Jonathan L. Friedmann-Music in Our Lives - Why We Listen, How It Works-McFarland (2014)

Music in Our Lives
ALSO BY JONATHAN L. FRIEDMANN

AND FROM MCFARLAND
Music in the Hebrew Bible: Understanding

References in the Torah, Nevi’im and Ketuvim (2014)
Music in Biblical Life: The Roles of Song in Ancient Israel (2013)
Synagogue Song: An Introduction
to Concepts, Theories and Customs (2012)
Music, Theology and Worship: Selected Writings, 1841–1896 (2011)
Music in Jewish Thought: Selected Writings, 1890–1920 (2009)
The Value of Sacred Music: An Anthology
of Essential Writings, 1801–1918 (2009)
Music in Our Lives
Why We Listen,
How It Works
Jonathan L. Friedmann
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers

Jefferson, North Carolina
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Friedmann, Jonathan L., 1980–
Music in our lives : why we listen, how it works /
Jonathan L. Friedmann.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7864-9759-1 (softcover : acid free paper)
ISBN 978-1-4766-1896-8 (ebook)
♾
1. Music—Psychological aspects. 2. Music—Social aspects.
I. Title.
ML3830.F76 2015
781.1'1—dc23 2014044411
BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE
© 2015 Jonathan L. Friedmann. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Cover image © iStock/Thinkstock
Printed in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers

Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
Table of Contents
Preface 1
Introduction 5
1. Writing on Music 9 11. Art Music 93

2. What Is Music? 16 12. Consumer Music 102
3. Where Does Music 13. Creativity 108
Come From? 24
14. Music-Making 117
4. Innateness 34
15. Mind 125
5. Character 40
16. Listening 133
6. Shape 48
7. Transience 57 17. Ownership 140
8. Language 69 18. Prejudice and Tolerance 147

9. Nature 76 19. Religion 155
10. Folk Music 86 20. Spirituality 168
Bibliography 181
Index 193
v
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Preface
This book is composed of “morning musings.” Written in the pre-dawn

hours, it anthologizes musical thoughts conjured in silence and solitude. Each
of its chapters is built from stand-alone essays linked by family resemblance.
This admittedly unusual approach was not random, and its result is not piece-
meal. From the outset, my goal was to create a text that introduces and
expands upon key aspects of the musical experience, mostly from the listener’s
perspective. The roadmap was carefully drawn, and effort was made to carve
a logical path from one chapter section to the next. It is my hope that the
organic character of each section is preserved within the larger structure of
the volume.
Unlike the authors of other general texts on music, I have not abstained
from taking personal positions or asserting my own voice into the topics I
discuss. Music is a vibrant, passionate, and opinion-arousing area of human
life. Examining it in an antiseptic way would be contrary to the subject matter.
Not every reader will agree with every idea proposed or example chosen. In
fact, the discussions are brief and more or less open-ended precisely to
encourage pondering and grappling.
If this book has a primary agenda, it is to stimulate self-examination.
Too often, we rush to musical judgments without investigating the reasons
for our reactions. This is partly the fault of music itself, which is typically felt
so immediately and viscerally as to leave little space for contemplation. Musi-
cal moments are utterly experiential: the spotlight is shined on emotion rather
than intellect. It is easy to overlook the multifarious factors leading up to and
following a musical experience that give rise to seemingly spontaneous
responses. The many and varied explorations presented are designed to flesh
out the fascinating background.
Earlier versions of several of these essays were originally posted on my
blog, Thinking on Music. Astute readers have noted the flexibility of my view-
points and interests from day to day. I am an eclecticist by nature. I sometimes
find myself retooling theories or switching sides in debates, and upon later
1
2 Preface
reflection see value in the divergent opinions. As excursions in an ongoing

search for understanding—what my friend and former professor Jon R. Stone
calls the “scholar’s quest”—the components of this book should be regarded
as time-specific convictions rather than permanent views. In this way, the
chapters subtly argue the possibility that conflicting (or even contradictory)
positions can possess a little bit of truth.
The sundry platter of concepts and theories is plucked from a buffet of
disciplines. Such an approach is necessary when dealing with a subject as
holistic and multi-layered as the human experience of music, and is not
uncommon among pedagogues. An illustration in point is one of my favorite
historical examples, the story of Oscar Weil. Born to German-Jewish immi-
grant parents in Columbia County, New York, in 1839, Weil left home at eight-
een to pursue violin studies in Europe. With the outbreak of the Civil War,
he returned to the United States and enlisted as a private for the Northern
cause. Injuries sustained in the war left him with fragile health and a perma-
nently wounded hand, which ended his career as a concert performer. Upon
retiring from the army, Weil went back to Europe to reinvent himself as a
composer and instructor of composition. He returned to America a year later,
settling in San Francisco, a climate better suited for his delicate health. His
primary income came from teaching violin and composition. According to
the editors of Oscar Weil: Letters and Papers, “A lesson from Mr. Weil was to
the young student an educational adventure. He constantly journeyed from
the immediate business of the hour into fields of general culture, into the
discussion of books, painting and poetry. For he was deeply versed in the
history and literature of the English, French and German peoples; and had
brought away from his contact with these an imaginative power and a wealth
of allusion which served to illuminate his own art. To him art was all com-
prehensive and music only one of its manifestations.”1
Weil’s instinct to connect music to other fields has become a popular
modality in recent years, and lies at the heart of the present volume. We are
in something of a golden age of music research. Technological advances have
merged with philosophical interests to produce an array of distinct yet con-
verging studies illuminating the musical nature of our species. Virtually every
day, a new brick is added to the wall of interdisciplinary information, drawn
from psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, ethology, anthropology,
ethnomusicology, and more. This book develops, supports, challenges, and
diverges from this material, which is flourishing at such rapid speed that it
is nearly impossible to keep up.
For all of these reasons, this survey does not pretend to be comprehen-
sive. It is by no means the final word—or even my final word—on the subject.
Preface 3
By the time of its publication, I will have written dozens of other essays, and
the world’s output will have continued at its furious pace. This book is but
my humble contribution to the endless exploration of humanity’s relationship
with music.
More than anything else, my expertise has been augmented through my
writing. I agree with Isaac Asimov that writing is essentially thinking through
one’s fingers. There is no substitute for that depth of discovery. The greatest
aspiration of this book is to excite others to pursue their own thinking and
writing on music.
While the material included is mostly the result of inward reflection and
independent digging through the literature, several people helped to give it
shape, both directly and indirectly. I am grateful to my students at the Acad-
emy for Jewish Religion, California, whose participation in class discussions
inspired several of the points pursued. Thanks as well to the loyal readers of
my blog, especially Stan Stewart, Daniel Campos Putterman, and John Mor-
ton. Comments and encouragement from these fine musicians and thinkers
have sharpened my arguments and sent me to realms I would have otherwise
overlooked. All conclusions and imperfections are my own. I am most grateful
for the boundless support of my wife, Elvia, the model music enthusiast for
whom this book was written. Finally, I dedicate this work to my late mentor,
cantor-composer William Sharlin, whose wisdom and constant pursuit of
refinement are with me always.
Note
1. Flora J. Arnstein, Albert I. Elkus, and Stewart W. Young, eds., Oscar Weil: Letters
and Papers (San Francisco: Book Club of California, 1923), 1.
Introduction
Literature on music comes in many types. There are technical studies

analyzing the minutia of a composition or style, biographies and autobiogra-
phies delving into the lives of important contributors, scientific investigations
into all facets of musical phenomena, harsh criticisms, and soft praises. Some
look at music in specific populations, while others explore intersections of
music and the broader society. Some offer overviews of “great” composers,
while others list “legends” of Western and non–Western genres. There are
ethnographic studies, philosophical treatises, theological discourses, feminist
critiques, polemical diatribes, practical manuals, listening guides, resources
for archivists, catalogues for collectors, textbooks on theory, workbooks on
musicianship, encyclopedias, compendiums, dictionaries, and more.
If proof were needed of music’s vital role in human life, this vast and var-
ied amalgamation would be it. Countless gallons of ink have been spilled in
pursuit of musical understanding, and more is added each day. Curiosity about
things musical can be measured by the amount of books and articles published
on the subject, which number in the millions. Writers of antiquity observed
the mysterious hold music takes over our hearts and minds, and contemporary
scholars and researchers continue to search for the reasons why.
In one way or another, pondering the “big questions” has given rise to
the various sorts of studies listed above. What constitutes “greatness” in music,
what factors contribute to musical preferences, what functions are served by
musical displays—these and similar big-picture concerns lie at the heart of
virtually all musical inquiries. While an analysis of music in a Polynesian rit-
ual and a text on counterpoint in the style of J. S. Bach may have few surface
similarities, they exhibit common underlying concerns for customs, aesthet-
ics, conventions, expectations, cultural meanings, and so on. The same can
be said for almost any disparate pairing of musical subjects. Music and those
who produce it are endlessly diverse. Yet, without neglecting cultural specifics
or blurring inherent functions and values, we can appreciate the shared
human needs and tendencies that tie them all together.
5
6 Introduction
Content
This book examines music through a humanistic lens. Rather than wad-
ing through musicological details or presenting “thick descriptions” of case
studies, it aims to enrich awareness from the perceiver’s end. Less attention
is given to analysis and criticism, and greater emphasis is placed on the hows
and whys of music in human life. With an assortment of interdisciplinary
excursions and a tapestry of global musical examples, its pages travel through
twenty key aspects of the musical experience.
Specifically, these are: the challenges and rewards of writing on music;
the difficulties of defining music; evolutionary theories of music’s origins; the
innateness of music in humanity; the impression of character in musical selec-
tions; the shape of musical patterns; music’s transient essence; the relationship
of music and language; musical possibilities in the natural world; the nature
of folk music; music’s artistic basis; habits of musical consumption; music and
creativity; the intricacies of making music; the mind and musical perception;
listening preferences; music and identity; prejudice and tolerance in musical
choices; religious interpretations of music; and music as a spiritual conduit.
Purpose
What, exactly, can be learned from all of this? Advocates for music edu-
cation often highlight the side benefits of formal training, even for students
who do not aspire to perform professionally. Among the reported non-
musical cognitive advantages are improved reading skills, higher standardized
test scores, and increased spatial-temporal reasoning.1 The scholastic value
of simply listening to music is not as clear and certainly not as dramatic.
Despite the popularity of the Mozart Effect and other research purporting a
link between listening to certain types of music and augmented mental capac-
ity, they mask a mixture of fiction and fact.2 Yet, while quantitative benefits
reside overwhelmingly with those who study an instrument, conscientious
listening does have qualitative rewards.
Thoughtful listening opens up a unique avenue of self-awareness. This
is not to be confused with “good listening,” or the identification of technical
aspects such as rhythm, dynamics, meter, melody, harmony, and form. Such
knowledge is an essential part of musicianship and undoubtedly amplifies
cultural appreciation. But there is more to musical reflection than memorizing
Italian terms or recognizing stylistic indicators. Basic curiosity about why
we even care about music can open the mind to deep discoveries.
Introduction 7
From the moment we wake up, our lives are inundated with musical sounds.
Daily activities unfold to a partly selected and partly random musical sound-
track. Some music is intentionally heard from the car radio, mp3 playlist, or
headphones at the gym. Other music invades the auditory system through
advertisements, a neighbor’s stereo, or loudspeakers at the grocery store. In
most cases, the music stirs a certain, if not always conscious, response. The
type and magnitude of that response can teach us much about ourselves.
The listening experience encompasses a potpourri of individual and
environmental factors. How a person reacts to a single selection is determined
by disposition, personality type, peer group, generational grouping, geo-
graphic location, access to resources, education, cultural heritage, past history,
socio-economic class, personal associations, momentary temperament, phys-
ical setting, recording quality, volume level—just to list a handful. Peeling
off any one of these layers and contemplating its impact on musical perception
is an enlightening exercise.
Music is as ubiquitous as it is taken for granted. Because it is so omnipresent
and tightly woven into everyday life, rarely does one pause to ponder its pro-
fundity; and since intellectual involvement is not a prerequisite for musical
reaction, music seems more apt for experience than examination. True, music
affects us whether or not we understand what is taking place, and musical
opinions are formed with or without introspection. But as soon as we scratch
the surface, we begin peering into ourselves.
Approach
The topics covered are comparable to the major themes present in other
general texts, but the approach taken differs in four significant ways. First, I
have inserted my own voice into the topics discussed, rather than taking
a more impartial or disinterested viewpoint. Second, each chapter consists
of “mini-lessons” designed to introduce and stimulate thinking on a concept
or situation in as few words as possible. In my experience as a teacher
and researcher, this fast- paced world of multi- tasking and light- speed
information dissemination is best served by writing that is concise and
focused. Third, allusions and analogies used to illustrate the book’s various
points are drawn from an eclectic range of extramusical sources, from phi-
losophy to fiction to food. Apart from (hopefully) enlivening the discussions,
this method is intended to make the sometimes-intricate content relatable
to a wide range of readers. Fourth, the book looks at music as a universal
human phenomenon. With rare exceptions, everyone reacts to musical
8 Introduction
stimuli and integrates them into sundry areas of life. The musically inclined
and disinclined benefit from music in essentially identical and equal ways;
absence of individual skill does not correspond to lack of capacity. Situating
this awareness at the forefront, the pages that follow survey the roots and
offshoots of our deep and complex relationship with musical sounds.
Notes
1. See Dee Hansen and Elaine Bernstorf, “Linking Music Learning to Reading In-
struction,” Music Educators Journal 88:5 (2002): 17–21, 52; Steven M. Demorest and
Steven J. Morrison, “Does Music Make You Smarter?” Music Educators Journal 87:2
(2000): 33–39, 58; and Frances H. Rauscher, et al., “Music Training Causes Long-Term
Enhancement of Preschool Children’s Spatial-Temporal Reasoning,” Neurological Re-
search 19 (1997): 2–8.
2. See Rudi Črnčec, Sarah J. Wilson, and Margot Prior, “The Cognitive and Academic
Benefits of Music to Children: Facts and Fiction,” Educational Psychology: An Interna-
tional Journal of Experimental Educational Psychology 26:4 (2006): 579–594.
1
Writing on Music
Writing on music is no easy task. First and foremost, music is meant to

