Nietzsche and Music

In our latest chapter in the text, Hamilton brings up Nietzsche and some of his philosophies. As many people in our class know, especially those who took The Ring Cycle with Dr. Dilthey, Nietzsche was involved with music since childhood and later did work with Richard Wagner, one of the most famous German opera composers. I will try to stray away from the compositions and the music that influenced him and focus on his philosophy of music.

I'll start by discussing what was said about Nietzsche in Aesthetics & Music. Nietzsche believed that the parts of music are meaningful and combine aesthetics of representation and form (pg70, Hamilton). My interpretation of this is that Nietzsche believes that you cannot separate representation and form from aesthetic perception because the meaning of a piece is inseparable the parts of the music. Another claim Nietzsche made was that great art must be created through Dionysian consciousness and "musical mood" rather than being exactly musical(pg 79). The Dionysian as we discussed in class, is the crazy, "alcoholic", and ecstasy driven side of the dichotomy; whereas Apollonian is the concept of dreams and organization. A literal interpretation would be that, when we are drunk and crazy, and in the mood to make music then it is great art. Yet, since Nietzsche is a translated philosopher room is needed for the lack of correct translatable terms. Perhaps this statement means that when we are drunk with inspiration and driven to create music we create the best art. Another statement from Nietzsche was that since poetry converges with music in a rhythmic, stress (of syllables/words), and dynamic sense, it offers insight to the "inner world" and allows it to act as a language of feeling(pg 80). This convergence allows us to associate specific parts of the music with certain feelings. Nietzsche is saying that the poetic aspects in music is what allows the music to speak to us and without these qualities it does not.

Putting these three statements together as well as Hamilton's claim that Nietzsche is a follower of radical aestheticism, I come to the conclusion. Nietzsche believed that you cannot separate representation and form from aesthetic perception because the meaning of a piece is inseparable the parts of the music, the direct translation would be that great art is made when someone is drunk and in the "musical mood", but perhaps there was a loss in translation, and finally poetic aspects of music allows music to speak to us. A follower in radical aestheticism believes that aesthetics is the highest value, above morals and all other values. That leads me to my question...

Question: How can aesthetic value be above moral value? What sort of other philosophies would someone have to adopt in order to not contradict themselves with this claim?

"Without music life would be a mistake"

- Nietzsche

(Twilight of the Idols)

Music and Cognition 1

I've been thinking a lot about the information that I have been reading about in my cognitive psychology class and how it relates to music. This might be a little discursive but it is honestly all I can think about.

One cognitive theory states that people with higher working memories actually mind wonder more than those with lower working memory abilities. This is because they have a cognitive capacity available that is beyond what is required for a certain task. My theory is that these are the people who can listen to music and do homework at the same time, and claim that it helps them concentrate. Music helps them concentrate because they cognitive capacity that otherwise would not have been fulfilled by the task and is fulfilled by the music, and hence they do not mind wonder as much -- they are more concentrated.
Another general theory is that of automaticity. When you do something over and over again it becomes second nature and when you think about it, it actually makes you do worse! (Totally what happened to me at my first trumpet recital). Anyone that plays an instrument can tell you that once you have something down, don't think about it, just do it.

In a study done by Scheider & Shiffrin their participants went through 2,100 detection trials (looking for the same visual targets in a display -- kind of like a word search). By the 600th trial the accuracy rates were over 80%. After the researchers then switched the targets and had them search for the targets that were the distraction targets in the previous trials. It took the participants 2,400 trials to match the accuracy level that before only took them 600 trials to achieve. This relates to music because when you learn and practice a note wrong or practice with a bad technique it takes even longer to relearn it the correct way.

Question: What does attention, automaticity, and relearning effects tell us about the philosophy of music?

Re: Kristina's "Personal music"

In Kristina's post, "Personal Music" she ends with the question "Does a personal connection to music speak to the aesthetics of that piece in anyway, or merely to the listener, or the performer?"

In order to answer this question accurately we must first determine if aesthetic qualities are merely perceptions or if they are physical manifestations that we perceive. The distinction being that the beauty is in our minds or in the aesthetic work itself.

If we are to go with the first idea, then yes a personal connection to a musical piece may change the aesthetics of it. People enjoy the music that they grew up listening to. Perhaps this serves as an explanation as to why we have a connection to the music that we have listened to throughout our lives -- because it symbolizes our life. Music seems as though it can have the same connection to memory as scents do. One "wiff" so to say, can send you back to another time. A song can remind you of a specific person or time in your life. My brother likes to make mixed CDs for his car, and whenever he makes a new one he titles it whatever the current month and year is, as if he is marking that CD with the time in his life. Does the music we listen to at any point in our lives say anything about us at that particular moment? We all have memories of childhood that deal with pop culture such as remembering that we used to collect Pokemon cards and Bennie Babies, or remembering when "Who Let the Dogs Out" was first played on the radio.

If we go with the second idea, that the aesthetic value is in the work itself, then no, the aesthetics of that piece will not change. With this theory, something's aesthetic value cannot increase or decrease if the external properties do not change. If a connection is made and there is an increase in its appeal to the listener, then it may be the memory that the song is tied to rather than the song itself that adds liking to the piece.

