Preface

This short book is intended for readers who think that music is something very important, but who want to get beyond the usual clichés in thinking about why that is. My inspiration is Friedrich Nietzsche’s much-quoted remark, “Without music, life would be a mistake.” Nietzsche wrote that aphorism in the late nineteenth century, but the same point had already been made by Protarchus in the fourth century BCE.

I begin, in Chapter 1, with the question of what music is. Sound, obviously. (But is it really so obvious? Chapter 1 observes that many ancient and medieval writers thought otherwise.) Besides sound, what else is required? And, whatever it is, is it merely human life that would be a mistake without it? The remaining chapters address, from several angles, whether Nietzsche is correct. Is there anything that music does for us that cannot be done in its absence? For if something else can take its place, then it cannot be true that life without music is a mistake.

The Thinking in Action series is intended for a general, nonspecialist audience. If you have a degree in philosophy, you may not find anything especially new or challenging in the second and third chapters of this book. Advanced degree in musicology? Ditto. You might prefer The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Music, which I co-edited with Andrew Kania. The experience of editing the Companion led directly to this book. Invited to distill what I learned from that King Kong of a project into 40,000 words, I have selected four topics. Roughly, in order, those topics are music’s relationships to art, language, emotion, and spirituality. They were chosen less because they interest contemporary philosophers than because they are topics that people often bring up when talking about music. That isn’t to say that this book is something less than “real” philosophy. It is to say, instead, that the philosophizing arises out of several perennially interesting topics. My orientation is captured by Ludwig Wittgenstein’s suggestion, “The work of the philosopher consists in assembling reminders for a particular purpose.” My purpose is to show that some very common assumptions about music are confused and misleading. Our listening is informed by competing folk-theories about music. It is also informed by centuries of philosophical speculation about music. As a result, a lot of what we believe about music is very doubtful. Again, in the spirit of Wittgenstein, the goal here is to identify the sources of these errors and, by locating them, to become less likely to fall back into them. In many cases, the way forward requires us to become aware of how various words and phrases are used at cross-purposes in different contexts. Clarity is also achieved by recognizing that very small descriptive differences can have significant implications, as when the third chapter discusses the difference between describing music as expressing emotions and its being expressive of them.

I should also highlight some strategies that I employ in this book. First, when I provide an example, I generally provide at least two. One is usually drawn from “high” culture and the other from “popular” culture. The point of this strategy is to offer ongoing reminders that I am discussing music generally and not just “classical” or “art” music. Second, I hope that my readers will endorse my decision to do without the apparatus of footnotes and textual citations. When I employ quotation or close paraphrase, I identify my source by author. Each author has a corresponding entry in the list of references at the back. In the age of easy Internet searches, the precise sources of my quotations are easily discovered from that minimal information.

Finally, I want to make it clear that I make no claim about saying anything original here. Philosophers have discussed the essence and value of music since the beginning of the recorded Western tradition. Music interested both Plato and Aristotle. Significantly, theorizing about the nature of music also dates back to recorded beginnings of the philosophical traditions of India and China. Viewed against this long tradition, my ideas are necessarily derivative. In particular, everything I say and think about music owes an extraordinary debt to Stephen Davies, Kathleen Higgins, Peter Kivy, Lee B. Brown, Malcolm Budd, Jenefer Robinson, and Robert Stecker. At crucial junctures, my thinking was redirected by professional and personal encounters with Joel Rudinow, Crispin Sartwell, Alex Neill, Jeanette Bicknell, Cynthia Grund, Stan Godlovitch, Denis Dutton, Andrew Kania, and Tiger Roholt. Stephen Davies and Andrew Kania read the manuscript as it neared completion and gave me many helpful suggestions for improvement. And many thanks go to Andrew Beck at Routledge for encouraging me to write this book.

Summary

Is all music art? I contend that it is. Chapter 1 examines what is required to secure that status for music. While this starting point might not be the most obvious place to begin an analysis of music, it invites me to contrast competing ideas about the essential nature of music. In order to establish that music is more than musically organized sound, I organize the chapter around the position that songbirds do not produce music. Their songs are not music for the same reason that “the music of the spheres” does not fall within the scope of the modern concept of music. Employing a common definition of “culture,” they lack the cultural dimension that secures art status for music.

Chapter 2 builds on the idea that musical style embeds every piece of music in a network of historical forces and compositional choices. There is a significant body of instrumental music that is regarded as special because it is “pure” music— music that should be understood and appreciated without employing any non-musical ideas. However, informed listening requires the acquisition of language that furnishes appropriate conceptual guidelines. But once we agree that there is more to music listening than meets the ear, we have no basis for singling out some music as “pure” in the intended sense.

Chapter 3 takes up the common view that music is inherently linked to the expression of emotion. I examine several theories of musical expression and conclude that none of these theories applies to all music.

Chapter 4 examines the widespread conviction that music provides spiritual insight. I examine the views of Arthur Schopenhauer and argue that his position conflicts with my conclusions in earlier chapters. It is another variation of the mistaken view that the imposition of ideas interferes with aesthetic response. Additionally, I suggest that the aesthetic property of sublimity is a neglected vehicle for spiritual insight through music.