be heard and felt directly, not analyzed indirectly with the sterile tools of
written language. Added to this, musical phenomena are self-contained and
occur in specific contexts, making generalizations difficult to justify. There
is also the constant tension between theory and practice, and the tendency
to miss the full experience by favoring one over the other. Finally, there is
the “musician’s burden”: the inability of the expert to receive music with the
purer and less critical ears of the novice. The purpose of this chapter is both
to acknowledge these obstacles and to chart a course beyond them. After all,
this book is nothing other than words about music.
Real Music
Atticus Finch, the noble defense attorney in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mock-
ingbird, coined a useful courtroom adage: Delete the adjectives and you have
the facts.1 The reality of a situation tends to be hidden behind layers of embel-
lishment and prejudice. It suffocates under the weight of bias and inter-
pretation, losing its neutrality and assuming a character dictated by the
commentator. This is a natural function of human perception. We are not
robots; our big brains are wired to assess rather than sterilely measure. The
process is sometimes harmless and sometimes not. What Atticus strove for
is the ability to isolate intrinsic essence from cluttering vocabulary.
Atticus’s maxim finds a musical parallel in the writings of philosopher
and musicologist Vladimir Jankélévitch. In Music and the Ineffable, Jankélévitch
reminds us that music is made to be heard, not to be talked about.2 In the
intangible way music can be said to exist, it inhabits an abstract and ephemeral
realm. Each listener associates sounds with personal images and feelings,
which can be discussed in ornate—yet ultimately equivocal—detail. Music
is a self-contained phenomenon, occurring apart from our attempts to deci-
9
10 Music in Our Lives
pher or characterize it. For this reason, Jankélévitch considers the music-
language relationship a one-way affair: music can elicit endless talk, but talk
gives nothing back to the music.
Musical description is a type of linguistic performance, in which the
reader (or auditor) is manipulated to hear music a certain way. Once exposed
to suggestive language, the possibility of “pure” listening becomes a near
impossibility. This is true whether the adjectives are unsophisticated (“good,”
“bad,” “pretty,” “ugly”) or flowery, as in Lazare Saminsky’s appraisal of Ernest
Bloch’s Sacred Service: “[It possesses] an awed gleam of cognizance of the
Supreme force that clasps the universe into oneness.”3 More than simply
allowing us to experience music through another’s sensibilities, figurative
remarks irrevocably color our perception. To a certain extent, we end up pro-
cessing the music as someone else wants us to.
Opinion and bias are inevitable outcomes of human cognition. A think-
ing brain is a judgmental brain. What the fictional Atticus and philosopher
Jankélévitch stress is that objectivity demands resisting and overcoming:
resisting the temptation to embroider the facts, and overcoming our suscep-
tibility to such embroidery. The extramental thing—the thing-in-itself—is
not language-dependent. It is what it is, as the tired saying goes.
Clearly, it is a fantasy to think that prejudicial adjectives will ever be
expunged from the courtroom, or that music will ever be experienced in a
non-verbal vacuum. One could even question whether it is desirable in all
cases to dispense with a reasonable dose of colorful wordage. Nevertheless,
we should pause to recognize that reality resides beneath the words.
Surviving Context
Some people are sticklers for context. They are hypersensitive about how
words are handled and hyper-protective of original sources. For any state-
ment, speech, painting, essay, song, novel or other cultural artifact to have
legitimate meaning, it must be appreciated in, and only in, its native confines.
Removing an idea from a specific discussion or an object from its historical
period damages the intent and invalidates later applications. In the extreme
of this view, ancient scriptures have no lasting relevance, reports on an event
cannot describe anything else, and artistic creations from different periods
or locations cannot be properly reproduced. Timeless wisdom becomes time-
bound information. Ageless beauty becomes situational aesthetics.
It is fair to say that the extreme position is rarely (if ever) taken. Even
sticklers treasure an occasional proverb or a piece of Classical music, though
1. Writing on Music 11
both were contrived for foreign audiences long ago deceased. Where the issue
becomes problematic is when a comment is given wider relevance than the
author intended. This is especially frowned upon in the guarded field of musi-
cal analysis, where fidelity to context is almost a maxim. True, ink spilled in
the examination of one composer or piece of music is necessarily distorted
when applied to a different work, let alone something more general; and egre-
gious distortions can and do occur. But to insist that every musical insight
be understood only in its document of origin restricts its potential readership
and potential to enlighten.
If staunch contextualism were to prevail, then popular books like A Dic-
tionary of Musical Quotations (Croften and Fraser)4 and Music: A Book of
Quotations (Galewitz)5—as well as specialized books like my own Quotations
on Jewish Sacred Music6—would lose much or all of their value. However,
most of us recognize that words written on a particular situation or creation
frequently retain and accrue beneficial meanings when expanded to larger
contexts.
An example is composer-musicologist Hubert Parry’s warning, “Look
out for this man’s music; he has something to say and knows how to say it.”7
Parry wrote this after attending the premiere of Edward Elgar’s Enigma Vari-
ations, but it could be describing any sincere and competent musician. Sim-
ilarly, Beethoven unknowingly wrote on behalf of many composers when he
included this statement in a letter to Louis Schlösser: “You will ask where my
ideas come from. I cannot say for certain. They come uncalled, sometimes
independently, sometimes in association with other things.”8
The governing ideal of a remark may reside within specific parameters,
but unconditional truths can still be happened upon. Indeed, various and
sundry quotations find their way into anthologies precisely because their use-
fulness survives their context.
Part of this durability owes to the fact that observations made about any
one thing take place within a grander sweep of experiences. No phenomenon
exists in isolation and no reflection on a phenomenon is without underpin-
nings in a larger reality. In this sense, the constricted setting of a given quote
already exists in a wider context, and the sagacity it possesses can speak to
a wider context still. For instance, words about a Romantic composition may
capture the essence of Romantic music, or elucidate music composition in
general.
Of course, we should always be sensitive to the original target and mean-
ing of a statement, and be habitual citers of sources. It is also obvious that
not everything brilliant is applicable outside of the page it is printed on. But
when it is, we should be free to adopt it as wisdom to think by.
Theory and Practice

Theory and practice in music are often portrayed as opposing modes of
discernment. Theory is viewed as abstract, analytical and remote from the
musical moment. Its tools and methods distill a work to its elemental com-
ponents and provide the mechanical framework for a piece’s construction;
but they hardly account (or attempt to account) for music’s affections or aes-
thetics. At its most austere, theory becomes what seventeenth-century
philosopher Marin Mersenne conceived it to be: the reduction of music to
the movement of air. Opponents of this approach, like social critic Morris
Berman, point to its apparent spiritlessness.9 For them, music is a happening,
existing to be heard and felt, not dissected or diagnosed.
If we take the extremes of either position, then listening and analysis
are two unrelated activities. The theorist rarely dwells on the effects of a piece
while examining it under a magnifying glass. And the listener rarely ponders
specific properties that are stimulating a musical response. However, theory
and practice are not as distant as we might presume. Not only are they aspects
of the same thing—music—they also address companion human needs for
order and wonder.
The combination of formal design and amorphous impact is at the root
of music’s appeal. Though features such as pitch, timbre, duration and har-
mony are susceptible to meticulous examination, their cumulative effect can-
not be accurately predicated, precisely measured or empirically determined.
It is at the same time science and art.
Mathematician and polymath Jacob Bronowski made a related observa-
tion in his influential book, The Identity of Man.10 Using science and poetry
as contrasting pathways of human inquiry, Bronowski explained that while
scientific imagination seeks to resolve ambiguities by conducting decisive
tests between alternatives, artistic imagination encourages divergent paths
without deciding for one or the other. Science is miserly, weeding out the
proliferation of new ideas; art is generous, exploiting the vastness of ambi-
guities. For Bronowski, these two trajectories of the imaginative process—
narrowing and expanding—form the basis of human consciousness.
It is intriguing that both avenues exist simultaneously in music. A musi-
cal selection is receptive to the scientific approach of the theorist, who sep-
arates, labels and quantifies its basic elements. But it is also open-ended,
inviting subjective reactions and creative interpretations. These modes of
engagement can appear mutually exclusive and certainly call upon different
devices and frames of mind. Yet, when we apply Bronowski’s insights, it
becomes clear that theory and practice satisfy the concurrent and fundamen-
tal human needs for certainty and possibility. Science and art merge in music,
enriching the entirety of consciousness.
Less Is More
There is an old opera joke that Wagner’s music is better than it sounds,
while Puccini’s music sounds better than it is. The humor of this quip lies in
the absurdity of judging music—the audible art—apart from how it sounds.
It lampoons the elitist’s assertion that accessible music is almost definitionally
inferior to more esoteric works, regardless of what our ears tell us. Whatever
truth there may be in this musicological system of merits and demerits—and
whatever influence such assessments may have—it nevertheless highlights
distinctions between listening and evaluating, and between scholars and ordi-
nary folk. It is the difference between experiential knowledge—“I know what
I like when I hear it”—and analytical discernment—“I discern its value when
I measure it.” These divergent modes of apprehension help explain the often-
wide chasm separating popular musical opinions and the rarified views of
music critics, theorists, historians and other professionals. “The expert knows
best,” so says the expert.
None of this is meant to negate the worth or even accuracy of musical
criticism. When a musicologist or respected composer extols or disparages
this or that opus, we should probably pay attention. But even the specialist
will admit that too much information tends to tarnish the musical experience.
What is primarily a medium of emotional expression becomes the subject of
cognitive probing.
There is a standard line of thinking in the philosophy of aesthetics that
visceral reactions to art are most intense in an art form other than one’s own.
For example, a painter will have a primitive rush of emotions when standing
in a Gothic cathedral, while the architect next to her closely examines the
stonework of the clerestory, the dimensions of the fan vault and so on. The
painter excitedly declares, “This place is awesome!” The architect replies,
“Did you notice the design flaw in that section of the ceiling?” Similarly, an
architect seated in a concert hall will surrender himself to the mass of sound,
while the musician sitting beside him busily scrutinizes melodic contours,
harmonic density, tonal color and so forth. The architect blurts out, “This is
marvelous!” The musician responds, “Trivial rubbish.” The first is wrapped
in sensual pleasure; the second is absorbed in adjudication.
It is sometimes said of the music theorist that he has a refined appreciation
of the analytical and abstract, but a cultivated disregard for the affective and
aesthetic. Of course, expertise in the science of music does not in itself preclude
musical enjoyment. It is, after all, the music expert who is most interested in
and enthusiastic about musical history, variety and subtlety. But, as the aestheti-
cian readily acknowledges, interest and experience are not the same thing. To
paraphrase Aaron Copland, the “gifted listener”—i.e., the musically educated—
may hear more in a performance, but as the listener’s knowledge expands so
does her distance from the “primal and almost brutish level” of musical emo-
tions. Again, this is not necessarily good or bad; but it does account for the dis-
connect between the novice’s professed love for this or that conventional fare
and the critic’s supercilious remark that Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.
Goethe’s famous saying has relevance here: “Doubt grows with knowl-
edge.”11 If we replace “doubt” with “critical analysis”—which is the essence of
Goethe’s phrase—we begin to recognize how difficult it is for the knowledge-
able musician to replicate the relative simplicity and abandonment of the
average person’s musical encounter. Proficiency in the art tends to impede
purity of experience.
Notes
1. Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird (New York: HarperCollins, 1988), 97.
2. Vladimir Jankélévitch, Music and the Ineffable, trans. Carolyn Abbate (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003).
3. Lazare Saminsky, Music of the Ghetto and the Bible (New York: Bloch, 1934), 176–
177.
4. Ian Crofton and Donald Fraser, comp., A Dictionary of Musical Quotations (New
York: Macmillan, 1985).
5. Herb Galewitz, ed., Music: A Book of Quotations (New York: Dover, 2001).
6. Jonathan L. Friedmann, ed., Quotations on Jewish Sacred Music (Lanham, MD:
Hamilton, 2011).
7. Hubert Parry, quoted in Christopher Wood, An Elgar Companion (Derbyshire,
UK: Moorland, 1982), 180.
8. Ludwig van Beethoven, letter to Louis Schlösser (1899), quoted in Scott Power,
Musician’s Little Book of Wisdom (Merrillville, IN: ICS, 1996), 356.
9. Morris Berman, Coming to Our Senses: Body and Spirit in the Hidden History of
the West (New York: Bantam, 1989), 40.
10. Jacob Bronowski, The Identity of Man (Garden City, NY: American Museum Sci-
ence, 1965).
11. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Proverbs in Prose (1819).
Suggestions for Further Reading

Bergeron, Katherine, and Philip V. Bohlman, ed. Disciplining Music: Musicology and Its
Canons. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Cook, Nicholas. A Very Short Introduction to Music. New York: Oxford University Press,
1998.
Eggebrecht, Hans Heinrich. Understanding Music: The Nature and Limits of Musical
Cognition. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010.
Ferguson, Donald N. The Why of Music: Dialogues in an Unexplored Region of Appre-
ciation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1969.
Herbert, Trevor. Music in Words: A Guide to Researching and Writing about Music. New
York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Holoman, Kern D. Writing About Music: A Style Sheet. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2008.
Jankélévitch, Vladimir. Music and the Ineffable. Translated by Carolyn Abbate. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003.
Poultney, David. Studying Music History: Learning, Reasoning, and Writing About Music
History and Literature. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996.
Rowell, Lewis. Thinking About Music: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Music.
Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984.
Shepherd, John, et al. Whose Music? A Sociology of Musical Languages. New Brunswick,
NJ: Transaction, 2008.
2
What Is Music?
Conceptions about music are fluid and variable. Music is viewed as an

art form and used as a practical tool. In parts of Africa, music cannot be con-
ceived of without dance. Some cultures do not have a word for “music” at all.
Music pioneers have stretched the boundaries of tradition and taste with
processed sound recordings, extended vocal techniques, computer generated
noise, randomly produced electronic signals, field recordings, and more.
Identifying music as such involves a complex interplay of cultural, historical,
educational, and social considerations. This chapter elucidates the difficulty
of defining music, generalized responses to culturally specific sounds, the
role of convention in shaping music recognition, and time as the fundamental
ingredient of all music.
(Not) Defining Music
A universally applicable definition of music will never be constructed.

As an ever-present and ever-malleable aspect of human life, music, it seems,
has taken as many forms, shades and variations as humanity itself. A truly
objective view of what music is (or can be) would be so inclusive as to be
almost useless. Every aspect of the musical entity is open to challenge and
reconfiguration: devices used to produce sounds (instruments, found objects,
electronic sampling, vocals, etc.); modes of transmission (oral tradition, writ-
ten notation, live performance, recordings, etc.); means of reception (speak-
ers, headphones, classroom, concert hall, etc.); the sounds themselves (tones,
rhythms, consonances, dissonances, etc.).
Yet, at the same time, sources like the Encyclopædia Britannica remind
us that, while no sound can be described as inherently unmusical, “musicians
in each culture have tended to restrict the range of sounds they will admit.”1
Philosopher Lewis Rowell likewise defers to the role of convention: “let music
signify anything that is normally called music.”2 In both cases, monolithism
16
2. What Is Music? 17
is discarded in favor of relativism: an awareness that ideas about music

depend more on one’s location and exposure than on sonic properties them-
selves. And now, with the aid of technology and global connectivity, it is pos-
sible to cultivate an ever-expanding musical vocabulary that reaches far
beyond one’s own cultural milieu.
But, even if we embrace globally diverse musical offerings (or, at mini-
mum, acknowledge that what one culture accepts as music is not the final
word), it is still the case that music is a cultural product, and, as such, comes
to us through a long and multi-actor process of experimenting, selecting,
sculpting, modifying and normalizing. Indeed, while abstract considerations
may lead us to abandon hard and fast rules about what constitutes a musical
sound, whatever music can be said to be is the result of a cultural process.
Music, in other words, is defined for us. (It bears noting that even “rule-
breaking” systems like twelve-tone serialism and free jazz draw their raw
materials from pre-established tools and conceptions.)
To perhaps state the obvious, we do not begin with the view that music
is a loose and inclusive category. Rather, it is the existence of musical variants
within and between cultures that forces us to recognize that music is a loose
and inclusive category. What we are left with, then, is a formulation that is
not entirely satisfactory, but is at least defensible: cultures organize sounds
in such a way that they are heard as music.
No Definition
Ambrose Bierce made a name for himself concocting sardonic epigrams.
Many of them took the form of witty definitions originally published in the
Wasp, a satirical San Francisco magazine, and were later compiled as The
Devil’s Dictionary.3 The name he earned for himself was “Bitter.” Each entry
divulges the darkness of his humor. For instance, he defined birth as “The
first and direst of all disasters,” and faith as “Belief without evidence in what
is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.”
Another term Bierce skewered was art, of which he dryly wrote, “This word
has no definition.”
A more conventional source would describe art as the application of
skill and creativity to produce works intended to evoke emotional and/or
aesthetic responses. The vagueness in this definition and the total avoidance
in Bierce’s highlight the difficulty of identifying what constitutes art, as well
as the subjectivity of assessment once something has been labeled art. There
is a sense that any strict parameter would be unfair, as it would deny options
for imaginative excursions and inspired divergences. This is especially true

in the wake of the twentieth century, with its envelope pushes, aesthetic chal-
lenges, deconstructions, reconstructions, abstractions and distractions. Most
of us approach art intuitively: we know it when we see it (or hear it in the
case of music). Because this process is personal, there is no guarantee that
one person’s recognition of something as art will be shared by all. Andres
Serrano’s Piss Christ is an obvious example.
Subjectiveness even extends to things universally accepted as art.
Nowhere is this more clear than in the construction of artistic pantheons.
Our concept of what constitutes greatness in art is, by and large, determined
for us by historians and aficionados. True, the works tend to have some gen-
eral appeal and strike the obligatory chords of beauty and emotion. But our
relationship with art is such that there can be no universal agreement. Art is
not just beyond definition. There is also wisdom in the old cliché that there’s
no accounting for taste.
Take these evaluations of widely admired musical works. Celebrated
American violinist Ruggiero Ricci remarked, “A violinist can hide in the
Brahms Concerto, where bad taste and musical inadequacies won’t show up
as easily as they do in Mozart.”4 Nineteenth-century composer Gioachino
Rossini quipped, “One can’t judge Wagner’s opera Lohengrin after a first hear-
ing, and I certainly don’t intend to hear it a second time.” 5 The always-
opinionated Igor Stravinsky asked, “Why is it that every time I hear a piece
of bad music, it’s by Villa-Lobos?” These biting words call to mind Bierce’s
definition of painting: “The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather
and exposing them to the critic.”
The nature of art is the root cause of this diversity of opinion. Both its
indefiniteness and its way of triggering emotions expose it to strong and idio-
syncratic responses. Tastes vary in every conceivable direction: person to
person, group to group, region to region, culture to culture, period to period,
life stage to life stage, etc. Behind every like and dislike are innumerable
conscious and unconscious reasons. But rather than a weakness, the fact that
art invites such individual feelings is perhaps its greatest strength. The free-
dom of reaction that art affords helps explain our attraction to it, whatever
it is.
The Universal Non-Universal Language

