Aesthetics of music
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The aesthetics of music or musical aesthetics is the quality and study of the beauty and enjoyment (plaisir and jouissance), the aesthetics, of music.
Music has the ability to affect our emotions, intellect, and our psychology; lyrics can assuage our loneliness or incite our passions. As such, music is a powerful art form whose aesthetic appeal is highly dependent upon the culture in which it is practiced.
Some of the aesthetic elements expressed in music include lyricism, harmony, hypnotism, emotiveness, temporal dynamics, resonance, playfulness, and colour (see musical development).
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[edit] History
[edit] 1700s
In the 1700s, music was considered to be so far outside the realm of aesthetic theory (then conceived of in visual terms) that music was barely mentioned in William Hogarth's treatise, The Analysis of Beauty. He considered dance beautiful (closing the treatise with a discussion of the minuet), but treated of music only insofar as it could provide the proper accompaniment for the dancers.
In the 1800s, the era of romanticism in music, some composers and music critics argued that music should and could express ideas, images, emotions, or even a whole literary plot. In 1832, composer Robert Schumann stated that his piano work Papillons was "intended as a musical representation" of the final scene of a novel by Jean Paul, Flegeljahre. They were vigorously countered by the formalism of Eduard Hanslick, setting off the "War of the Romantics."
By the end of the 1800s, psychologist William James gave the auditory and optical sensations equal billing in his discussion of aesthetics. But he also took a detached view of the classical/romanticist disputes. James wrote that "Complex suggestiveness, the awakening of vistas of memory and association, and the stirring of our flesh with picturesque mystery and gloom, make a work of art romantic." He stated that the "classic taste brands these effects as coarse and tawdry, and prefers the naked beauty of the optical and auditory sensations, unadorned with frippery or foliage."
[edit] 1900s
A group of modernist writers in the early twentieth century including (Walter Pater and Ezra Pound) believed that music was essentially pure because it didn't represent anything, or make reference to anything beyond itself. In a sense, they wanted to bring poetry closer to this characteristic of music. (Bucknell 2002) Dissenters from this view, notably Albert Schweitzer, argued against the alleged 'purity' of music in a classic work on Bach.
Theodor Adorno suggested that culture industries churn out a debased mass of unsophisticated, sentimental products which have replaced the more 'difficult' and critical art forms which might lead people to actually question social life. False needs are cultivated in people by the culture industries. These are needs which can be both created and satisfied by the capitalist system, and which replace people's 'true' needs - freedom, full expression of human potential and creativity, genuine creative happiness. Thus, those who are trapped in the false notions of beauty according to a capitalist mode of thinking, are only capable of hearing beauty in dishonest terms.
[edit] 2000s
In 2003, the philosopher Dewitt Parker restated the purity theory of modernism, writing that music "moves wholly in a world of its own, a world of pure feeling, with no embodiment save only sound. It may express terror, but not terror over this or that; joy, but whether the joy that comes from sight of the morning or of the beloved, it cannot tell." Yet, Dewitt Parker is writing somewhat against the idea that music expresses nothing of its own.
[edit] Bad music
Simon Frith (2004, p.17-9) argues that, "'bad music' is a necessary concept for musical pleasure, for musical aesthetics." He distinguishes two common kinds of bad music; the Worst Records Ever Made type, which include "Tracks which are clearly incompetent musically; made by singers who can't sing, players who can't play, producers who can't produce," and "Tracks involving genre confusion. The most common examples are actors or TV stars recording in the latest style." Another type of "bad music" is "rock critical lists," such as *"Tracks that feature sound gimmicks that have outlived their charm or novelty" and "Tracks that depend on false sentiment (...), that feature an excess of feeling molded into a radio-friendly pop song."
Frith gives three common qualities attributed to bad music: inauthentic, [in] bad taste (see also: kitsch), and stupid. He argues that "The marking off of some tracks and genres and artists as 'bad' is a necessary part of popular music pleasure; it is a way we establish our place in various music worlds. And 'bad' is a key word here because it suggests that aesthetic and ethical judgements are tied together here: not to like a record is not just a matter of taste; it is also a matter of argument, and argument that matters." (p.28)
[edit] See also
See also: list of aesthetic principles of music
[edit] Bibliography
- Bucknell, Brad (2002). Literary Modernism and Musical Aesthetics. Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-66028-9.
- Kertz-Welzel, Alexandra. "The Magic of Music: Archaic Dreams in Romantic Aesthetics and an Education in Aesthetics." Philosophy of Music Education Review 13 no. 1 (Spring 2005): 77-94.
- Kertz-Welzel, Alexandra. "In Search of the Sense and the Senses: Aesthetic Education in Germany and the United States." Journal of Aesthetic Education 39 no. 3 (Fall 2005): 104-116.
- Washburne, Christopher J. and Derno, Maiken (eds.) (2004). Bad Music: The Music We Love to Hate. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-94366-3.
