I'd prefer to turn the question around: More interesting than why
people
are interested in the "so-called emotional response to music" (why
"so-called"? if it feels like emotions, it most probably is) seems to me
the
question why people are so persistently interested in "musical value" or
"the
work's artistic worth". Don't they trust their own responses to the
music
(emotional or otherwise) sufficiently to be able to do without
musicologically, philosophically etc. authorized guidance?
Guido Heldt
gheldt@zedat.fu-berlin.de
> --------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: "William H. Rosar" <bc178@lafn.org>
> To: ams-l@virginia.edu
> Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 09:58:21 -0500
> Subject: Re: happiness and surprise
>
> >Why is there so much discussion of so-called "emotional response to
> music" when
> >there is not a corresponding amount relative to other art forms (e.g.
> painting,
> >sculpture, dance, poetry, etc.)? I am reminded of a wisecrack made
by
> >Stravinsky where he complained about how people use music like a
> >"drug," with no
> >regard to its own properties (properties, I might add, that can be
> perceived,
> >not just responded to, unlike most drugs).
>
> >Since Leonard B. Meyer much to do has been made of the importance of
> emotional
> >response to music, as though it were the sine qua non of musical
value.
> As I
> >have posted here previously Meyer's argument has been largely refuted
on
> >philosophical grounds alone by Malcolm Budd in his book _Music and
> >the Emotions:
> >The Philosophical Theories_ (1985), Ch. 8 "Meaning, Emotion and
> Information in
> >Music."
>
> Just a tangential (emotional) response to Bill Rosar's AMS-L posting;
in
> a long-ago upper-level undergraduate seminar given by Siegmund
Levarie,
> the question of what made a good musical work was posed to us, and
> several of the students -- we were young, OK?-- still obviously made
> their judgment of the work's artistic worth contingent on their
> emotional response to it.
>
> Professor Levarie's response to *that* response was swift, vehement,
and
> inimitable, and probably literally frightened that idea right out of
us
> for the rest of our lives. ;)
>
> Theresa Muir
> theresamuir@juno.com
>
> Any fool can handle a crisis, it's this day-to-day that wears you out.
>
> Anton Chekhov
>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Apr 30 2002 - 15:20:46 PDT