A basic premise of ethnomusicological investigation is that music, as a
worldwide phenomenon, cannot be subjected to an overarching set of values,
standards or expectations. No single conception of what constitutes music is

applicable cross-culturally; a definition that satisfies Western principles fails
when applied to a non–Western society. Thus, it is argued, each cultural and
subcultural manifestation of music should be studied individually and on its
own terms. To paraphrase George Herzog, music is a non-universal language
that exists in many dialects.6
As obvious as this may seem, there was a time, not too long ago, when
scholars presumed that music in its varied forms communicated basic emo-
tional information that could be discerned by insiders and outsiders in essen-
tially the same way. But the more they examined the diverse offerings of local
music-cultures, the more they came to appreciate the multifariousness of
musical expression and the role of social conditioning in shaping musical
perception. Like spoken languages, musical languages require a level of flu-
ency to be understood.
Still, a version of the old assumption of universality can be upheld.
Our reactions to music may not be uniform, but the types of reactions that
music stirs are consistent throughout our species. In other words, while it is
unlikely that a song indigenous to one group will evoke the same feelings
when played for another, outsiders can at least appreciate the kinds of
responses it produces in its native setting. The emotions of a sad or happy
song may not resonate beyond a fluency group, but every group has its sad
and happy songs.
In this sense, we are all empathetic when it comes to music (except, per-
haps, for the roughly four percent who have some form of amusia, which
hinders or prevents musical processing). We know emotionally what another
experiences in music; we can place ourselves in their musical shoes. Of course,
the degree to which music moves us varies from person to person, and shades
of response tend to be more sophisticated among musicians. But regardless
of how prone we are to emotional outpourings or how developed our musical
skills, neurologically intact individuals are born musically sensitive and are
predisposed to feeling music as emotion.
We can, then, empathize with another’s musical experience irrespective
if we feel the music in the same way or with the same level of interest or
intensity. Mark Twain, in his characteristically perceptive autobiography,
explained why this is so: “The last quarter century of my life has been pretty
constantly and faithfully devoted to the study of the human race—that is to
say, the study of myself, for in my individual person I am the entire human
race compacted together. I have found that there is no ingredient of the race
which I do not possess in either a small way or a large way. When it is small,
as compared with the same ingredient in somebody else, there is still enough
of it for all the purposes of examination. In my contacts with the species I

find no one who possesses a quality which I do not possess.”7
Radical Conventions
Everything we accept as mainstream had a beginning somewhere in the

past. It may have sprung from a single source or through gradual develop-
ment. It may have appeared in dramatic fashion, parting abruptly from ideas,
technologies, manners or artistry of the day. Or it may have come with a
snail-paced shift in the zeitgeist. Whether or not we know from whence it
came, what we now consider normal was not always so.
True, nothing is without precedent. Given the cause-and-effect nature
of reality, no entity is absolutely divorced from what came before. There is
continuity in the intellectual evolution of our species, even when advance-
ments seem more like mutations than adaptations. And, with enough time
and repetition, once-innovative or iconoclastic views can become prevailing
norms. Mark Twain put it thus: “The radical of one century is the conservative
of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the
conservative adopts them.”8
In the vast universe of music, the transition from radical to conventional
transpires in various ways. Two will be examined here, as they seem to be
the most common: the appropriation of “far-out” ideas by mainstream musi-
cians, and the discovery of older elements in novel forms.
The first involves convention through indirect channels. A good example
is John Cage, hailed as one of the most influential composers of the twentieth
century. Cage’s legacy is felt more in his ideals than his actual works, which
incorporate indeterminacy, spontaneity, expanded use of instruments, and
manipulation of electronic and recorded material. Because of his personality,
creativity and the experimental ethos of his time, Cage’s name became house-
hold. But his music never caught on in a popular way. It was and will always
remain in the impenetrable realm of avant-garde. Despite this, his concep-
tions seeped into the musical vernacular by way of Woody Guthrie, John
Cale, Sonic Youth, Frank Zappa and Brian Eno, as well as the countless musi-
cians they have inspired.
The second way radical music becomes conventional is through recog-
nition of the past in envelope-pushing sounds. After the initial shock has
worn off, new forms and styles are often reframed as unique syntheses of ele-
ments culled from a pool of established devices. This is perhaps most preva-
lent in the jazz community. The innovative playing of Charlie Parker has
been reassessed as a fast-paced and intricate rendering of the blues. Eric Dol-
phy’s mold-breaking approach has been described as rhythmically similar to
Parker’s, but more harmonically developed. The freeform technique of
Ornette Coleman has been identified as a rephrasing of old swing patterns.
These evaluations help pave the path to convention, where “outsider” sounds
inform and are eventually fused with contemporary norms.
Most music is directly influenced by other music. Standards and trends
do not arise in an instant or out of nothing, but through a subtle and organic
flow that only becomes apparent with the passage of time. Drastic departures
can also occur within this linear movement. As things progress, these too
can become “normalized,” often through secondary influence or reappraisal.
Thus, as Twain observed, the radical is made conservative.
The Chronologic Art
Music has been called the chronologic art. In contrast to the plastic arts,
which are presented in space and with the impression of completeness, music
involves a temporal succession of impulses converging toward an end. The
character of a piece—its shape, purpose, temperament, quality, etc.— is
divulged gradually through linear progression. Musical information is per-
formed and perceived through the passage of time and the ordering of sound
within it.
The idea of music unfolding in time is a staple observation in the phi-
losophy of music. Schopenhauer viewed tempo as the essence of music.9 Hegel
understood music as sound which retains its temporality, but is liberated
from the spatial and material.10 Time, in other words, is as crucial to a musi-
cian as canvas to a painter, wood to a carver, stone to a sculptor, paper to a
poet. It is the fundamental surface upon which the art is created and expe-
rienced.
Music’s relationship with time can be thought of in two distinct yet inter-
connected ways. The first is real or ontological time, which consists of organ-
ized elements such as duration, rhythm, meter and tempo. Duration is the
length of a note. Rhythm is a regular and repeated pattern of sound. Meter
refers to the number of beats and time value assigned to each note in a meas-
ure. Tempo involves the rate at which music is performed. These time-
centered parts are the basic properties with which music is made.
Music’s second temporal component is psychological time, or the lis-
tener’s perception of music as it is played in real time. How we experience
time is not always in accordance with the clock. Engagement in time is shaped
by a slew of factors, including but not limited to physical surroundings, inner

disposition and momentary circumstances. Feelings such as boredom, excite-
ment, anxiety, anguish, expectation and pleasure set life at different paces.
Similarly, moods and sensations derived from music convey temporal move-
ment that seems to exist apart from meter and tempo. The seconds that
pass slowly during a dreary piece are the same as those that fly quickly during
a scherzo. Their psychological effects create the illusion of independent
clocks.
Musical time, then, exists both within and outside of measurable tem-
poral units. The music itself can be divided according to ordered parameters,
and is subject to mathematical dissection and scientific analysis. Yet the move-
ment of time becomes less mechanical and more impressionistic as the sounds
travel from their source, through the auditory system and into consciousness.
Ontological time makes possible and gives way to psychological time.
Notes
1. The New Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. 8 (2003), 422.
2. Lewis Rowell, Thinking About Music: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Music
(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1983), 1.
3. Ambrose Bierce, The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, vol. VII: The Devil’s Dic-
tionary (New York: Neale, 1911).
4. Galewitz, Music: A Book of Quotations, 39.
5. Peter Archer, The Quotable Intellectual (Avon, MA: Adams, 2010), 69.
6. George Herzog, “Music’s Dialects: A Non-Universal Language,” Independent Jour-
nal of Columbia University 6:10 (1939): 1–2.
7. Mark Twain, Mark Twain’s Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North
American Review (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1924), 225.
8. Mark Twain, Mark Twain’s Notebook, ed. Albert Bigelow Paine (New York: Harper,
1935), 355.
9. Arthur Schopenhauer, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, cited in Barry Empson,
“Schoenberg’s Hat: Objects in Musical Space,” in Frameworks, Artworks, Place: The Space
of Perception in the Modern World, ed. Timothy J. Mehigan (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2008),
85.
10. See Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, trans. T. M.
Knox (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975).
Suggestions for Further Readings

Alperson, Philip, ed. What Is Music? An Introduction to the Philosophy of Music. Uni-
versity Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010.
Cook, Nicholas, and Mark Everis, eds. Rethinking Music. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1999.
Gracyk, Theodore, and Andrew Kania, eds. The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of
Music. New York: Routledge, 2011.
Kivy, Peter. Introduction to a Philosophy of Music. New York: Clarendon, 2002.
Nettl, Bruno. The Study of Ethnomusicology: Thirty-One Issues and Concepts. Champaign:
University of Illinois Press, 2005.
Rice, Timothy. Ethnomusicology: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2014.
Ridley, Aaron. The Philosophy of Music: Theme and Variations. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 2004.
Robinson, Jennifer, ed. Music and Meaning. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997.
Scruton, Robert. Understanding Music: Philosophy and Interpretation. New York:
Bloomsbury, 2009.
Zbikowski, Lawrence M. Conceptualizing Music: Cognitive Structure, Theory, and Analy-
sis. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
3
Where Does Music Come From?
The observation that we are a musical species is hardly controversial. Con-

firmation of our musical nature is found in the many and persistent ways we
infuse music into our daily lives. Precisely how we became so musical is not
as clear. Theories abound, each adding a thought-provoking possibility to the
evolutionary discussion. This chapter begins with an overview of the likely
stages in musical evolution, and moves on to five specific theories: the likelihood
that music predated speech; the Darwinian view of music as a sexually selected
courtship display; the notion that music evolved from cohesive rhythmic rituals;
the evidence that group singing forges essential bonds; and Steven Pinker’s
much-discussed proposition that music serves no evolutionary purpose.
The Rudiments of Music
Alfred Einstein, one of the twentieth century’s most respected musicol-

ogists (and possible fifth cousin of Albert), wrote a daring and enduring book
at the age of thirty-seven. A Short History of Music first appeared in print in
his native German in 1917. The preface to later English editions includes this
admission: “[The book] was written in a few weeks, at a time and place that
precluded resort to any books of reference.”1 In Einstein’s view, this was a help
rather than a hindrance. Rather than drown himself (and the reader) in a
swamp of names and dates, he attempted a through-composed picture of the
development of (Western) music as a whole. Some specialists have pounced
on this approach, but the book’s resonance among lay readers is attested in
the abundance of revised printings in German and English, each amended to
include recent data (the last edition I’m aware of was published in 1954).
Naturally, Einstein gave greater attention to the area for which he was
the primary authority: sixteenth-century music, especially of Italy. But no
period up to his day was overlooked entirely. An intriguing case is the first
chapter, which summarizes what was then known about “primitive” music.
24
3. Where Does Music Come From? 25
Aside from employing that now distasteful term, Einstein’s offerings remain
the general hypotheses of the field. Indeed, while contemporary interest in
the origins of music has produced fascinating details and possibilities, current
research mostly complies with broad assumptions made during the first half
of the twentieth century.
Einstein included seven hypotheses: (1) Singing has deeper historical
roots than speaking (pre-linguistic music); (2) After singing came rhythm and
percussion, which were explored in ritual dance (devotional music); (3) Song
and rhythm combined to accompany labor (work songs); (4) Notes of definite
pitch were used as signals in war (war songs); (5) The “easy” intervals of the
fourth and fifth were the first preferred pitches (early scales); (6) Ancient
songs were composed of repeated patterns of a few notes (monotony); (7) The
rudiments of harmony began with the “unintentional polyphony” of het-
erophony—what Einstein describes as the “arbitrary ornamentation of the
same melody by several performers at the same time” (group song).2
As mentioned, these premises are still foundational. Where contempo-
rary studies have expanded upon them is in the aspect of motivation.
Advances in anthropology, neuroscience, psychology, evolutionary biology
and other fields have added deeper perspectives regarding why our species
began making music—the dominant theories being mating and cohesion
(with variations of the two, like fitness displays, preparing for the hunt, and
bonding between mother and child).
Such evolutionary theories, combined with Einstein’s strictly musical con-
cerns of many decades ago, help us to ponder not only how the earliest music
sounded, but why it was sounded at all. Fortunately, these central questions are
currently on the front burners of researchers possessing great skill and imagi-
nation. And the more the topic is explored, the more interesting it becomes.
Before Speech
Music and speech are not the same thing. One is abstract and arbitrary;
the other is concrete and absolute. One uses sound as its subject matter; the
other as a vehicle for logos. The grammar of one is built on pitch, key, rhythm,
harmony and technique; the grammar of the other is based on morphemes,
phonemes, words, syntax and sentences. One stimulates imprecise affective
states; the other imparts precise information. One stems from emotion; the
other from reason. Despite these dissimilarities, both music and speech grew
from the primal necessity for self-expression.
In the evolution of human communication, wordless vocal music—as
distinct from song—is speculated to have preceded structured language. Part

of this view is rooted in observation. As anyone familiar with infants knows,
our earliest attempts to communicate vocally involve singsong patterns of
mostly vowel sounds. Although indefinite, this “naked language” is unmis-
takable in its desire to relay specific thoughts and needs (often intelligible
only to the parent). The result is an emotive sequence of tones approaching,
though not identical to, music.
This could lead us to the now-defunct theory of recapitulation (or bio-
genetic law), popularized by Ernst Haeckel, in which the stages of child devel-
opment are thought to encompass developmental stages of the species as a
whole, which extended over millennia. 3 In that old theory, the infant’s
progress from nonsense vocables to coherent speech is a repetition of what
our prehistoric ancestors went through, only in quick time. Modern biology
has dumped this idea into the dustbin of mythology. However, the premise
that music-speech predated language-speech has been revived, though in a
more limited way.
One intriguing example is Steven Mithen’s book, The Singing Nean-
derthals.4 Mithen, a professor of archaeology at the University of Reading, has
traced pseudo-singing to Neanderthals, a Middle to Late Pleistocene species
closely related to modern humans. According to Mithen, while Neanderthals
lacked the neural circuitry for language, they did have a proto-musical form
of communication that incorporated sound and gesture, influenced emotional
states and behavior, and was rhythmic, melodic and temporally controlled—
that is, “a prelinguistic musical mode of thought and action.” He has coined
a cumbersome neologism to describe the phenomenon: “Hmmmmm,” for
holistic, multi-modal, manipulative, musical, and mimetic.
Although the title of the book suggests that Neanderthals “sang,” Mithen
is careful to state that their vocalization was neither language nor music as
we know them today. This implies a more nuanced and complex line of evo-
lution than the earlier simplistic formula of song to speech. Of course, it is
impossible to know for sure whether a music-like activity evolved prior to
and/or gave rise to language. Without the aid of a time machine, we are reliant
on the sophisticated, yet ultimately limited, tools of archaeology, anthropol-
ogy, psychology and neuroscience. But speculate we can.
Romantic Reverberations
Charles Darwin included this intriguing hypothesis in The Descent of
Man: “[I]t appears probable that the progenitors of man, either the males or
females or both sexes, before acquiring the power of expressing their mutual
love in articulate language, endeavored to charm each other with musical
notes and rhythm.”5 With this observation, Darwin grouped human beings
with other animals whose songs apparently evolved as sexually selected
courtship displays. Countless creatures, from spiders and crustaceans to seals
and birds, innately distinguish “musical” mating calls from other noises. For
Darwin, a trait so pervasive could not be accidental: “unless the females were
able to appreciate such sounds and were excited or charmed by them, the
persevering efforts of the males and the complex structures often possessed
by them alone would be useless; and this it is impossible to believe.”6 Without
the function of attracting mates, the instinct for music would not have arisen
or persisted.
Of course, the forms and uses of music expanded as human cultures
and needs grew in complexity. Unlike most of the animals Darwin studied,
human-made music has branched out far beyond mating. Still, it is hard to
ignore the enormous quantity of love songs our species has produced. In
most societies, songs of romance and sexual longing comprise the largest
percentage of musical output. Roughly forty to fifty percent of popular songs
recorded in the United States address the topic of romantic love. Like Darwin,
many contemporary evolutionary biologists conclude that our unquenchable
attraction to love songs—both saccharine-sweet and sorrowful—is a carry-
over from the primal epoch when our musical ears perked up at the alluring
sounds of potential mates.
Given the apparent sexual origins of music production in all animal
species, including our own, it is not surprising that the oldest song scientists
have discovered is a song of romance. In February of 2012, British scientists
announced that they had reconstructed the simple mating call of a Jurassic-
era cricket. Their study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences, detailed how they derived the sound from the cricket’s pristinely
fossilized 72-centemeter wings. The song, which was performed 165 million
year ago, was the insect’s way of attracting mates in a nighttime forest busy
with waterfalls, streams, rustling leaves and scavenging dinosaurs. According
to the study’s co-author Daniel Robert, an expert in the biomechanics of
singing and hearing in insects, this type of tuneful chirping “advertises the
presence, location and quality of the singer, a message that females choose
to respond to—or not. Using a single tone, the male’s call carries further and
better, and therefore is likely to serenade more females.”7
Our ears are tuned to music in much the same way. We hear the melo-
dious ice-cream truck over the roaring engines of a congested street. We
notice the piped-in recording over the chatter and clanking dishes of a
crowded restaurant. Even when music is incessantly played at a super market

