Musical Expression and Musical Meaning in Context :: Music Philosophy Essays

Musical Expression and Musical Meaning in Context 1. respectable ab proscribed preliminaries.There is a growing body of work in the ism of music and melodic aesthetics that has considered the various ways that music piece of ass be have in mindingful music as representational (that is, musical depictions of persons, places, processes, or events) musical as quasi-linguistic reference (as when a musical figure underscores the mien of a character in a film or opera), and closely especially, music as emotionally communicative. Here I will rivet on the last topic, for I believe it will be utile for researchers in music perception and cognition to avail themselves of the distinctions that aestheticians have worked out regarding the musical expression of emotion.Now we ofttimes say that music is expressive, or that a doer plays with great expression, but what exactly do we mean? There are at least two things nonpareil whitethorn be saying. First, one may be praising a perform er for their musical sensitivity, that he or she has a keen sense of just how a passage is supposed to be played. Such praise is often couched in terms of the performers musicality (in statements that border on the oxymoronic, as when one says that a performer plays the music very musically). Such praise may also be couched in terms of expression--i.e., that a performer plays expressively. I have little to say about these attributions, save that they are often linked to the second thing one often means when intercommunicate of the music or a performance being expressive an expressive piece or performance is one that recognizably embodies a accompaniment emotion, and indeed may cause a sympathetic emotional repartee in the listener. Thus if one plays expressively, this means that the musics particular emotional qualities--its sadness, gaiety, exuberance, and so forth, are amply conveyed by the performer.Before we discuss those emotional qualities a number of other preliminary rema rks are in order. When we speak of the expressive properties of music, these are distinct from the expressive properties of sound. Sounds may be loud, shrill, acoustically coarse or smooth, and so forth. These acoustic qualities have expressive correlates and may creation emotional responses, and of course one cannot have music without sound. But musical expression is more than this it requires the attention to the music qua music, rather than as incorrupt sounds. The opening O Fortuna of Carmina Burana may wound (and indeed scare) the listener delinquent to its sudden loudness (especially when the bass drum starts whacking away), but this shock isnt a musical effect--we get the same reaction when we here a sudden bang at a fireworks display or when a car backfires.