant sought for common practice period, around 1600, this leaves an aesthetic judgment, the object cannot provide important categories of earlier high-culture song pleasure in virtue of gratifying one’s conception in limbo. For example, there were songs written of what is good, right, or true. Rather, the ob- by musicians going back to the Middle Ages, such ject is to be judged solely in itself, separated from as the troubadours and minnesingers, as well as by any function it might perform. The Kantian idea is famous composers before 1600. that whether an object is beautiful is independent We can safely leave such boundary questions of what it does for us or of any emotional effect undecided because the most interesting aesthetic it has on us or any commitments we have; objects questions about songs apply to non-art songs are immediately beautiful or not. (hereafter “vernacular” songs) of whatever cat- To what sort of ideal of the artwork as aes- egory. There are many important subdivisions of thetic object does the Kantian model lead? Above this overly broad category. In particular, there is a all, this is an ideal of artworks as autonomous significant distinction between, on the one hand, objects, divorced from practical life, made to be popular songs, which are ubiquitous in every soci- appreciated in themselves. This picture privileges ety, and, on the other hand, folk or ethnic songs.7 instrumental musical forms, such as string quar- Vernacular songs present a variety of problems tets and symphonies that lack representational Bicknell and Fisher Introduction 3 content; these have accordingly become the works that are the basic objects of critical interest paradigm forms of musical masterworks. They in the philosophy of art, a field that has been built are simply formally rewarding, beautiful in them- on a foundation focusing on a tradition of master- selves as objects of musical delight. works? Stepping out of our tradition, the problem Although these requirements are at best ideal- becomes clearer. As Philip Bohlman points out, izations that do not fit any type of art perfectly, an “ontology derived from understanding music they are especially inapt for the complex world of as an object is foreign to many music cultures in non-art songs. Vocal music has representational the world, where, for example, there may be no content, and it often has an intended effect. It equivalent linguistic category for affording iden- famously has the power to move people emo- tity to pieces and works.”12 tionally.

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