or shopping mall, a melodic line or rhythmic hook often catches our ear,
inducing us to hum or tap our fingers. Like the calls of the prehistoric cricket
and the modern-day songbird, human music pierces through the clamor and
din of everyday life.
From an evolutionary perspective, our inborn ability to pick out these
sounds stems from the distant days when our ancestors sang songs of
courtship. In those long-ago times, hearing love songs through the clutter of
nature helped ensure the perpetuation of our species. Though this function
was minimized as our intellectual and emotional capacities progressed and
diversified—and though we might be ashamed to admit it—we remain
instinctively attracted to songs of love.
The Rhythm of Survival
Of all the elements of music, rhythm and tempo are the most fundamental
and most attractive to the human senses. Without thinking, we synchronize
body movements to beats inferred from sound patterns, and know precisely
when to begin, end, speed up or slow down with the music. Regular isochro-
nous pulses effect a variety of physical responses, from toe tapping and hand
clapping to marching and dancing. Beat-based rhythm processing, or beat
induction, is a cognitive skill we do not share with other primates (and is per-
haps only shared with certain parrots). It is the basis of our ability to create
and appreciate music, and is among the instincts that make us human.
The urge to synchronize to external rhythm is present from the first
stages of human development. A recent study of 120 small children, aged five
months to two years, confirms what has long been assumed: we are born with
a predisposition to move to musical rhythm. According to University of York
psychologist Marcel Zentner, who worked on the study, “it is the beat rather
than other features of the music, such as the melody, that produces the
response in infants.”8
Biomusicological reactions occur naturally in small children; they are
not learned or imitative behaviors. During the experiment, each child sat on
a parent’s lap. The parent was instructed to stay still and was given head-
phones to block out sound. The child, who was fully exposed to the music,
freely waved her arms, hands, legs and feet, and swayed her head and torso
from side to side. Intriguingly, too, the child responded to the music with
greater consistency and enthusiasm than when she was addressed by her par-
ent’s voice.
While the study records an innate proclivity for rhythmic incitement,

researchers are left to speculate why this tendency evolved. One possibility
comes from evolutionary musicologist Joseph Jordania. In his book, Why Do
People Sing?, Jordania proposes that early human survival was aided by attain-
ing a collective state known as the “battle trance.”9 Our ancestors were too
slow, weak and timid to face predators or enemies on their own. They needed
to band together, and would do so through ceremonial drumming and danc-
ing. After several hours of ritual performance, participants entered an altered
state where they did not know fear, were immune to pain, acted as a single
unit and were ready to sacrifice their lives for the community. Repetitive
beats and movements brought them to entrainment, wherein self-awareness
dissipated into unified thought and collective action.
If Jordania’s adroit analysis is correct (either in whole or in part), then
the spontaneity with which we react to rhythm can be traced to natural selec-
tion. Groups best adept at orchestrating rhythmic rituals had the best chances
of survival in a harsh and dangerous world. This impulse eventually became
ingrained in our species. Though our existence no longer depends on it, we
intuitively move to the beat from cradle to grave.
The Social Basis of Singing
According to Chorus America, a national research and advocacy organ-

ization, the United States is home to some 270,000 choruses. A large majority
are “church” choirs (217,000), a species that presumably includes non–
Christian denominations as well. There are also roughly 41,000 school choirs
(K-12) and 12,000 independent community and professional choirs. Nearly
a quarter of American households boast one or more choral singers, a figure
accounting for an estimated 42.6 million people (32.5 million adults and 10.1
million children). Together with researchers from the National Endowment
for the Arts, Chorus America confidently asserts that choral singing is the
country’s most popular form of performing arts.10
Surely, the numbers are too large and too steady to suggest a fad. Choral
singing is as ancient as it is popular, and while endowments and advocacy
groups can create opportunities for participation, they do not guarantee the
participants’ dedication. Advertisements help get singers to the audition, but
commitment is cultivated through the singing itself.
Author Stacy Horn compares singing to “an infusion of the perfect tran-
quilizer, the kind that both soothes your nerves and elevates your spirit.”11
This observation is rooted both in anecdotal experience and emerging science
that demystifies that experience. The “tranquilizer” effect is partly attributed

to two hormones released while singing: endorphins and oxytocin. Endor-
phins, known as the body’s “happy drug,” are chemically related to opium-
derived narcotics, and induce feelings of pleasure and well-being. Oxytocin
acts as a stress and anxiety reliever, as well as an enhancer of trust and bond-
ing.
These latter results—trust and bonding—help explain why group singing
is usually felt as the most exhilarating and transformative of song activities.
From an evolutionary standpoint, the positive effects of singing can be viewed
as a biochemical reward for coming together in cooperation—a social process
essential to our species’ survival. It is plausible that endorphins and oxytocin
were originally released to encourage group cohesion. Indeed, while solitary
singing can have a similar effect, the difference in degree is telling. Almost
without exception, the benefits are greatly amplified when singing with oth-
ers.
This premise finds support in a recent study published in the Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology. In a paper titled “Unraveling the Mystery
of Music: Music as an Evolved Group Process,” neuroscientists Chris Loersch
and Nathan L. Arbuckle suggest a tentative (but potentially once-and-for-
all) explanation for our emotional response to music—an occurrence that
has long baffled scientists and philosophers.12 Using seven studies, the
researchers establish human musicality as a special form of social cognition,
demonstrating that musical-emotional responses are tied to other core social
phenomena that bind us together into groups. This evolutionary basis is still
extant in the psychological pull of music, which remains linked to the basic
social drives underlying our interconnected world. Put simply, music evolved
as (and continues to be) a tool of social living.
Concepts like these are not unique in the scope of theories on music’s
origins. Social conjectures comprise a major area of speculation in the field
(the other being sexual selection). What is coming to light is scientific backing
for such claims. The benefits have always been felt in choral and other group
singing. Now we are beginning to understand why.
Necessary Cheesecake
Literature on the origins of music is dominated by two theories. The

first is sexual selection, or the idea that animals develop features that help
maximize reproductive success. Charles Darwin introduced the concept in
The Descent of Man, writing that the human inclination for music came about
in much the same way as ornate peacock feathers, lion manes and the antlers
of male deer—that is, as sexual enticement. Musical skill, he theorized,
stemmed from the biological compulsion to court a mate. Recent scholarship
supports this hypothesis, highlighting the performer’s dexterity, creativity
and mental agility as signs of fitness and desirability. Evolutionary biologist
Geoffrey Miller published a study demonstrating a correlation between
music-making and the reproductive life of jazz musicians, whose musical
output tends to rise after puberty, peak during young adulthood and decline
with parenthood and/or advancing age.13
The second prevalent view involves group solidarity. In modern expe-
rience, music is regularly used to foster and enhance cohesion. This effect
likely originated when small bands of people struggled for survival in the
precarious prehistoric world. Populations lacking strong ties stood little
chance of continuance, and music—especially song and dance—helped keep
them intact. Robin Dunbar of Oxford University contends that while music
eventually expanded into the area of courtship, it was group selection—not
sexual selection—that prompted its emergence.14
These theories frame music as basic to the endurance of our species.
They assert that music was born of the necessities of reproduction and sol-
idarity, and continues to be a means of sexual attraction and communal
togetherness. However compelling, these functional explanations are not
immune from criticism. Among the most prominent opponents is Harvard
language theorist Steven Pinker.
Pinker devotes just ten pages to music in his massive book, How the
Mind Works.15 The quick gloss owes to his assertion that music is not an
evolutionary adaptation, but a tangential technology: a human faculty devel-
oped and exploited for its own sake. Although musical sounds tickle our
requisite capacities for language, auditory scene analysis, emotional calls,
habitat selection and motor control, they are, in Pinker’s phrase, “auditory
cheesecake.” Like the decadent dessert, which over-stimulates our biological
desire for fat- and sugar-rich foods, music supplies us with an oversupply of
sound. An article in The Economist likened Pinker’s assessment to calling
instrumental playing “auditory pornography” and singing “auditory mastur-
bation,” both of which sate an appetite that is beyond strict biological need.16
In other words, if music were to vanish from our species, little else would
change.
Although widely disseminated, Pinker’s proposition contains at least
two faulty assumptions. The first is his argument that music-making is the
domain of a small subset of people, and thus not a universal trait essential
for survival. This reflects an understanding of music as it exists in the modern
West, where professionalization and music as entertainment have done much

to inhibit the participation of large segments of the population—a develop-
ment unknown for most of human history and in contrast to many places in
the world today. The second is his point that music is variable in its com-
plexity from culture to culture, thus indicating an aesthetic rather than fun-
damental purpose. This may be an accurate comment on the nature of musical
diversity, but does not negate the possibility that music production, generally
speaking, began as a human need.
Nevertheless, Pinker’s analysis is a worthy challenge to the assumed evo-
lutionary significance of music. It could very well be that music is an enhance-
ment rather than a building block of human life. Yet it takes little effort to
harmonize the biological theories with Pinker’s contrarian view. For instance,
it is possible that music originated as a sexually selected feature, developed
into a group-selected trait, and over time became an attraction in itself. It
began as raw material for survival and, in some ways and in some cases, took
on the qualities of “audible cheesecake.” Music may no longer be essential for
human life, but life’s enjoyment would certainly be diminished without it.
Notes
1. Alfred Einstein, Preface to A Short History of Music (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1954).
2. Ibid., 5.
3. Ernst Haeckel, The History of Creation, or, The Development of the Earth and Its
Inhabitants by the Action of Natural Causes (New York: D. Appleton, 1892).
4. Steven Mithen, The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind
and Body (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2005).
5. Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man (New York: D. Appleton, 1871), 573.
6. Ibid., 598.
7. Daniel Robert, quoted in “Researchers Reconstructed Love Song of Prehistoric
Bushcricket,” Sci-News.com, February 7, 2012, <http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/
article00173.html>
8. Marcel Zentner, quoted in Richard Alleyne, “Babies Are Born to Dance to the
Beat,” The Telegraph, March 15, 2010, <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-
news/7450560/Babies-are-born-to-dance-to-the-beat.html>
9. Joseph Jordania, Why Do People Sing?: Music in Human Evolution (Tbilisi: Logos,
2011).
10. The Chorus Impact Study: How Children, Adults, and Communities Benefit from
Choruses (Washington, D.C.: Chorus America, 2010).
11. Stacey Horn, “Singing Changes Your Brain,” Time, August 16, 2013, <http://ideas.
time.com/2013/08/16/singing-changes-your-brain/>
12. Chris Loersch and Nathan L. Arbuckle, “Unraveling the Mystery of Music: Music
as an Evolved Group Process,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 105 (2013):
777–798.
13. Geoffrey Miller, “Sexual Selection for Cultural Displays,” in The Evolution of Cul-
ture: An Interdisciplinary View, ed. Robin Dunbar, et al. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Uni-
versity Press, 1999), 71–91.
14. Robin Dunbar, The Science of Love (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2012).
15. Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997).
16. “Why Music?” The Economist, December 18, 2008, <http://www.economist.com/
node/12795510>

Bannan, Nicholas, ed. Music, Language, and Human Evolution. New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2012.
Blacking, John. How Musical is Man? Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1973.
Heline, Corinne. Music: The Keynote of Human Evolution. Santa Barbara, CA: J. F. Rowny
Press, 1965.
Jordania, Joseph. Why Do People Sing?: Music in Human Evolution. Tbilisi: Logos, 2011.
Levitin, Daniel J. The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature.
New York: Penguin, 2008.
Mithen, Steven J. The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and
Body. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005.
Morley, Iain. The Prehistory of Music: Human Evolution, Archaeology, and the Origins
of Musicality. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Schulkin, Jay. Reflections on the Musical Mind: An Evolutionary Perspective. Princeton,
Wallin, Nils Lennart, Björn Merker, and Steven Brown, ed. The Origins of Music. Cam-
bridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001.
Zuckerkandl, Victor. Man the Musician. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976.
4
Innateness
Human beings are almost universally equipped with an innate ability to

detect, react to, and create musical sounds. This does not mean that everyone
is a musician or that all are predisposed to develop musical expertise. Music
is both a specialized endeavor and something non-specialists are inclined to
appreciate. This chapter delves into the notion of music as an instinct. Among
other things, this includes our knack to differentiate between music produced
by humans and machines, and our gravitation toward particularly expressive
performers. On the other end of the spectrum, we will encounter those for
whom music is not especially compelling, and the very few for whom it is an
irritant. These outliers will enrich our understanding of what it means to be
innately musical.
The Music Instinct
In 1933, fifty-eight-year-old composer Maurice Ravel suffered a stroke

while swimming. The ordeal left him with aphasia, which robbed his ability
to comprehend or express linguistic symbols. Because music composition,
like language, utilizes a written system of signs, aphasia also silenced his cre-
ative output. Although Ravel retained musical mentation—the capacity to
think musically—he was no longer able to translate musical thoughts into
sounds. He could recognize tunes, identify errors in performance, and select
a score by patterns represented on the page. But his analytical deciphering
disappeared: note naming, sight-reading, dictation.
Contrast this with a more recent story of a sixth grader who was forced
to give up sports after sustaining a concussion.1 The boy’s dream of becoming
a professional athlete was dashed, but he suddenly discovered a new talent
for music. He displayed little aptitude for music prior to the injury, and was
even below average when it came to simple functions like matching pitches
and predicting phrases. Now a high school student, he plays over a dozen
34
4. Innateness 35
instruments, including guitar, piano, accordion, harmonica and bagpipes—

all by ear. It is possible that this talent was dormant before circumstances led
to its discovery. But it may also be the result of the brain’s rewiring and over-
compensating for capabilities lost in the trauma.
Losing or gaining musical genius in the aftermath of a head injury is
exceedingly rare. However, these extreme cases do point to the innateness of
music in humanity. Ravel, a once expert and meticulous musician, could still
conceive of and enjoy music, though he could no longer create or perform it.
The student athlete, once indifferent toward music, became musically hyper-
expressive. Latent in both was a musical sense that exists in virtually everyone.
An underlying musicality was preserved in Ravel, who was reduced to a passive
receiver, and magnified in the boy, who was transformed into an active creator.
It is rarely acknowledged that the absence of musical skill or training
does not correspond to a lack of musical capacity. Just as one need not be a
writer to appreciate a well-written book, one need not be gifted or educated
in the musical arts to be moved by a well-executed piece. Likewise, the musi-
cally inclined and disinclined benefit from music in essentially identical ways,
the difference being one of degree rather than kind. Whatever our talents or
limitations—and whether our musical adeptness increases, decreases or stays
stagnant over time—we remain musical creatures.
Is It Musical?
British mathematician Alan Turing was among the first to propose that
computer programs would someday simulate human creativity.2 He argued
that the hardwiring of computers and human brains were essentially the same,
and that the “thought processes” of both could be reduced to mechanical cal-
culations. This concept of disembodied cognition gained enthusiastic support
in the initial wake of the computer revolution. Among other things, it spurred
predictions that programs would be able to compose pieces and improvise
jazz in a way indistinguishable from human musicians. Some even anticipated
a machine that would match Bach or Beethoven.
These conjectures failed to recognize the embodied nature of the musical
arts. Phrasing is structured on patterns of breathing. Articulation and tone
length are imitative of language. The functional morphology of hands informs
the range of a musical line. The emotional mind directs melodic movement.
Many of us intuitively discern human performances from computer-generated
music, even when a digital creation uses samples from live instruments. Our
humanity detects the unhumanity of the piece.
Computers cannot, by themselves, generate the musical in music. They

