The Aesthetics of Music

Author: Roger Scruton
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019816727X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 553

Book Description
Now available in paperback, this is perhaps the first comprehensive account of the nature and significance of music from the perspective of modern philosophy, and the only treatment of the subject which is properly illustrated with music examples. The book starts from the metaphysics of sound, distinguishes sound from tone, analyses rhythm, melody, and harmony, and develops a novel account of music, as the intentional object of an imaginative perception. The argument explores the various dimensions of musical organization and musical meaning, and shows exactly how and why music is an expressive medium. The Aesthetics of Music explains and criticizes many fashionable theories in the philosophy and theory of music, and mounts a case for the moral significance of music, its place in our culture, and the need for taste and discrimination in both performer and listener. The various schools of musical analysis are subjected to a critical examination, and recent criticism of tonality, as the foundation of musical order, are rehearsed and rejected. Scruton defends the objectivity of aesthetic values, lays down principles of criticism, and ends with an energetic critique of modern popular music.

Aesthetics of Music

Author: Stephen Downes
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136486917
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 324

Book Description
Aesthetics of Music: Musicological Approaches is an anthology of fourteen essays, each addressing a single key concept or pair of terms in the aesthetics of music, collectively serving as an authoritative work on musical aesthetics that remains as close to 'the music' as possible. Each essay includes musical examples from works in the 18th, 19th, and into the 20th century. Topics have been selected from amongst widely recognised central issues in musical aesthetics, as well as those that have been somewhat neglected, to create a collection that covers a distinctive range of ideas. All essays cover historical origins, sources, and developments of the chosen idea, survey important musicological approaches, and offer new critical angles or musical case studies in interpretation.

The Aesthetics of Architecture

Author: Roger Scruton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Book Description

The Philosophy & Aesthetics of Music

Author: Edward A. Lippman
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803279841
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 268

Book Description
Edward A. Lippman?s writings on musical aesthetics comprise a wide variety of areas and employ both systematic and historical approaches, reflecting throughout his unrivaled knowledge of the philosophical literature on music and his deep understanding of the musical repertory. These essays span a broad range of subjects, from the ancients? sense of what music encompasses to the experience of rhythm in Anton Webern?s work. ø Lippman surveys the physical and physiological factors that condition musical perception, and he explores the effect of sung text in vocal music. In the more purely philosophical realm, he argues persuasively that music speaks in its own terms, not in any formalistic sense but through the symbolic meanings it conveys. ø The historically focused essays include investigations of the aesthetic thinking of Wagner and Schumann, an endeavor that leads Lippman to probe the sources and drives behind musical creativity. Elsewhere he explores the development of particular musical styles. The Philosophy and Aesthetics of Music draws upon both philosophy and musicology in demonstrating how the interpretation of music extends far beyond the scope of conventional theory and analysis.

Musical Aesthetics

Author: Jonathan L. Friedmann
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527514900
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 179

Book Description
This book contains six chapters covering key areas of musical aesthetics, including aesthetics of emotions; aesthetics of listening; aesthetics of performance; aesthetics of composition; aesthetics of nature; and aesthetics of commerce. Each chapter adopts an experiential approach to aesthetics, in which perceptual and intuitive musical responses – real-time experiences – are valued as a source of truth. Unlike intellectual aesthetics, which values conscious associations and meticulous artistic appraisals, experiential aesthetics looks primarily at everyday subconscious appreciations. The explorations here draw from the social sciences, hard sciences, philosophy, literature, theology, musicology, humanities, and other fields that directly or indirectly contribute to an understanding of our attraction to music. Presenting user-friendly distillations of numerous theories, concepts, and functions, this book will be of interest to both lay readers and expert practitioners.

Reification and the Aesthetics of Music

Author: Jonathan Lewis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317297970
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 203

Book Description
This innovative study re-evaluates the philosophical significance of aesthetics in the context of contemporary debates on the nature of philosophy. Lewis's main argument is that contemporary conceptions of meaning and truth have been reified, and that aesthetics is able to articulate why this is the case, with important consequences for understanding the horizons and nature of philosophical inquiry. Reification and the Aesthetics of Music challenges the most emphatic and problematic conceptions of meaning and truth in both analytic philosophy and postmodern thought by acknowledging the ontological and logical primacy of our concrete, practice-based experiences with aesthetic phenomena. By engaging with a variety of aesthetic practices, including Beethoven's symphonies and string quartets, Wagner's music dramas, Richard Strauss's Elektra, the twentieth-century avant-garde, Jamaican soundsystem culture, and punk and contemporary noise, this book demonstrates the aesthetic relevance of reification as well as the concept's applicability to contemporary debates within philosophy.

Adorno's Aesthetics of Music

Author: Max Paddison
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521626088
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 396

Book Description
This introduction to the aesthetics and sociology of music of the German philosopher and music theorist T. W. Adorno is the only book to deal comprehensively with this topic and it has quickly established itself as a classic text.

Aesthetics and Experience in Music Performance

Author: Denis Collins
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443802301
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 367

Book Description
Drawing upon a wide range of scholarly enquiry into early music, queer musicology, ethnomusicology, performance practice, music education and technology, Aesthetics and Experience in Music Performance provides a lively forum for the articulation of varied perspectives on the role of music, its interpretation and function in contexts supported by those who practice or experience it. The formal and shorter discussion papers included in this scholarly collection were presented at the National Workshop of the Musicological Society of Australia, held at the University of Queensland, Brisbane in October 2003. The themes of aesthetics and experience are central to this publication and each paper engages in a scholarly dialogue on the technical, expressive and embodied aspects of performance. The papers included in this publication bring together the research of a wide community of scholars (e.g., musicologists, anthropologists, ethnomusicologists and linguists) working in the field of performance studies and collectively reflect the musicological issues being debated in Australia today.

Three Classics in the Aesthetic of Music

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 218

Book Description

The Aesthetics of Imperfection in Music and the Arts

Author: Andy Hamilton
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350106070
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 417

Book Description
The aesthetics of imperfection emphasises spontaneity, disruption, process and energy over formal perfection and is often ignored by many commentators or seen only in improvisation. This comprehensive collection is the first time imperfection has been explored across all kinds of musical performance, whether improvisation or interpretation of compositions. Covering music, visual art, dance, comedy, architecture and design, it addresses the meaning, experience, and value of improvisation and spontaneous creation across different artistic media. A distinctive feature of the volume is that it brings together contributions from theoreticians and practitioners, presenting a wider range of perspectives on the issues involved. Contributors look at performance and practice across Western and non-Western musical, artistic and craft forms. Composers and non-performing artists offer a perspective on what is 'imperfect' or improvisatory within their work, contributing further dimensions to the discourse. The Aesthetics of Imperfection in Music and the Arts features 39 chapters organised into eight sections and written by a diverse group of scholars and performers. They consider divergent definitions of aesthetics, employing both 18th-century philosophy and more recent socially and historically situated conceptions making this an essential, up-to-date resource for anyone working on either side of the perfection-imperfection debate.