Question: Are aesthetics in our mind or physical properties?

Thinking and language

In class yesterday it was said the thinking does not equal language. This statement seem a bit problematic to me. When we are thinking, what are units for which we think with? We do not think with emotions (although you could argue intuition or a gut feeling is a thought we could go off of), we are not thinking in visuals, we are thinking with language. You cannot have thoughts without language, at least thoughts beyond the primal level. Monkeys do not think, cats do not think, birds do not think beyond the primal level, they do not think with words, they just act and go off of instinctive drives. They do not lounge around thinking about the meaning of life, what they are going to do tomorrow, or wonder what someone else is thinking. We think in language for the most part. When someone says the word 'elephant' you think in visual mode, you picture an elephant. Yet, when it comes to mundane thinking you do not think in pictures or emotions for that matter.

When Hamilton said that "Thinking in music, thinking with sounds, the way a writer thinks with words. 'Thinking in sound' takes, not simply a beautiful pattern of sounds caused by thoughts." He means that musicians are not using words when they compose, they think using sounds. Yet, later he states that music is a special kind of thinking that involves the "sensuous and the cognitive" which goes to say that composers use non-linguistic and linguistic thinking. This makes sense. Say you are writing a ballet piece, you think of the melody without thinking of any words, the pattern of sounds was the only thought in your head. Now, when it comes to the need to write it down you think to yourself "I need to write this down." Now it comes to a part where you think in language again "now for the clarinet solo", you then think in sound again, with language peeking in its sneaky and useful head every once and a while "no, I do not like that interval there how about this..." I think you get the point. We cannot think without words, no matter how hard we try and no matter what task we are doing we are going to use language while doing it in one way or the other.

Question: Does thinking in sound relate to any other context beyond music?

RE: Peter 10/15/11

In Peter's most recent post, he humorously discussed Adorno's dislike for popular music and the lack of intellect, over sex appeal, and weird clothing in k-pop. He ended with the question: What sort of processes would music need to undergo to start focusing more on substance, focusing more on the characteristics Adrono seems to find in true, intellectual music?

Since mainstream music is what the majority of America and other cultures listen to, the change would need to start there. Also, the majority of artists themselves(at least in pop music) are just puppets, so the change would have to occur at the producer's level.

One change could be the addition of harmonies to the pieces. Radio music is "dumbed down," it's not put on the radio unless it is easy to listen to, it is simple and easy to remember. This sometimes means the lack of harmonies. Or if there are harmonies they are recorded very quietly.

That leads me to my next change-- dynamics. Most of the music I hear on the radio is all of the same volume, there are no decrescendos, crescendos, sffz, or dynamic contrast what-so ever. People just want to hear the music blaring all at the same volume and do not want to pay attention to the pianissimos, chances are the listener would turn up their radio and then turn it down when it got to the loud parts -- they would think there was something wrong with their radio. But this is because we have been conditioned to the mono-dynamic waves of our culture's mindless music.

Another change would be lyrics. Peter gave the example of the hook to a k-pop song "GEE GEE GEE GEE BABY BABY BABY." These lyrics are lacking in intellect and they are not even communicating anything. There are many popular songs in our culture in which the lyrics do not even make sense, are just words for the sake of saying something, or are the same thing repeated over and over again-- having a good lyrical hook then just mindless babble after that. To have these artists sing about things that matter or to sing true poetry, instead of about dancing, sex, drugs, and break-ups would be make a substantial difference on the way to intellectual music.

Another change could be the use of real musicians instead of synthesizers. Some songs do have real pianos and many have real guitar players and drummers. Yet, other songs just use synthesized, out of tune, crap that probably took little talent to create. I admit some synthesized music is impressive and does take talent to create, yet Brittany Spears stuff does not fit this category. It's more intellectual when synthesized music is a pure composition where every note and rhythm, every harmony and lyrical phrase was not copied, it came from the mind of the composer. These changes would lead to more intellectual music.

Of course, Adorno would say that straying away from the I, IV, V would also be a change that would lead us closer to intellectual music.

Question: Does music need to communicate something to be considered intelligent?

Music's Functions

Mason's article described Adorno's theories of autonomous music and how it can reveal social truths. This along with our class discussion has made me think about the function of music -- that is, what are music's functions?

The functions that I can think of are: social, entertainment, sublimation, emotional communication, religious, skill development, attention, and healing.

First and probably most prominent, music serves a social role. Whenever you go to a social event 90% of the time there is music involved one way or another. Music brings us together, and sure enough where there is music there are people. Social events like dances, parties, bon fires, sitting around playing cards with your friends, grocery shopping, sporting events, and more. In the book, When Elephants Weep, Jeffery Masson tells a story of a man who sits in the woods and plays guitar, and animals gather and hide behind the bushes, listening. This supports the idea that music bringing us together is innate. Or possibly that animals are curious.

Another function music plays is entertainment. This can include background noise when you are driving, concerts, or even just playing for yourself. Music has a way of stimulating our senses and attention and strays us from boredom when we are doing relatively easy tasks.