may excel at translating a sequence of symbols into audible information, but
they do not grasp or communicate structural or affective musical meanings.
They produce precision without spirit.
In a similar fashion, human performers can be judged by their musical-
ity, or the feeling they bring to a given piece. As listeners, we make connections
between the music we hear and extra-musical images, ideas and sensations,
such as drama, poetry and passions. If we do not sense these layers in a per-
formance, we withhold the label of musical. An assiduous player can master
instrumental technique and conquer challenging literature. But unless some-
thing of that person’s interior life is heard, the playing will come across as
dull or dry. This is largely what sets impassioned artists like Jascha Heifetz
apart from many other skilled musicians.
In contrast, popular singers often lack the dexterity and tone quality
typically looked for in Western music. If assessed exclusively for their voices,
they would be deemed mediocre or worse. However, they possess what might
be called a musical soul. Their innate sense of sound—and their sense of self
projected in that sound—is both palpable and seductive. Their instruments
may not be conventionally beautiful and their music may not be objectively
artful; but their presentation is thoroughly musical. Singers fitting this
description include icons such as Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart, Tom Waits,
Leonard Cohen and Janis Joplin.
Impressive range and technical acumen do not always amount to musical
music. Meticulous performers who convey little emotion are akin to exacting
computers: the notes are polished and the passages precise, yet the essence
is wanting. In the end, it is difficult to articulate or quantify exactly what this
essence is. But we know it when we feel it.
Music Non-Lovers
Aaron Copland wrote a brief and candid article for the music industry
magazine Billboard in February of 1964. In it, he explained the dilemma of
the modern symphonic composer, whose livelihood is built on commissions,
royalties and rights collected for public performances. It is a ruthless system
that grants few successes, partly because there aren’t many places or produc-
tions that pay well for original works, and partly because of something Cop-
land was brave enough to admit: “Composers tend to assume that everyone
loves music. Surprisingly enough, everyone doesn’t.”
Sitting through an orchestral performance is not something most people
4. Innateness 37
were born to do. Patient reception of drawn-out passages and serene accept-
ance of slowly developing movements are virtues obtained through discipline,
education and cultural training. Even some classical musicians will confess—
usually off the record—that lengthy performances can be less than tolerable.
Copland found it refreshing whenever people told him they cared little for
orchestral fare. He knew that as a composer and music educator, he could
drift out of touch with the average listener.
There is one instructive exception to this orchestral rule. Composers
have a firm and steady place in movies and television. Anyone who
has watched an anxious or action-packed scene with the sound turned off
realizes that it is far less anxious or action-packed without the frantic strings,
blaring horns and penetrating percussion. The ears are more emotionally
attuned than the eyes. Visuals attain their full effect through the aid of the
score.
The cinematic example is reflective of how humans have utilized music
since the dawn of the species. Music’s original and still overwhelming purpose
is as an accompaniment to other things: teaching, storytelling, dancing, heal-
ing, praying, relaxing, eating, competing, warring, rejoicing, socializing, driv-
ing, watching, shopping, napping, waking. Listening to music for its own
sake is a recent and largely Western phenomenon, and the amount of people
for whom absolute or “for itself ” music has any real appeal is so small as to
be statistically insignificant.
A multitude of musical functions might be simultaneously present in a
given context. For instance, melodies sung and played at a religious service
establish sacred time, foster cohesion, encourage introspection, enliven texts,
guide choreography, focus concentration, recall memories, inspire sensations,
affirm heritage, facilitate moral instruction. The list could go on, and similar
lists could be devised for other musically aided events.
It is difficult to imagine just how impoverished a service would be with-
out its musical component. If melody were eradicated, attendance would
surely diminish and would probably disappear altogether.
This returns us to Copland’s observation. It is certainly the case that
not everyone is a music lover. The pure musical experience removed from
any practical purpose is a learned and essentially artificial activity. Yet, it
is also true that human beings are music “needers.” Whether we are conscious
of it or not, we rely on musical sounds to support, assist and enhance all
sorts of endeavors. This is what Austrian-Jewish musicologist Victor Zuck-
erkandl meant when he penned these dramatic yet hardly exaggerated
words: “man without music is not man and a world without music is not our
world.”3
Pots and Pans

When Ulysses S. Grant was asked what music he liked, he replied: “I know
only two tunes. One of them is ‘Yankee Doodle’—and the other isn’t.”4 At first
reading, this seems like a snarky pronouncement of musical stubbornness. Per-
haps Grant considered “Yankee Doodle” the apex of musical achievement, and
nothing else deserved mention alongside it. This attitude is not uncommon. It
is human nature to put certain music on a pedestal and confidently assert that
it is better than the rest (though our “pedestal music” is usually more sophis-
ticated than a patriotic ditty). But that was not the meaning of Grant’s remark.
His words were much more cynical—and much more literal.
From an early age, the great general (and not-so-great president) pro-
fessed an intense dislike for music. He was extremely tone deaf: he could not
hum, recognize or remember even the most popular airs of his day. Perhaps
his inability to retain or reproduce music was so frustrating that it spilled
over into animosity. Or maybe music truly sounded awful to his ears. What-
ever the reason, his was an almost pathological aversion to musical sounds.
He never went to concerts, refused to dance and had a particular (and ironic)
hatred for military bands.
Grant most likely suffered from congenital amusia, an anomaly that begins
at birth and affects roughly four percent of the population. (There is also
acquired amusia, which occurs as a result of brain damage.) The primary symp-
tom is a deficit in fine-grained pitch discrimination. Amusics cannot detect
pitch changes when the distance between two successive pitches is small, and
thus cannot internalize musical scales. This impairs the person’s ability to enjoy
or respond to melodies, most of which consist of slight interval changes.
However, while amusics typically cannot distinguish one musical selec-
tion from the next, they often do recognize a single piece, usually one that
involves strong rhythms and some sort of fanfare. Many patriotic songs fit
this description, with their accompanying parades, flag waving and ritualized
gestures. That would explain how Grant could identify “Yankee Doodle” and
nothing else.
Music can also be a severe annoyance for some amusics. Their problem
is not just a failure of recognition. Music as they hear it is comparable to the
banging of pots and pans or some other cacophonous irritant. This also seems
to describe Grant’s condition.
Nevertheless, Grant was sensitive to how the majority responds music,
even as he could not comprehend their enjoyment. After graduating from
West Point, he was assigned to duty with the Fourth U.S. Infantry. In those
days, regimental bands were paid partly by the government and partly by
4. Innateness 39
regimental funds, which were set aside for luxuries such as books, magazines
and music. Grant accumulated money for the fund by ordering the Infantry’s
daily rations in flour instead of bread (at a significant savings), renting a bak-
ery, hiring bakers and selling fresh bread through a contract he arranged
with the army’s chief commissary. Much of the extra income went to secure
a bandleader and competent players, whose music boosted the soldiers’
morale (and punished Grant’s ears).5
Grant’s neurological wiring prevented him from being a music lover. In
fact, it made him a music hater. He did not process music as music, and could
not feel it as most of us do. Yet he was perceptive enough to observe the musi-
cal pleasures of others, and gentleman enough to give fellow soldiers the
music they yearned for.
Notes
1. “Teen Becomes a Musical Genius,” Mail Online, November 21, 2013, <http://www.
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2511439/Denver-teen-Lachlan-Connors-musical-genius-
suffering-concussion.html>
2. Alan M. Turing, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” Mind 59:236 (1950):
433–460.
3. Victor Zuckerkandl, Man the Musician (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1976), 17.
4. Ulysses S. Grant, quoted in Robert Andrews, ed., The Concise Columbia Dictionary
of Quotations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), 201.
5. Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant [1885–1886] (New York:
Cosimo, 2007), 65.

Addis, Laird. Of Mind and Music. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004.
Ball, Philip. The Music Instinct: How Music Works and Why We Can’t Do Without It.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Byrne, David. How Music Works. San Francisco: McSweeney’s, 2012.
Copland, Aaron. Music and Imagination. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980.
Deutsch, Diana. The Psychology of Music. Waltham, MA: Academic, 2013.
Dissanayake, Ellen. Homo Aestheticus: Where Art Comes From and Why. Seattle: Uni-
versity of Washington Press, 1992.
Dutton, Denis. The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution. New York:
Bloomsbury, 2009.
Hallam, Susan, Ian Cross, and Michael Thaut. Oxford Handbook of Music Psychology.
Levitin, Daniel J. This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Musical Obsession. New
York: Plume, 2007.
Sacks, Oliver. Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. New York: Vintage, 2008.
5
Character
Musical literature tends to focus on sound. This makes perfect sense, as

music is the intentional organization of sonic ingredients. This chapter looks
at music from the opposite direction. While music emanates from external
sources and reaches the auditor from the outside, the experience of it derives
largely from within. This chapter puts forward diverse ways in which this is
so: how we ascribe anthropomorphic qualities to musical sounds; how cul-
tural learning shapes musical impressions; how we respond to the whole of
music rather than its constituent parts; how visual aspects of a performance
affect our perceptions; and how empathy helps account for musical pleasure.
Sound and Feeling
The raw materials of music include pitch, rhythm, durations, dynamics,

texture and timbre. The deliberate ordering of these building blocks of sound
and silence produces what we instantly recognize as a musical creation. To
be sure, definitions of music vary from rigid to loose, and postmodern
requirements are not always as stable or confined as conventional views. But,
however far the envelope is stretched and however ambiguous music is made
out to be, most of us can agree with seventeenth-century English churchman
Thomas Fuller: “Music is nothing else but wild sounds civilized into time
and tune.”1
Understandably, comments on the nature of music usually address its
audibility: it is an art form directed at the ears. Our sense of hearing distin-
guishes between music and the other sounds that constantly bombard us.
The very concept of music derives from and depends upon our faculty of
perceiving sound. Yet it can be argued that the ears are merely the necessary
entry point. As soon as we are made aware of music, it is translated into
mood, memory and movement. As poet Wallace Stevens eloquently wrote:
“Music is feeling, then, not sound.”2
40
5. Character 41
The listener’s response to specific music will vary in type and intensity.
She might feel very hopeful, a little bit sad, extremely calm, slightly anxious,
and so on. These reactions may or may not be the intention of the composer
or performer, and may change according to when and where the piece is
heard. But in almost every instance, human perception converts music into
feeling.
Perhaps the clearest evidence of this is how we typically portray music.
We most often fixate on music’s experiential properties, or its “personality.”
Anthropomorphic qualities are freely projected upon a piece: charming,
aggressive, warm, tender, brutish, exuberant, consoling, frustrating, etc. This
is partly because of the difficulty of identifying and discussing music’s formal
properties. But it is mainly because the formal properties are but a means to
an end. When we call a composition happy, we are basically saying that it
makes us feel happy. The resulting emotion is so dominant that it becomes
the character of the music. Priority is given to effect over sound.
In some sense, music can be thought of as a delivery system for emo-
tional content. We do not experience music so much as we experience our-
selves experiencing music. Our ears funnel the sound to a deeper layer of
our being, a layer where sound is made significant. Of course, not all music
is equally effective and not every listener is equally moved by musical stimuli.
But even the most literate musicians and harshest critics will admit, readily
or reluctantly, that music is predominantly about emotions. It only begins as
sound.
Musical Characters
Musical expectations are formed at an early age. Infants begin matching

pitches by six months. Acquaintance with modal structure occurs by year
five or six. Basic harmony is grasped around age seven. Through passive per-
petual exposure to musical conventions, culturally specific associations are
attached to this or that pitch, sequence, scale or harmonic color. A listener
born and raised in the West is accustomed to major and minor scales and
their various ascribed connotations. When foreign modalities, say from India,
cross the ears of the Westerner, they are heard through the framework and
limitations of the familiar system. Thus, while “exotic” music may be enjoyed,
it will not stimulate the same responses or convey the same meanings that it
does for the native.
In a recent interview, novelist Ron Rash coined a phrase that speaks to
this perceptual peculiarity. When asked why his stories take place in his
stomping ground of Appalachia, he responded, “Landscape is destiny.”3 Like

all of us, the place Rash calls home has an inescapable impact on how he per-
ceives the world. Points of reference, sensory processing, linguistic choices,
aesthetic appreciation and so on are largely tied to our environment. For
Rash, setting stories in a location with which one is intimate is the best and
only true way to write authentically. And, just as the characters in a book
tend to derive from the author’s encounters and relationships, the perceived
character of a musical piece stems from the listener’s prior experiences.
In music, character generally refers to the feeling or feelings communi-
cated by a piece. Culturally trained ears are quick to decipher specific moods
and nonmusical ideas expressed in familiar music. Listeners of classical music
will recognize tranquility in selections exhibiting legato articulation, smooth
and easy tempo, balance between bass and treble tones, and an absence of
dissonance, dynamic contrast and metric instability. Such pieces will have a
different effect on people outside of that music-culture; yet outsiders will
find tranquility in music their backgrounds have conditioned them to sense
as tranquil.
Detection of musical character occurs almost instantaneously, and subtle
changes in one or more aspect of a piece—harmony, speed, volume, etc.—
can radically alter our perception of it. A noted case in point comes from E.
Janes’s classic essay, “The Emotions in Music.” As Janes tells it, “an accom-
plished musician of our acquaintance was once challenged by a distinguished
theological professor to make him weep, by the power of music. He soon
brought tears to the professor’s eyes by a performance upon the piano, which
consisted, in reality, of ‘Yankee Doodle’ in slow time.”4 The manipulation of
a single element—tempo—was all that was needed to turn the playful “Yankee
Doodle” into a melancholy tune.
On one hand, this is an example of playing against musical expectations:
the melody is presented in the opposite manner than it is usually performed.
On the other hand, it depicts a pianist playing upon musical expectations: he
exploits the association of slowness with sadness, thereby bringing the pro-
fessor to tears. The result is an illustrative demonstration of how cultural
learning shapes our discernment of musical character. Landscape is destiny.
Acoustic Anatomy
Music is experienced on a macro level. The listener is enveloped in waves

of acoustic information, the immediacy of which tends to inhibit real-time
analysis. We may recognize pitch-differences in succession (melody), pitch-
5. Character 43
differences in combination (harmony), rhythmic patterns and basic form,

but the elemental makeup remains hidden until it is examined under the
microscope of music theory.
This is as it should be. Music is an expression of life. It is a storehouse
of memories, a sensory stimulant, a source of pleasure, an igniter of feelings,
a conjurer of images, a kinesthetic motivator and so on. More often than not,
we embrace the rush of sound on a non-rational level, allowing the force and
flow to take us where it will. We encounter it as a complete entity, unaware
or unconcerned about the parts that comprise the whole.
However, like a biological organism, a musical selection contains micro
and meso structures. Its complexity is determined by the type and amount
of these intersecting components. To illustrate the analogy, a nursery rhyme
tune might be compared to an earthworm while a drawn-out movement of
a symphony might be likened to an elephant.
The micro level of music includes syntactical ingredients like individual
notes, rests, durations, intervals, fermatas, ties, slurs and accents. These are
the building blocks or atoms with which the piece is composed. Alone, these
basic units are identity-less fragments. But when assembled in combination,
they constitute the foundation of musical life as we know it.
On the meso level, we find structural segments such as cells and motives.
These germinal fragments are molecular in scope. They consist of micro
parts, or atoms, bonded together, and represent the smallest identifiable sliver
of a musical piece. The cell is a minute and self-contained melodic or rhyth-
mic particle that contributes to thematic content. The motive is a recurring
succession of notes that may be separated into more than one cell. It is the
smallest subdivision of a phrase or theme that imparts the identity of the
piece.
Henry Granger Hanchett, a turn-of-the-twentieth-century organist,
inventor and medical doctor, described this biological breakdown in his
book, The Art of the Musician. He explained, for example, that the motive
“contain[s] the germ and life of the product, while the simpler items which
unite in its structure are like chemical elements, capable of making up an
amorphous mass or even a crystal, but that can never make an organism
without first combining to make a cell.” In his evaluation, “all great and sig-
nificant [Western classical] compositions … are the outgrowths, the organ-
ization, so to speak, of one or more recognizable motives which may properly
be called the germs of the work.”5
As listeners, we do not ordinarily take record of these inner workings.
We embrace music in its entirety. The same is true when we come across
other living beings. We don’t usually see or think about their internal organs,
connective tissues or skeletal systems—let alone the invisible activity occur-

