Music with and Without Images

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 137-153
Author(s):  
Meilin Chinn
Keyword(s):  
Musical Meaning ◽  
Emotions In Music

Ji Kang’s 嵇康 argument against the presence of emotions in music in “Sound Has Neither Sorrow nor Joy” (sheng wu ai le lun 聲無哀 樂論) relies centrally on his claim that harmonious sounds are “without image” (wu xiang 無象). In contrast, the Ru 儒(Confucian) view of music is that it transmits images and emotions between musicians and listeners, which provides the basis for the musical cultivation of virtue (de 德). In this paper, I provide a reading of Ji Kang’s argument that elucidates key differences between music with and without images, and offer an analysis of these differences in terms of intransitive musical meaning.

Music, Landscape, and the Sound of Place

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Grimley
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Place ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Cultural Geography ◽  
Continental Philosophy ◽  
British Library ◽  
Musical Meaning ◽  
Final Time ◽  
Walking Tour ◽  
Meaning Representation ◽  
Critical Literature

One of the most poignant scenes in Ken Russell’s 1968 film Delius: Song of Summer evocatively depicts the ailing composer being carried in a wicker chair to the summit of the mountain behind his Norwegian cabin. From here, Delius can gaze one final time across the broad Gudbrandsdal and watch the sun set behind the distant Norwegian fells. Contemplating the centrality of Norway in Delius’s output, however, raises more pressing questions of musical meaning, representation, and our relationship with the natural environment. It also inspires a more complex awareness of landscape and our sense of place, both historical and imagined, as a mode of reception and an interpretative tool for approaching Delius’s music. This essay focuses on one of Delius’s richest but most critically neglected works, The Song of the High Hills for orchestra and wordless chorus, composed in 1911 but not premiered until 1920. Drawing on archival materials held at the British Library and the Grainger Museum, Melbourne, I examine the music’s compositional genesis and critical reception. Conventionally heard (following Thomas Beecham and Eric Fenby) as an imaginary account of a walking tour in the Norwegian mountains, The Song of the High Hills in fact offers a multilayered response to ideas of landscape and nature. Moving beyond pictorial notions of landscape representation, I draw from recent critical literature in cultural geography to account for the music’s sense of place. Hearing The Song of the High Hills from this perspective promotes a keener understanding of our phenomenological engagement with sound and the natural environment, and underscores the parallels between Delius’s work and contemporary developments in continental philosophy, notably the writing of Henri Bergson.

Emotions, Music, and Logos

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 193-206
Author(s):  
Petri Järveläinen
Keyword(s):  
Religious Practices ◽  
Mental Language ◽  
Emotions In Music

The article introduces a cognitive and componential view of religious emotions. General emotions are claimed to consist of at least two compounds, the cognitive compound and the affective compound. Religious emotions are typically general emotions which are characterized by three specific conditions: they involve a thought of God or godlike, they are significant for a person feeling them and their meaning is derived from religious practices. The article discusses the notion of spiritual emotions in Ancient theology and compares the idea of it with emotions in music. By referring to the notion of mental language, it is argued that some religious emotions are like emotions in music and as such they can be interpreted as tones of Logos.

scholarly journals Linking musical metaphors and emotions evoked by the sound of classical music

2021 ◽  
pp. 030573562199123
Author(s):  
Simon Schaerlaeken ◽  
Donald Glowinski ◽  
Didier Grandjean
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Empirical Method ◽  
Mixed Effects Models ◽  
Musical Meaning ◽  
Linear Mixed Effects ◽  
Generalized Linear Mixed Effects ◽  
Perceptual Characteristics ◽  
Valence And Arousal ◽  
Western Classical Music

Musical meaning is often described in terms of emotions and metaphors. While many theories encapsulate one or the other, very little empirical data is available to test a possible link between the two. In this article, we examined the metaphorical and emotional contents of Western classical music using the answers of 162 participants. We calculated generalized linear mixed-effects models, correlations, and multidimensional scaling to connect emotions and metaphors. It resulted in each metaphor being associated with different specific emotions, subjective levels of entrainment, and acoustic and perceptual characteristics. How these constructs relate to one another could be based on the embodied knowledge and the perception of movement in space. For instance, metaphors that rely on movement are related to emotions associated with movement. In addition, measures in this study could also be represented by underlying dimensions such as valence and arousal. Musical writing and music education could benefit greatly from these results. Finally, we suggest that music researchers consider musical metaphors in their work as we provide an empirical method for it.

Sweet anticipation and positive emotions in music, groove, and dance

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 79-84
Author(s):  
Olivia Foster Vander Elst ◽  
Peter Vuust ◽  
Morten L Kringelbach
Keyword(s):  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Emotions In Music

‘A Heap of Broken Images’? Reviving Austro-German Debates over Musical Meaning, 1900–36

2013 ◽  
Vol 138 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Pritchard
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Educational Theory ◽  
First Century ◽  
Critical Hermeneutics ◽  
Musical Meaning ◽  
Force And Motion ◽  
The Status ◽  
Musical Interpretation ◽  
Twenty First Century

AbstractThis article examines a range of writings on the status of musical interpretation in Austria and Germany during the early decades of the twentieth century, and argues their relevance to current debates. While the division outlined by recent research between popular-critical hermeneutics and analytical ‘energetics’ at this time remains important, hitherto neglected contemporary reflections by Paul Bekker and Kurt Westphal demonstrate that the success of energetics was not due to any straightforward intellectual victory. Rather, the images of force and motion promoted by 1920s analysis were carried by historical currents in the philosophy, educational theory and arts of the time, revealing a culturally situated source for twenty-first-century analysis's preoccupations with motion and embodiment. The cultural relativization of such images may serve as a retrospective counteraction to the analytical rationalizing processes that culminated specifically in Heinrich Schenker's later work, and more generally in the privileging of graphic and notational imagery over poetic paraphrase.

The temporal musical sign: In search of extrinsic musical meaning

Semiotica ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 2006 (162) ◽  
pp. 195-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bertha Spies
Keyword(s):  
Musical Meaning

Stephen Davies: Musical Meaning and Expression

Mind ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 104 (416) ◽  
pp. 896-900
Author(s):  
PETER KIVY
Keyword(s):  
Musical Meaning
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