Sublimation is known to Freud as a way to take sexual and aggressive energy and releasing by creating a piece of artwork. Sometimes people create pieces of music or other art works to feel better, and to take their emotions and rid of them in a mature fashion. I know for me, whenever I have a bad day, playing piano or writing a poem especially, just lifts a huge weight off of my shoulders.

The idea of art serving as a mode of emotional communication comes from the philosophy of Tolstoy. He believed that like language communicates thoughts and ideas, art communicates emotion. Sometimes when you hear a piece of music, read a piece of literature or poetry, or see an visual artistic creation, you feel an emotion that the artwork gave you. Tolstoy claimed that the more "infectious" the better, that is, the more people feel emotion from a piece and are brought together in brotherhood, the more successful the work is. A subcategory for music under this heading would be ecstasy. Some songs uplift us, or make our brains, as I like to say, "go crazy." They make us pumped up or sometimes even feel beautiful. Emotional communication also connects with sublimation, one way being that an artist may try to take their feelings and share those feelings with others.

Music has been a part of most religions since their commencement. In the Christian religion songs and hymns about God and Jesus, as well as the member's praise to them, are played in church. Church mass is not the only religious ceremony in which music is played in. In native American gatherings, as well as, I'm sure, in Neanderthal times, chants to God(s) were preformed to music. Many other religions use music in their practice as well.

Skill development is a separate and a bit of a different function than the rest of these, or perhaps a different sub category under entertainment. Sometimes people compose or play music, not just to entertain themselves, but just because they want to be good at something. Several people more or less has a talent, maybe inborn or not, that they have and do not want to use to make money or to entertain anyone else, but just to have as a hobby and to say that they are skilled in an area.

Attention is a function that does not apply to everyone. For some people music helps them focus when doing school work or taking tests. Others, music distracts them when performing these tasks. Music usually functions to divide our attention, rather than focus our attention on the main task. When we are in certain social situations music serves as background noise, we really are not paying attention to it, yet it feels awkward if it is not there. Although, if the music was not there, our attention to the situation would be higher than with the music playing. This also applies to driving a car, the music grabs our attention and we are focusing on that rather than the road, since driving, if you have been doing it for a while is a implicit task, it does not take complete conscious attention.

The last function music serves is healing. Music as a healing tool has recently re-entered the western world with music therapy. Yet, other cultures have kept it around since caveman times. Shamans will sometimes use musical chants on their patients. In western developed societies music had a healing purpose in the classical period as well (possibly before). Many times when women were involved in music back then, it dealt with healing. One example is the glass harmonica, which women played and it was supposed to suppress "sexual desires" on the listeners.

Questions: Does music serve any other functions than this? Are any of these functions more important than the others? Which ones and why?

RE: Peter "Rap/Hiphop: true music?"

Peter's latest blog talked about Rap/Hiphop and its relation to music and slam poetry. He ended with the questions:Is rap fully definable as music? If not, what parts of it are? Why? Does this idea apply to standard practices when dealing with aesthetics, or does it deal with a de-definition of art?

Rap is definitely definable as music it has melodies, harmonies, rhythm, and it is organized. Just like there are different styles of poets within a specific genre, there are different styles of hiphop artists. My personal favorite is KiD CuDi, who has a much more laid back style than most hiphop artists. His background beats aren't as repetitive, tend to be unique in some way which I can't exactly pin point, and have a colorful melodic contour. The language he uses also isn't vulgar like Lil' Wayne, Asher Roth, and many other rappers. Just like most songs of the early-mid 20th century to today, hiphop follows the pattern of: verse 1, bridge, chorus, verse 2, bridge chorus, etc. I cannot think of any reason why hiphop would not be considered music. In a recent post I asked why poetry was not considered music, and the reason is because the words are not drawn out and slurred together. I've been writing slam poetry for about five years now, and I completely agree, yes, rap is slam poetry put to music, but there is more to it than that. It flows with the music and limits the linguistic phrase to lasting as long as the rhythmic phrase. And also, the words are sung -- drawn out and slurred together. The cool thing about slam poetry is you create the rhythm and can change it when even you feel like it, you are not held within the confides of temporal phrasing. As for the applications of aesthetics, we do not need to re-define or "de-define" art. Although when looking at lyrical music, I think that language needs to be a consideration when observing aesthetic characteristics. The way things are worded in a song changes everything, especially sense our vocal chords are our biological instrument, and everything down to our thoughts, emotions, and perceptions of the world sprout from our knowledge and use of language. Have you ever heard a song and thought, "I'd like it so much more it it had better lyrics"? The words are what we take meaning from unlike programatic or orchestral music where it is open for interpretation. Hiphop especially is lyrically driven, its main characteristic is that it is fast speech over a rhythmic beat. If the lyrics do not make sense, it is not as aesthetically pleasing as when they do. So, we do not have to re-define what art is, but we have to add the variable of language into our aesthetic perception.

Question: What role do you think language plays in music? Would you say that, to the untrained ear, the lyrics are the most important factor to whether a song is aesthetically pleasing or not?