ring on the atomic level. But without these various interlocking pieces, there
would be no organism, animal or musical.
What You See Is What You Hear
Much has been written on the role of paralinguistic gestures in commu-

nicating linguistic content. Hand movements, postures, facial expressions
and the like give context to spoken words and shade their meaning in sig-
nificant ways. The non-verbal amplifies the verbal, conveying emotional
information that may or may not be overt in the language alone. Something
similar occurs in music performance.
Like verbal interaction, musical communication is a complex activity
engaging multiple sensory modalities. Listening by itself does not extract all
that a performance can disclose. This is especially so with instrumental music,
a category of performance unaided by the (usual) clarity of words. No matter
how formulaic or accessible, instrumental music is at best an abstract lan-
guage. Thus, the full message and impact of a performance often relies on
accompanying gestures, body movements and other paramusical signals.
It should be noted that research on music and emotions typically falls
into three main categories. The most regularly explored is the influence of
culture in shaping emotional responses. Schematic expectations and tonal
patterns trigger stereotyped reactions among participants in a specific music-
culture. The second most widely explored area is the effect of listening con-
ditions. Settings and circumstances in which music is heard, along with the
listener’s mental and physical states, contribute to how sounds are emotionally
received. The third most commonly examined aspect is the impression of
movement, form and imagery in musical passages. Such symbolism evokes
emotions through mimicry, with slow phrases suggesting lethargy, ascending
sequences implying elation, etc.
Visual cues deserve a place beside these conventional explanations. Cog-
nitive studies have exposed the limits of emotional conveyance through
strictly auditory features, like vibrato, tempo and dynamics. By itself, aural
processing can and does open the pathway to music-induced emotions. How-
ever, the strength of music’s effect increases considerably and assumes added
dimensions when a performance is both heard and seen.
Jane W. Davidson, a musicologist at the University of Western Australia,
has examined the extent to which visual communication affects emotional
perception.6 For a 1994 experiment, she had musicians play a piece in three
5. Character 45
distinct manners: restrained, with little to no physical expression; standard,

with natural body and facial movement; and exaggerated, with effusive move-
ment and facial cues. Just listening to the audio of these performances, par-
ticipants were unable to detect which was played in which fashion. But when
the performances were viewed, the intensity of emotional responses was pro-
portional to the amount of gesturing, postural adjustments and facial signals
observed. The more demonstrative the playing, the more emotional it seemed.
A similar study conducted by Bradley W. Vines et al. concludes that emotional
ambiguity in atonal music can likewise be resolved through a player’s man-
nerisms.7
Two additional observations deserve mention. The first is that musicians
and non-musicians are equally unable to detect changes in performance man-
ner when music is only heard, and are equally swayed by physical displays
when performances are both heard and seen. The second is that the less
familiar one is with a composition, the more one relies on sight in determin-
ing its emotional content. The grand takeaway is this: visuals are an under-
appreciated and immensely potent medium for enhancing, complementing
and clarifying emotions in music.
Empathy and Art Appreciation
In the Little Rascals short, “Mike Fright,” several child performers audi-
tion for a station manager and a sponsor of a radio station. The Rascals are
there as The International Silver String Submarine Band, a rag-tag troupe
wielding an assortment of rusty hand-made instruments. The boys wait impa-
tiently as the other acts audition, rudely disrupting the proceedings with
their uncultured antics. Leonard, a smug and overconfident trumpeter, has
his performance foiled by Little Rascals Tommy and Alvin, who start sucking
on lemons while he plays. When Leonard sees the boys, his face puckers
involuntarily, making it impossible for him to blow his horn.
This memorable scene depicts the human proclivity for body mapping:
an automatic response in which neural representations of perceived motor
actions are activated in the viewer’s brain and trigger visceral responses. It
is the reason we cringe when we see a needle poke someone’s arm, or yawn
when we see somebody yawning. Similar empathic reactions have been
observed in other primates, and the biological mechanisms responsible—
mirror neurons, mimicry, and emotional contagion—probably predate the
primate order.
Bodily empathy also plays a significant role in aesthetic appreciation.
According to Frans de Waal, director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes
Primate Center in Atlanta, Georgia, a major appeal of ballet, opera or trapeze
flying is that, as we watch the performers, we enter their bodies. In his recent
book, The Bonobo and the Atheist, de Waal explains that when a dancer leaps
across the stage, we too are momentarily suspended in air. When the diva
sings her dramatic aria, we feel her voice as our own.8 When we see a painting
showing the agony of a human figure, we cannot help but feel that emotion.
Even abstract art can stimulate body channels. De Waal cites an article
by Vittorio Gallese, co-discoverer of mirror neurons, and art historian David
Freedberg, which describes how observers unconsciously trace movements
on a canvas.9 We sense body motion in the brush marks and put ourselves
in the moment of the artist at work. This is like the cellist or pianist who
involuntarily moves her fingers while listening to a recording of the instru-
ment.
These examples reinforce the growing scientific view that empathy, while
not lacking a cognitive component, begins as a pre-cognitive function pro-
pelled by bodily sentiments. This helps paint a bottom-up picture of morality,
in which day-to-day interactions stimulate gut motivations that occur before
and apart from rationalizations. Such “morality within” is not just a human
phenomenon, but appears in other animals (primarily mammals) as well.
The associated implications for the arts are equally profound, as empathy
accounts largely for the pleasure we derive from them.
Notes
1. Thomas Fuller, History of the Worthies of England, vol. 1 (London: Thomas Tegg,
1840), 39
2. Wallace Stevens, “Peter Quince at the Clavier” (1915).
3. Alden Mudge, “Ron Rash: Shaped by the Land, Torn Apart by Intolerance,” Book-
Page, April 2012, <http://bookpage.com/interviews/8796-ron-rash#.UznOXihq594>
4. E. Janes, “The Emotions in Music” [1874], in The Value of Sacred Music: An An-
thology of Essential Writings, 1801–1918, comp. Jonathan L. Friedmann (Jefferson, NC:
McFarland, 2009), 95.
5. Henry Granger Hanchett, The Art of the Musician: A Guide to the Intelligent Ap-
preciation of Music (New York: Macmillan, 1905), 119.
6. Jane W. Davidson, “What Type of Information is Conveyed in the Body Movements
of Solo Musician Performers?” Journal of Human Movement Studies 6 (1994): 279–301.
7. Bradley W. Vines et al., “Music to My Eyes: Cross-Modal Interactions in the Per-
ception of Emotions in Musical Performance,” Cognition 118 (2011): 157–170.
8. Frans de Waal, The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the
Primates (New York: W. W. Norton, 2013), 133–134.
9. David Freedberg and Vittorio Gallese, “Motion, Emotion and Empathy in Esthetic
Experience,” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 5:197 (2007): 197–203.
5. Character 47

Berry, Wallace. Structural Functions in Music. New York: Dover, 1987.
Clarke, Eric, and Simon Emmerson, eds. Music, Mind and Structure (Contemporary
Music Review 3:1). New York: Taylor and Francis, 1989.
Cochrane, Tom, Bernardino Fantini, and Klaus R. Scherer, eds. The Emotional Power
of Music: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Musical Arousal, Expression, and Social
Control. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Davie, Cedric Thorpe. Musical Structure and Design. New York: Dover, 1966.
Erickson, Robert. Sound Structure in Music. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1975.
Gabrielsson, Alf. Strong Experiences with Music: Music is Much More Than Just Music.
Katsh, Shelley, and Carol Merle-Fishman. The Music Within You. Gilsum, NH:
Barcelona, 1998.
Kivy, Peter. Authenticities: Philosophical Reflections on Musical Performance. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1995.
Rink, John. Musical Performance: A Guide to Understanding. New York: Cambridge
Shepherd, Tim, and Anne Leonard, ed. The Routledge Companion to Music and Visual
Culture. New York: Routledge, 2013.
6
Shape
Much of music’s appeal lies in its shape. Across millennia and in cultures
spread around the globe, musical forms have evolved to appease and exploit
deep-seated human needs. Chief among them are the desires for predictability,
stability, catharsis, and affirmation. This chapter elucidates the centrality of
repetition in culturally diverse music, and the typical aversion to music that
avoids such pleasing patterns. It then proposes that “good” is in some respects
“average” music, or music that meets generalized expectations. It also explores
how human emotions are sensed in the movement of musical phrases, how
we hear our own voices in melodic patterns, and how musical instruments
are in some instances valued for their closeness to human singing.
Seeking Patterns
We are pattern-seeking mammals. We are uncomfortable with unan-

swered questions, and discontent with the apparent randomness of the world
around us. We look for familiar images in clouds, stereotype groups of people,
categorize things of nature, see faces in inanimate objects, latch on to con-
spiracy theories, match objects and colors, decode languages, and find com-
fort in easy resolutions in literature and film. The impulse to locate (and
fabricate) order can be traced to the formative stages of humanity. Our ances-
tors’ survival depended greatly on their ability to detect patterns in sense
data. Snap judgments of hunters and other tribespeople determined whether
they would pursue or flee, explore or hide.
Rather than leaving us, the hunter instinct has expanded into all con-
ceivable areas. Nearly every moment of waking life is spent making quick
decisions, classifying information and uncovering (or inventing) structure
in observable phenomena. We derive safety and stability from the order we
discern, and are attracted to things displaying overt patterns. This is partly
why we are drawn to music.
48
6. Shape 49
According to science writer Philip Ball, around ninety-four percent

of musical selections lasting more than a few seconds contain recurring
material—and that only includes verbatim repeats.1 This calculation applies
to music as disparate as electronica and Inuit throat singing. Repetition
is among music’s most defining elements, and one that helps us to distinguish
musical sounds from other audible stimuli. Far from being a source of bore-
dom or irritation, repetitious phrases, relentless rhythms and recurring
melodies can be an endless source of enjoyment. They satisfy a primal
need.
Pleasing patterns of music have been linked to instincts implanted in us
by evolution.2 As noted, the ability to develop and act upon expectations
is fundamental to survival. In all animals, survival rate is proportional to
accuracy of anticipation: the more correct the assessment, the more advan-
tageous the response. When accurate, gut feelings lead toward prey and away
from danger. We have acquired this mechanism of rewarding good predic-
tions. With patterns comes predictability, and with predictability comes pleas-
ure. Guessing right is utterly gratifying. Musical repetition caters to this
tendency.
The fact that repetitious music gives us satisfaction is evidenced in
the genres that become popular, as well as those that linger on the margins.
In the West and elsewhere, tonal music—in its multitudinous forms—is
the most agreeable branch of the art form. It encompasses blues and rock,
Baroque and Classical, folksongs and lullabies, ragas and marches. Such
genres have almost universal appeal. In contrast, atonal music, avant-garde
jazz, noise music and other postmodern approaches reach far smaller
audiences. They deliberately dispose of conventions and challenge musical
expectations, thereby eliminating most of what attracts the average listener
to music in the first place. These styles are not without internal logic or a
degree of self-styled repetition; but they do not pander to our evolutionary
longings.
It is possible to overstate the delight gained from musical patterns. Pleas-
ure is accentuated or diminished depending on one’s affinity, disdain or indif-
ference for specific music. But the general assessment holds: we desire the
predictability music provides.
Schoenberg vs. the People

Arnold Schoenberg invented his twelve-tone method to replace norma-
tive conceptions of melody. In so doing, he discarded or otherwise obscured
the most attractive and enduring elements of music: repetition, anticipation,

and predictability. Musical satisfaction derives from our ability to identify
phrases, discern tensions, predict resolutions, detect climaxes, perceive sus-
pensions, and recognize other structural features. We are pleased when these
expectations are fulfilled and surprised when anticipations are foiled or
delayed. The relative unpredictability of Schoenberg’s system tosses all of this
out.
According to the rules of twelve-tone technique, the chromatic scale
must be organized in a tone row wherein no note is sounded more often than
another. This eliminates intuitive patterns, annihilates key signatures, and
contradicts millennia-old musical tendencies. When the row occurs again,
as it does with mathematical regularity, its wide intervals, variation, and tur-
bulent character do little to please the pattern-hungry ears of the average
auditor.
Despite its novelty and intellectual intrigue, Schoenberg’s method has
been called “senseless,” “unbearable,” “torturous,” and worse. In 1930 the Musi-
cal Times of London declared, “The name of Schoenberg is, as far as the
British public is concerned, mud.” Two decades later the Boston Herald pub-
lished this invective: “The case of Arnold Schoenberg vs. the people (or vice
versa, as the situation may be) is one of the most singular things in the history
of music. For here is a composer … who operates on the theory that if you
know how to put a bunch of notes on a piece of score paper you are, presto,
a composer.”3
Witty attacks like these are far too numerous to begin listing here. But
are charges of misanthropy warranted? According to psychologist David
Huron, Schoenberg’s system is less atonal (without a tonal center) than it is
contratonal: it deliberately circumvents tonal implications.4 If the twelve notes
were put into a randomizing computer program, they would occasionally
occur in sequences resembling melody as we know it. But Schoenberg and
his twentieth-century disciples meticulously avoided even hints of such pat-
terns. As such, they expunged from their music precisely that which human
ears have evolved to enjoy.
This does not, of course, mean that twelve-tone serialism is without its
admirers, or that Schoenberg’s name is unanimously considered “mud.”
Some of his works even approach accessibility (in their own way), notably
Moses und Aron and A Survivor from Warsaw. But general responses echo
those of the Boston Herald, which went on to state: “[His music] never
touches any emotion save curiosity, never arouses any mood save speculation
on how the conductor can conduct it and how the musicians can count the
bars.”5
6. Shape 51
Hearing Averages
Our field of perception is constantly crammed with tastes, smells, sights,
sounds and other intrusions from the outside world. To make sense of this
multifarious bombardment, our brains not only choose which stimuli to pay
attention to, but also organize that information. The procedure is aided by pro-
totype recognition, or the categorization of perceptions based on the central
or average representation of a class. Countless hues enter our vision, but we
sort them out based on a finite number of colors—red, blue, green, etc.—with
modifying adjectives—light, dark, -ish, etc. The same occurs when deciphering
shapes, words, weather conditions, food odors, facial expressions and so forth.
Organizing experiences in this way is highly economical. The brain sim-
plifies reality by placing an enormous variety of information into basic clas-
sifications. Virtually everything we perceive is processed in this stereotyping
way. Yet, as obvious as this might be, we are less apt to recognize the role of
prototypical elements in ascertaining beauty.
In 1990, psychologists Judith H. Langlois and Lori A. Roggman pub-
lished a study entitled, “Attractive Faces Are Only Average.”6 They asked col-
lege students to rank the beauty of human faces in a series of photographs.
Their conclusion: faces with features approximating the mathematical average
of all faces in a population are the most attractive. On the flipside, the
researchers noted, “unattractive faces, because of their minor distortions …
may be perceived as less facelike or as less typical of human faces.” We sub-
consciously reference the prototype of “faceness” when evaluating appear-
ances. Our preference for averages and aversion to extremes is likely rooted
in a primal sorting out of genetic regularities from potentially harmful muta-
tions. Normal is safe and safe is beautiful.
Of course, when we go beyond photographs into real life, unconventional
faces can be (and often are) judged favorably. In such cases, beauty is said to
reside in the “eye of the beholder.” However, this very cliché acknowledges a
baseline or common appearance of beauty from which an individual departs.
(The natural preference for a prototypical face is overridden by extra-facial
qualities, like kindness, talent and a sense of humor.)
As it is with faces, so it is with music. Within a given population in a
given time and place, certain musical features are normative. These can be
likened to the mathematical average of faces, and might include major and
minor triads, common chord progressions (e.g., I-V-vi-IV), rising and falling
melodies, normal structures (e.g., 8-bar form), and so on. These features
comply with expectations and suggest stability—traits also detected in the
“normal” face.
Acoustic Analogies
Emotional responses to music have a measure of objectivity. Though
the type and intensity of emotions felt are response-dependent, they are not
subjective in the sense of being mere projections. Expressiveness is contained
in the music itself. As philosopher Stephen Davies has argued, music seems
sad or happy because it has the appearance of sadness or happiness—that is,
we identify characteristics in music analogous to our own experience of those
feelings.
Davies calls this “appearance emotionalism,” or the resemblance between
temporally unfolding music and human behaviors associated with emotional
expression.7 Musical movement is discerned from various motions: high to
low pitches, fast to slow tempo, loud to soft volume, harmonic tension and
resolution, etc. Like human action, the momentum of music seems purposeful
and goal-directed. This perception is part of our broader tendency to per-
sonify the things we experience. We are, for example, more likely to notice
how weeping willows look like sad people than how they resemble frozen
waterfalls. Similarly, we detect in music a dynamic character relating to our
own expressive behavior. This is true of all music, be it concrete or abstract,
tonal or atonal, formal or informal.
Sounds are instantly anthropomorphized upon reaching our ears. To
use a generic illustration, Western music expresses graveness through patterns
of unresolved tension, minor tonalities, bass timbre, downward sloping lines
and so on. Of course, our responses to music are largely learned: cultural
insiders and outsiders are not likely to have identical reactions (nor can we
expect all members of a music-culture to react in precisely uniform ways).
But once we are trained to associate certain sounds with certain feelings—a
process that begins in the womb—our perceptions are more or less set for
life.
Appearance emotionalism can also take on a visual dimension. In such
cases, not only is music felt as a sensual phenomenon, it is also likened to
imagery expressive of that phenomenon. For instance, a song might be heard
as a racing antelope, meaning that it exudes excitement. If it is heard as a
gathering storm, it inspires trepidation. If it sounds like a rainbow, it stirs a
sense of awe. In this respect, stating that music resembles something visible
is basically the same as acknowledging that it feels a particular way. And the
reason both music and images are so readily compared to emotions is because
they exhibit emotive qualities we perceive in ourselves.
This is not to say that we simply project our humanness onto the music.
Its emotionalism exists independent of our listening to it. Rather, we are the
6. Shape 53
receivers of music’s expressive content. Exactly how this information is inter-

