Some musicians see their art form as a force for good in the world. It can make you a better person, soothe, make rational, etc. Music has, in this sense, an ethical effect: it is a guide and incitement to right conduct. Pharaoh Sanders and Cornelius Cardew think so, or thought so.
To those who respond to this saying, "come on: music is attractive, but it's wishful thinking to suppose that it directly makes people better," musicologist Edward Lippman would say in turn that they are living in the wrong century. We're too acclimatized to abstract, specialized musical performance. In effect, we progressive moderns may, just may, have lost something--which we don't even know we've lost.
We need to get back to ancient Greek philosophy of music.
"Inherent in the nature of ancient music," Lippman writes," was its existence in the context of a specific social or ritual occasion, the presence of words as an intrinsic part of the music, and the prevalence, finally, of participation over listening. When these features are taken into account, the ethical and emotional force of music, together with the defned character of this force, is not difficult to understand." A History of Western Musical Aesthetics (Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, 1992), 15.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I'll be back!
ReplyDeletePlato regarded an education without music a failure. Learning to sing with our fellows built a social bond that could be taught few other ways. The great Harry Partch felt music was inherent in his belief in primitive opera, the combining of all the performing arts as socially healing, that standing alone music was not enough.
ReplyDeleteHey John, good to see that when it comes to music philosophy, you're sticking to the Paleo diet!. Someone wrote that music might have even preceded language. Which means that all of society of early man was basically, like, an opera.
ReplyDelete