What Does Understandable Music Meaning Mean?
Since I discuss music’s
meaning so often my wife Sheila says that I need to explain exactly what I mean
by the terminology “understandable musical meaning”. When I use the terminology “understandable
meaning” I mean that the information, insights, and understandings that may be
received from the music part of the music (the arrangement of the formal
properties of the music, i.e. the rhythm, melody, harmony, sounds, silences) as
considered as a congruent whole have real life meaning. They arouse emotional mental states; they
arouse passions; they trigger cognitions that cause us to muse (think).
My philosophical view is
different than many music philosophers who believe that music has meaning but
that its meaning is music’s alone and is in no related to real life outside of
the formal properties of the music.
Others believe that music’s meaning evokes a “garden variety” of
emotions but that these emotions are or are not triggered by the music part of
the music per se. Still others believe
that the formal properties of the music contain symbols but that these symbols
only give information and or understanding into a person’s “true
humanness”. Others believe that all of
music’s meaning is referential and therefore only gives insights that are extra
musical.
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