preted varies from person to person and culture to culture; but it is universally
felt as analogous to human emotions.
Feeling Voices
The emotional pull of music is its first, strongest and most ubiquitous
effect. It is the primary reason for music’s inclusion in a staggering assortment
of human activities, and the common denominator for listeners of all levels
of education and expertise. If music were divested of its emotional attraction,
it would soon fall out of usage. Yet, as widely attested as this observation is,
it remains unclear precisely how emotions are musically aroused.
There has been no shortage of proposed explanations. From the moment
people began thinking about music, the connection between emotion and
sound has been a foremost area of interest. Some older ideas have survived
the rigors of modern research and continue to hold sway. One such theory
was introduced in the writings of Charles Darwin.
In The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Darwin wrote,
“when the voice is used under any strong emotion, it tends to assume, through
the principle of association, a musical character.”8 Vocalization patterns
change depending on the vocalizer’s emotional state. Gloominess is matched
by slow and hesitant speech in the lower register. Cheerfulness is partnered
with loud and rapid speech in the higher range. Anxiety has its counterpart
in uneven spurts of trembling speech. We intuitively recognize underlying
moods from the rhythms, timbres and contours present in the expression of
these and other states.
Sometime in the distant and unrecorded past, these qualities migrated
into the musical vocabulary. Gloomy music mimics the lethargic pace of a
downhearted voice. Cheerful music replicates the bright tempo of excited
elocution. Anxious music mimics the disjointed phrases of a troubled tongue.
The sounds remind us of how we communicate during these states. We detect
and respond to vocal patterns in the musical presentation.
Compelling though this analysis may be, it is not uncontested. Some
detractors, like philosopher Stephen Davies, argue that music’s expressiveness
is tied to its replication of physical gestures rather than an essential link to
vocal tendencies. Others, like psychologist Vladimir Konečni, contend that
music does not directly induce emotions, and that the apparent connection
requires more conditioning than Darwin’s theory would suggest.
But empirical evidence has mounted since Darwin’s day. Researchers
have conducted controlled experiments that demonstrate the resemblance

between vocal tendencies and musical expression. The titles of several research
papers indicate the growing attention: “Voice and Emotion”; “Expression of
Emotion in Voice and Music”; “Communication of Emotions in Vocal Expres-
sion and Musical Performance.”9 The vocalization theory also resonates on
an intuitive level. Once we are made aware of Darwin’s statement, it is hard
to ignore the presence of vocal patterns in music evocative of various emo-
tions. We realize how basic the connection is.
By itself, the proposition does not definitively or comprehensively solve
the puzzle of why music stimulates emotional responses. It cannot account
for all instances or why some musical selections are felt more strongly than
others. But it is a valuable aid to our understanding.
Imitation of Voice
Musical treatises of late antiquity regularly gave preference to wind

instruments over strings. The order was based on the belief that winds imitate
the human voice. Since the time of Plato, singing has been placed above
instrumental music in both philosophical tomes and popular imagination.
This is partly because the vocal instrument is thought to be God- given
(instrumenta naturalis) rather than human-made (instrumenta artificialis),
and partly because the voice produces speech as well as song. For writers like
Cassiodorus (c. 485–c. 585) and Isidore of Seville (c. 560–636), winds were
the closest representation of vocal music, as both operate by sending a column
of air through an apparatus controlling vibration and resonation.
From a mechanical standpoint, the similarity between voice and winds
is fairly obvious. Blowing and breathing involve the same anatomical tools
and physiological processes. But when sound is added to the discussion, com-
parisons are not always so neat. For instance, the bassoon—a wind instru-
ment—has been likened to a “burping bedpost,” whereas the cello—a string
instrument—is widely equated with the male singing voice. Similarly, violins
are heard to “sing” like a female soprano.
The latter statement was recently put to scientific test. According to
Joseph Nagyvary, a biochemist and violin expert, great violinmakers of the
seventeenth and eighteenth century designed their instruments to mimic the
human voice.10 In an article comparing Guarneri violins and operatic singing,
Nagyvary contends that the instruments produce notes that gravitate toward
certain type of vowels, implying the possibility that old masters may have
used vowel identification as a means of quality assurance. It is therefore pos-
6. Shape 55
sible that, echoing views from antiquity, the superiority of certain violins
derived from their closeness to the vocal instrument. The more humanlike,
the more coveted.
For the study, entitled “A Comparative Study of Power Spectra and Vow-
els in Guarneri Violins and Operatic Singing,” Nagyvary compared a series
of vowels sung by Metropolitan opera soprano Emily Pulley with a recording
of Itzhak Perlman playing a scale on a Guarneri violin. Using high-tech pho-
netic mapping and analysis, he found that the violin created a number of
English and French vowel sounds, along with the Italian “i” and “e.”
This suggests that esteemed makers, like Guarneri and Stradivari, strove
to replicate the human voice in their violins, and that their success in doing
so provided an objective standard for determining the quality and value of
the instruments. They may have been inspired by the theological concept of
voice as divine instrument, the philosophical assertion of the perfection of
nature, or the basic human affinity for things resembling ourselves.
Though philosophers and theologians have long extolled wind instru-
ments for approaching the mechanism of the human voice, the sound of those
instruments can fall short of the lofty theories. Alternately, our response to
a masterful violin does seem to resemble the pull of a virtuosic soprano. If
the value of an instrument can truly be measured by its proximity to the
human voice, then the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century violins certainly
deserve the millions they sell for. In a manner more than just metaphorical,
they speak mellifluously to our ears.
Notes
1. Philip Ball, The Music Instinct: How Music Works and Why We Can’t Do Without
It (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 124.
2. David Huron, Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation (Cam-
bridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006).
3. Nicolas Slonimsky, ed., Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers
Since Beethoven’s Time (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1965), 162, 165.
4. Huron, Sweet Anticipation, 228.
5. Slonimsky, ed., Lexicon of Musical Invective, 165.
6. Judith H. Langlois and Lori A. Roggman, “Attractive Faces Are Only Average,”
Psychological Science 1:2 (1990): 115–121.
7. Stephen Davies, Themes in the Philosophy of Music (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2003).
8. Charles Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (New York:
D. Appelton, 1872), 87.
9. Arvid Kappas, Ursala Hess and Klaus R. Scherer, “Voice and Emotion,” in Funda-
mental od Nonverbal Behavior, ed. Robert Stephen Feldman and Bernard Rimé, (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 200–238; Klaus R. Scherer, “Expression of
Emotion in Voice and Music,” Journal of Voice 9:3 (1995): 235–238; Patrik N. Juslin and
Petri Laukka, “Communication of Emotions in Vocal Expression and Musical Perform-
ance: Different Channels, Same Code?” Psychological Bulletin 129 (2003): 770–814.
10. Joseph Nagyvary, “A Comparative Study of Power Spectra and Vowels in Guarneri
Violins and Operatic Singing,” Savart Journal 1:3 (2013): 1–30.

Brabazon, Tara. Popular Music: Topics, Trends, and Trajectories. London: Sage, 2012.
Darwin, Charles. The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. New York: D.
Appelton, 1872.
Davies, Stephen. Themes in the Philosophy of Music. New York: Oxford University Press,
2003.
Frith, Simon. Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
Godøy, Rolf Inge, and Marc Leman, eds. Musical Gestures: Sound, Movement, and Mean-
ing. New York: Routledge, 2010.
Huron, David. Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 2006.
Izdebski, Krzysztof. Emotions in the Human Voice: Foundations. San Diego, CA: Plural,
2007.
Karpf, Anne. The Human Voice: The Story of a Remarkable Talent. New York: Blooms-
bury, 2011.
Machin, David. Analysing Popular Music: Image, Sound and Text. London: Sage, 2010.
Meyer, Leonard B. Music, the Arts, and Ideas: Patterns and Predictions in Twentieth-
Century Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010.
7
Transience
Music is an intangible art form. Though it strikes the listener in an inti-

mate and direct manner, it takes no physical form. Because of this, philoso-
phers have long debated whether music—and sound more generally—really
exists in the absolute meaning of the term. This chapter investigates a number
of issues at the core of this heady topic. It discusses the artificialness of musical
recordings, the fleetingness of musical moments, and music’s inevitable evap-
oration into nothingness. It delves into the inadequacies of musical experience
and analysis, the limitations of notated music, and the futility of speculating
about music that was never made. It concludes by examining the complete-
ness and incompleteness of musical reception, and music’s ineffable way of
connecting us to our pasts.
Sound in Wax
The earliest wax cylinder phonographs—the first commercial medium for
recording and reproducing sound—were entirely mechanical. They were hand-
cranked and needed no electrical power. All that was required was a lathe, a
waxy surface, a sharp point for a stylus, and a resonating table. To impress sound
waves onto wax, the voice or instrument was positioned closely to the large end
of a horn. The vibrations moved a needle, which carved a groove on the rotating
wax. According to Walter Murch, an acclaimed film editor and sound designer,
everything used in these early machines was available to the ancient Greeks and
Egyptians.1 But it took until the middle of the nineteenth century, and the genius
of Thomas Edison and his team, to execute the recording process.
Why did it take so long to capture sound? Musician David Byrne has
informally speculated that maybe it didn’t.2 Perhaps someone in antiquity
invented a similar device and later abandoned it; or perhaps the device itself
was simply demolished in the ruins of history. While conceivable on a tech-
nological level, this hypothesis is unlikely considering the prevailing ethos
of the ancient world. The ephemerality of sound was part of its attraction: it
57
was momentary, mysterious, transient and transcendent. As this fleetingness

was highly valued, there was little or no inclination to record. Murch puts it
this way: “Poetically, the beauty of music and the human voice was used as
a symbol of all that’s evanescent. So the idea that you could trap it in any
physical medium never occurred to [them]….”3
This contrasts with the rush to develop written systems that enshrined lan-
guage. The ancients recognized that certain things should be documented, like
governmental records, priestly decrees, royal chronicles, and philosophical trea-
tises. What these shared in common was a silent beginning: they were soundless
thoughts committed to paper (or papyrus or parchment or tablets or wood).
Writing gave concrete form to facts and concepts that, while often referencing
observable phenomena, had no tangibility of their own. In contrast, sound was
understood as being completely formed. It was received sensually, experienced
kinesthetically, and processed emotionally. It existed in the moment it was made.
It is worth noting that Edison first thought of wax cylinder recorders as
dictation machines. They were to record the owners’ ideas and messages and,
ideally, preserve the great speeches of the day. This limited purpose reflected
the limitations of the early devices: they were too crude and imprecise to
capture the nuances of musical performance. True, music recording and play-
back were in Edison’s long-term plan, and they became major functions as
the machines advanced. But it is feasible to consider that Edison’s initial goal
of preserving dictation was—and arguably still is—a worthier and more prac-
tical goal than detaining music.
Musicians commonly lament that they are slaves to their own recordings.
The version that appears on an album is the version that fans want to hear,
and deviations are typically received as imperfections, inaccuracies or
unwanted departures from the “authoritative” source. Some improvising
musicians even feel obliged to give their audiences note-for-note reproduc-
tions of recorded solos. This is not to negate the enormous benefits and incal-
culable cultural impact of musical recordings. Our understanding of music
as a diverse human enterprise owes mightily to the proliferation of recorded
sounds, and musical creativity thrives when there is access to other music.
But something of music’s temporality is lost in recording. Imprinting sound
in wax or digital audio creates the illusion of permanence.
The Short Life of Music

Music is concentrated in the present tense. Its lifespan is the length of
its performance. It emerges out of nowhere and disappears into nothingness.
7. Transience 59
It manifests and expires in the same instant. Its two ingredients—sound and
silence—evaporate into the hazy ether and the fuzzy recesses of the mind. It
leaves no physical traces behind. To the extent that the music existed at all,
it occupied the invisible spaces of time and consciousness. It was more energy
than mass—more essence than substance.
The preceding eulogy applies to all music. Nothing of the thing lives
beyond the act of its creation. Even when meticulously composed and faith-
fully played, note for note, it is not the same music that was heard before. Its
relationship with prior performances is that of a facsimile or reenactment,
not a resurrection. Similarly, audio recordings, while capturing data in a
replayable format, should not be confused with permanence. What is heard
is an impression of performance—however exacting—but not the perform-
ance itself. Like light reaching us from a long-extinct star, what enters our
ears has already passed away.
The same can be said for musical notation. Though the printed page
has material form, the paper is not the music. Jean-Paul Sartre made this
point in his book, L’Imaginaire.4 According to Sartre, true existence cannot
be claimed for any musical work. Music is not located in the silent symbolism
of bar lines, notes, key signatures, dynamics or articulations. Nor is it found
in any one performance, since all renditions are fundamentally new and
ephemeral creations. In contrast to something empirically real—defined by
Sartre as existing in the past, future and present—music disappears as soon
as it is heard. Whatever lingering impact it may have in terms of thoughts,
images, feelings or earworms, occurs solely in the mind.
This is not always seen as a positive attribute. Indeed, on some level, the
desire to record music—both on paper and in audio files—reflects discomfort
with the art form’s evanescence. As a rule, human beings are averse to imper-
manence and all the insecurity, unease and futility it implies. But the reality
is that nothing lasts forever. From the moment a thing comes into being, it
is in a state of decay. So we invent afterlife scenarios and gods that live forever.
We think of truth and wisdom as eternal forces. We publish ideas, film events,
build monuments and make musical time capsules (notation and recordings).
We fabricate fixity for fleeting forms.
The Sound of Zero
The effect of a musical composition is notoriously fleeting. In the

moment of listening, the sounds are ear filling, mood shifting, mind absorb-
ing, memory stirring, body infecting. Yet almost as soon as they cease, the
impact dissipates. We are possessed and exorcised all within a few minutes.
True, a lyric or melodic phrase can repeat in our heads and go on affecting
us in a comparatively minor way. But as an ephemeral art form that emerges
and vanishes in real-time, music’s influence tends to be measured by its dura-
tion. It fosters an immediate experience that transitions quickly from pro-
foundness to nothingness.
Philosopher Susanne K. Langer made this observation in her study, Phi-
losophy in a New Key. She acknowledged the well-attested interaction of music
and heart rate, respiration, concentration and mental state, but noted that
none of this outlasts the stimulus itself. There is no real expectation that the
music will shape or inform our behavior. Whatever its effect, it tends to be
internal rather than manifestational. “On the whole,” Langer wrote, “the
behavior of concert audiences after even the most thrilling performances
makes the traditional magical influence of music on human actions very
dubious. Its somatic effects are transient, and its moral hangovers or uplifts
seem to be negligible.”5 Again, this does not necessarily apply to songs, which
have a greater potential to motivate due to the sway of words and the pathos
of the human voice.
The predictability with which music dissolves has a cosmic analogy. In
the zero-energy hypothesis, the total amount of energy in the universe is
exactly zero. All positive energy, which exists in matter, is canceled out by
negative energy, which resides in gravity. The energy exerted as matter sep-
arates from other matter is balanced by the gravitational pull that attracts
them together. Thus, the universe is made of positive and negative parts that
add up to nothing.
If we convert this into a musical metaphor, music can be viewed as matter
and its aftermath as gravity. A great deal of energy is expended during a
musical performance. Physical maneuvers cause air molecules to vibrate,
which make brain waves oscillate, causing thoughts, feelings and physical
surges to proliferate. This is the substance of musical matter. But all of this
is canceled out in the absence of music that follows. The gravitational pull
of silence (or non-musical sounds) nullifies the effect before it transforms
into conduct. The experience amounts to nothing.
This is illustrated in a story told of the premiere performance of Beethoven’s
Ninth Symphony. Following the symphony’s rousing conclusion, the awestruck
audience burst forth into applause. As their cheers reluctantly dwindled away,
a child turned to his mother and asked, “What must we do now?” He was
compelled to respond to the beauty and force of the music, but was unsure
what the appropriate action might be. His mother offered no reply. There
was zero to be done.
7. Transience 61
Object and Motion

