This lecture concentrated on aesthetic philosophy through the example of music. I will discuss concepts like performers’ and listeners’ interpretations of music, music definition, music preceding humanity, music as a language, and their interplay. This video covers the interaction between aesthetic philosophy and music, simultaneously considering music’s place in mental and cultural spaces. Ultimately, music has its own philosophy, and it can act as such.
The first aspect that stood out for me was the phenomenology of time in music. Dr. Senyshyn’s experiment explores this notion by presenting recordings of famous fast-paced music compositions by different performers to his students (CosmoShidan, 2017). The students were then asked to guess the fastest and the slowest composition based on listening to each performer twice: first slowed down and then at the actual speed. As a result, the two extremes were picked incorrectly: slowest as fastest, and vice versa (CosmoShidan, 2017). Dr. Senyshyn then explains that the slowest pianist, Vladimir Horowitz, plays it slower so you can hear the harmony in the music and its transitions throughout (CosmoShidan, 2017). The fastest pianist, Rachmaninoff, performs so quickly that one cannot hear all stages of harmony’s internal rhythm; instead, the human ear synthesizes the sound, only picking up the slower ‘waves’ of harmony (CosmoShidan, 2017). This experiment demonstrates how one’s perception of time may differ based on the performer’s interpretative choice.
In the next section, I learned about defining music as a whole. Dr. Senyshyn discusses defining music as a thing in itself and draws parallels between music and philosophy since neither has any determining limits (CosmoShidan, 2017). Dr. Senyshyn states that music is not limited to the manufactured rhythmic sounds – it can be the sounds of the environment or non-human animals, like the ‘whale song,’ or even absolute silence (CosmoShidan, 2017). Intriguingly, silence and sound can equally be perceived as music; moreover, they define and are defined by each other’s potentiation (CosmoShidan, 2017). However, the question of defining what music is and what is not remains. To answer that, Dr. Senyshyn offers the following definition: if a human decides they have created musical composition, it does not suffice; but if anyone else agrees with them, it can then be considered music (CosmoShidan, 2017). However, if this understanding remains at the single-person level, that is a “private language” (CosmoShidan, 2017). Hence, the definition of music hinges on the shared experience between people.
An aspect that made me most curious about this video was the notion of possible pre-existence of music. Dr. Senyshyn states that music inferentially precedes human existence (CosmoShidan, 2017). This statement partially derives from the earlier discussion of music potentially being any sound. Pre-Socratic philosophers and adjacent movements perceived music as something to be worshipped, a supernatural force, or even the possible cause within the Big Bang Theory (CosmoShidan, 2017). However, I would like to challenge this notion and point out the distinction between sound waves and music. In this framework, one should ask how music can precede human existence if it requires, by definition, a creator and at least one listener. In other words, if the universe performs the role of a creator, the question is who then will perform the role of a listener.
This discussion brought me back to seeking reasons for having no comprehensive definition of music. Dr. Senyshyn explores the reason for it, referring again to the fact that the potentiation of music precedes human existence and since cannot be defined in absolute terms (CosmoShidan, 2017). Dr. Senyshyn argues that music evades definition not by one’s conscious choice but by a logical necessity. Dr. Senyshyn highlights that as an external inference, music does not communicate with people; instead, humankind utilizes it through their means of culture to communicate it, and thus it becomes a social construct (CosmoShidan, 2017). Darwin believed that there was music as sound and potentiation before the ‘human-appropriated music,’ and, thus, the ‘original music’ became the foundation for human rhymes and languages (CosmoShidan, 2017). That, however, does not imply that music is a language.
The last notable aspect of this talk was its opposition to the widespread statement of music as a universal language. According to Dr. Senyshyn, music is not a universal language – it is only universally applied, appreciated, and practiced (CosmoShidan, 2017). One cannot translate music into another language as one can do from one language to another. One can speak of music from within their personal experience, but this can only be adequately understood by others when their description of this cultural aspect of music is the same (CosmoShidan, 2017). Therefore, music cannot be universal – it can only be a sign of the shared cultural experience in which it is embedded.
In conclusion, this talk has provided many excellent insights into the semiotics of music through an aesthetic philosophy approach. I learned about the phenomenon of relative time perception in music through the experiment by Dr. Senyshyn. Next, I was prompted to contemplate what music is and how it is defined; in doing so, I noted the importance of a shared experience and understanding of a musical composition from a philosophical perspective. A topic that attracted most of my interest was music preceding humankind, which made me question the interplay between music being any sound or silence and music requiring a listener. I wondered whether the absence of a listener in the pre-human times effectively eliminates the existence of music. Lastly, I learned about music not being a common language but rather a sign of the shared cultural experience. This video has been profoundly informative, and I am excited to delve more into this topic in the future.
Reference
CosmoShidan. (2017). Presenting Dr. Yaroslav Senyshyn [Video]. YouTube.