The physical universe can be thought of either in terms of objects (sub-
stance) or motion (process). When substance is the focus, the universe
appears as bundles of photons. When process is emphasized, the universe
appears as waves. From the point of view of physics, both perspectives are
true. Objects and motion are both made of light: photons are packets of light;
waves are undulations of light. It is beyond my purpose (and my ability) to
elucidate the finer points of this scientific principle. I wish instead to draw a
rough analogy between substance and process as understood in physics, and
the general way in which they are used in musical criticism.
Object in music is the final product: the sound recording, the lyric sheet,
the notated score (composition or transcription). Process is the performance:
the music making, the listening, the audible manifestation. The former is
a starting place for (or record of ) the latter; the latter is the content of
the former. Unlike physicists, music critics tend to perceive object and process
as utterly distinct, ignoring the “light” uniting the two. More often than
not, one mode of understanding takes over, or is unduly elevated above the
other.
For example, John Brownell notes a trend in jazz studies of applying
analytical models to improvisation.6 He takes specific aim at Thomas Owens,
who dissected a large number of Charlie Parker’s improvisations, cataloging
sixty-four melodic devices ranked according to frequency of occurrence. For
Brownell, this systematic method is antithetical to the spontaneous purpose
and process of improvisation. Brownell is similarly critical of Gunter
Schuller’s study of Sonny Rollins, which elucidates the saxophonist’s “the-
matic” improvisational approach. Schuller identified hallmarks of a well-
crafted composition in Rollins’s solos—themes, coherence, deliberation,
form—and on that basis claimed that his playing was aesthetically superior.
From Brownell’s viewpoint, such analytic models have no place in jazz, which
is, in essence, a performance practice outside the range of mechanistic tools.
He dismisses these attempts as “notism,” or the “fixation on the object of
analysis rather than on the process from which it springs.”
While it is true that aesthetic expectations from one artistic form do not
translate appropriately to other forms, the notion that experience and analysis
are mutually exclusive is not entirely so. Notation, whether of a written piece
or an improvisation notated later, is always and necessarily a shorthand for
the real (audible) thing. It is a useful language for understanding music, but
it is no substitute for the thing itself. At the same time, a purely experiential
appreciation of music, without facility in the written language, is to a certain
extent incomplete. It is through listening and analytics that music is grasped

in its full dimensions.
It is unfortunate that music is often apprehended from an either/or van-
tage point. Either it is received in the moment of perception, or it is shoved
under the microscope. Exclusivity arises in the extremes of experientialism
and notism. What is needed is a balanced view, which values both the product
and the performance. They are, after all, aspects of the same thing. Returning
to the physics analogy, performance (process) is a manipulation of sound,
while score (object) is a map of sound.
Score Is Not Territory
William Sharlin was among the twentieth century’s most active and
innovative composers of synagogue music. A masterful choral writer and
self-described “freak” for the canon, Sharlin’s music freely crosses stylistic
borders and evades conventional limitations and expectations of the worship
setting. At its most elegant, his music seamlessly blends melodic modernism,
jazz harmonies, Renaissance form and Jewish folk material. And nothing he
wrote was ever finished.
Like many artists, Sharlin was never completely satisfied with his out-
put—or, more accurately, ceased being satisfied with it after a short duration.
Well into his eighties, he compulsively made changes to vocal lines, expanded
harmonic coloring, and added figures to piano accompaniments. Some pieces
were left on the brink of indecipherability, while others bear only surface
resemblance to their original conceptions. He gave this treatment to published
and unpublished pieces alike, and would complain whenever his music was
reprinted without his express consent, as he almost certainly had a more
recent version.
None of this editing or re-editing was done from a place of frustration.
It was the inevitable byproduct of a perspective that saw written notes as
temporary suggestions rather than concrete representations. For Sharlin,
whatever appeared on the page was but a carefully constructed abstraction
(though he was meticulous about how it should be presented). Notation was
the model of an artistic reality, not the reality itself.
The above example complements the now widely accepted view of com-
position as a fluid and potentially unending process. Written notes are per-
formed into existence. They only become music when they are heard. And
each interpretation brings something new.
The creative functions of performance and reception cannot be over-
7. Transience 63
stressed. A piece is defined and redefined by the tempo, articulations, dynam-

ics, attacks and tone qualities with which it is rendered. No two presentations
are precisely the same, and each gives its own character to the composition.
(This is clearly demonstrated on jazz albums that include two or more takes
of a selection.) Listeners likewise play an active part in the creation of music,
as their ears, minds and bodies make meaning of the sundry sound clusters.
In this fundamental way, the involvement of performers and audiences,
whether the music is live or recorded, is an extension of the compositional
process.
The unfolding act of composition expands in cases where the composer
continuously modifies his or her work, or leaves us with renditions capturing
different stages of critical editing. Each of these versions carries with it unique
nuances in addition to those always present among performers and listen-
ers.
The upshot here is that the written note, while central to composed
music, should not be confused with the end result. The depiction is not the
depicted. Score is not territory.
Art Made and Unmade
Basic to existentialist philosophy is the idea that people are what they
make themselves to be. We are born as empty slates and spend a lifetime cre-
ating our personas. Who we are is the result of an ongoing series of under-
takings and the various thoughts, actions and relationships that comprise
those undertakings. We constantly define and redefine ourselves through our
dealings in the world. Our nature is not fixed. Critics charge that this view
is too harsh, uncertain or arbitrary to be of any positive use. But its propo-
nents see it as the most optimistic of doctrines. It entails that our destinies
are within ourselves. Everything we do matters.
The flip side is that unrealized thoughts and unfulfilled potentials
are of little or no consequence. Actualizations are what counts. Jean-Paul
Sartre put it thus: “A man is involved in life, leaves his impress on it, and
outside of that there is nothing.”7 This principle goes for all areas of engage-
ment: there is no love but the love that is felt; there is no skill but the
skill that is used; there is no conviction but the conviction that becomes
deed.
Sartre gave the example of visual art. An artist’s genius is the sum of his
or her work. There is no other way to assess it. We cannot discuss the merits
of a sculpture that was never sculpted or a concerto that was never composed.
“Nobody can tell what the painting of tomorrow will be,” wrote Sartre. “Paint-
ing can be judged only after it has a chance to be made.”8 There are no a
priori aesthetic values: creation precedes evaluation.
This perspective exposes the pointlessness of asking speculative artistic
questions. What if Shakespeare had written another play? What if Michelan-
gelo had painted another chapel? What if Plath had not died so young? What
if Schubert had finished his eighth symphony? Track records and intentions
are not the same as results, and there is no practical use in imagining things
that will never be.
Of course, none of this precludes the fact that the artist must begin with
a plan. Creations need a conscious creator, and nothing exists prior to the
vision or inspiration. Yet if the plan is confined to the vagaries of conception
and does not progress beyond them, it will not become art and thus have no
impact on the artist’s genius.
Existentialists consider this a liberating and motivating concept.
Whether the activity is art or something else, it is our efforts that ultimately
constitute our identities. We are born without essence and become ourselves
through action. Life is what we make of it, and what we make in life is who
we are.
Music Complete and Incomplete
Søren Kierkegaard wrote, “Music, like time, is measured but immeas-

urable, is composed but indivisible.”9 A subject in William James’ The Varieties
of Religious Experience compared a spiritual experience to “the effect of some
great orchestra when all the separate notes have melted into the swelling har-
mony.”10 These quotations speak to the immediate and all-consuming effect
of music. While musical elements can be distilled and analyzed through the
study of a recording or score, their collective impact defies mechanical exam-
ination.
Such is the nature of musical completeness. In an instant too brief to
quantify, the entirety of one’s being is affected by an indivisible sonic force.
The congealed parts of the musical whole—pitches, rhythms, timbres, dura-
tions, dynamics—stimulate the inseparable components of the person—mind,
body, emotions. It is a holistic experience.
Yet, there is also a sense in which music is incomplete. Both Kierkegaard
and James’ subject allude to an attribute common to all music: evanescence.
Much of music’s effect comes from its instantaneous materialization. It tends
to enter our perception without warning and manipulate us with or without
7. Transience 65
our permission. However, just as quickly as it enters our awareness, it disap-

pears. Each passing beat, each successive phrase, each fleeting chord evapo-
rates as soon as it is heard. The sounds emerge without physical substance,
and leave no physical trace behind. Of course, efforts can be made to tran-
scribe or stipulate a performance with written notation; but this is only an
approximation. Every performance is unique.
Something similar occurs with recorded music (and to a lesser degree
synthesized music). Though recordings can capture musical occurrences and
replay them with near precision, the listener will never hear them the same
way twice. Musical perception is influenced by the accumulated experiences
leading up to a particular listening, not to mention what the listener is doing,
thinking, and feeling when the recording is being played. Thus, permanence
is lacking even in the most carefully fossilized music.
Music is, then, both complete and incomplete. In the micro-moment of
perception, it is a single, wholly formed, and ineffable force. The listener’s
response is likewise inclusive, engaging the mental, physical, and emotional
realms. But when we zoom out to view the broader phenomenon, this com-
pleteness—so viscerally felt by the listener—begins to dissipate. What once
seemed absolutely whole becomes fundamentally partial. The image of indi-
visible notes melting away into an all-embracing harmony is replaced with
rapidly appearing and disappearing musical phrases, the effect of which
changes in accordance with changes in the listener.
Eternal Song
An issue of the Animal Man comic book published in 1990 includes a
surreal sequence of panels showing a group of second-rate superheroes in an
unusual state of self-reflection. On the brink of being discontinued, these
now-irrelevant heroes descend into panic. The story’s enigmatic and
sometimes-psychedelic writer, Grant Morrison, depicts the anxiety as these
characters become aware that their storylines are in peril. One of them shouts
forlornly, “If they write me out man, I ain’t gonna be seen again!” A more
introspective figure consoles the crowd of hapless crusaders: “We can all still
be seen. Our lives are replayed every time someone reads us. We can never
die. We outlive our creators.”11
The notion of eternality through revisitation resembles the “eternal
return,” a theory popularized by religious historian Mircea Eliade. 12 Ritual
practices, explained Eliade, return participants to the mythic time in
which the events commemorated purportedly took place. A ceremony mark-
ing the creation of the world or defeat of an existential enemy, for instance,
brings a congregation into that extraordinary moment. In more than just
a symbolic sense, each ritual repetition relives the sacred past. Like soon-
to-be canceled heroes who achieve immortality on the re-read comic book
page, periodic rituals enable myths to outlive the civilizations that produced
them. They procure an eternal life transcending the constraints of linear
time.
It is debated whether this cyclical idea of time should be viewed literally
or as an inflated conception of nostalgia. Bernard Lewis, for one, has warned
us of the human tendency to creatively remember, recover and reinvent our
cultural heritages.13 Whatever the case, there is a powerful “as if ” in play dur-
ing ritual repetition, perhaps best articulated in the Passover seder when Jews
of every era proclaim, “We were slaves in the land of Egypt.”
This takes place as well in (non-improvised) music, especially when
replayed on recordings or replicated with reasonable precision in live per-
formances. Songs often transport us to where we first heard them or to a
phase of life when they held an important place. Old feelings, old relation-
ships, old situations are resurrected and made present through sound. As
long as we continue to hear those songs—and each time we do—that bygone
period is restored to vibrant immediacy.
Time-tested music also serves as an intergenerational pathway, promot-
ing a real or imagined sense of continuity between past and present. Songs
known (or thought) to be deeply woven into the societal fabric bring us face
to face with long-dead ancestors and with a world we did not inhabit but feel
viscerally connected to.
This is not the extent of how music connects us to eternal time. Further
reflection would yield further indications of this effect. And it bears reiter-
ating that these musical sensations are not experienced simply as emotional
memories, but as the past made present once more. On a practical level, this
explains the regularity with which recurring repertoires are affixed to com-
munal rituals, both religious and secular. Such music helps tie participants
to the activity itself and to the flow of history in which similar activities have
already occurred and will occur again. Succinctly put, eternal myths are made
eternal in part through eternal tones.
Although this discussion of return implies endlessness, it is not a static
process. As we have learned from countless time travel tales of popular fiction,
inserting ourselves into events that have already taken place invariably intro-
duces new elements and causes new variations, subtle and not-so-subtle. So
it is with time relived on the pages of comic books, retold in rituals and con-
tained in repeated songs. Each of us is a constantly changing accumulation
7. Transience 67
of thoughts, feelings and experiences, and every time we return to the famil-
iar—the eternal—we approach it from a different vantage point.
Far from discrediting the notion of timelessness, the changes precipitated
when our current selves encounter the perpetual past can be understood as
the dynamic anatomy of eternity. Without this potential for freshness, the
eternal return would hardly be longed for.
Notes
1. Walter Murch, “Hyser Memorial Lecture” (paper presented at the Audio Engi-
neering Society 117th Convention, San Francisco, October 30, 2004).
2. David Byrne, How Music Works (San Francisco: McSweeney’s, 2012), 77.
3. Murch, “Hyser Memorial Lecture.”
4. Jean-Paul Sartre, L’Imaginaire (Paris: Gallimard, 1940), 243–245.
5. Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason,
Rite, and Art (New York: Mentor, 1964), 181.
6. John Brownell, “Analytical Modes of Jazz Improvisation,” Jazzforchung/Jazz Re-
search 26 (1994): 9–29.
7. Jean-Paul Sartre, “Humanism and Existentialism,” in Essays on Existentialism
(New York: Citadel, 1965), 48.
8. Ibid., 55.
9. Søren Kierkegaard, Either-Or, trans. Water Lowrie (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 1974), 67.
10. William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (London: Longmans, Green,
1905), 66.
11. Grant Morrison, Animal Man: Deus Ex Machina (New York: DC Comics, 2003),
171.
12. Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1991), 12.
13. Bernard Lewis, History: Remembered, Recovered, Invented (New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1987).

Brady, Erica. A Spiral Way: How the Phonograph Changed Ethnography. Jackson: Uni-
versity Press of Mississippi, 1999.
Chanan, Michael. Repeated Takes: A Short History of Recording and Its Effects on Music.
New York: Verso, 1995.
Cook, Nicholas. Beyond the Score: Music as Performance. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2014.
Davies, Stephen. Musical Works and Performances: A Philosophical Exploration. New
Dickreiter, Michael. Score Reading: A Key to the Music Experience. New York: Hal
Leonard, 2000.
Gordon, Edwin. The Aural/Visual Experience of Music Literacy: Reading and Writing
Music Notation. Chicago, GIA: 2004.
Langer, Susanne K. Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite,
and Art. New York: Mentor, 1964.
Philip, Robert. Performing Music in the Age of Recording. New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 2004.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. L’Imaginaire. Paris: Gallimard, 1940.
Zuckerkandl, Victor. Sound and Symbol: Music and the External World. New Haven,
CT: Princeton University Press, 1969.
8
Language
Music is often compared to language. This comparison usually involves

recognition of music’s communicative qualities, and its ability to convey
things rarely achieved in written or spoken words. The present chapter exam-
ines the “language-ness” of music, beginning with the widely held assertion
that musical communication exists on a higher plane than the ordinary or
materialistic realm of linguistic expression. Next we investigate the belief that
music expresses something beyond the capability of words to impart. Lastly,
we turn to songs—words set to music—and their unique ability to add clarity
and directness to thoughts, feelings, and ideas.
Above Noise
Aldous Huxley authored one of the most widely cited statements on

music: “After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible
is music.”1 The popularity of this maxim has long outlasted any general inter-
est in the collection of essays from which it originated, Music at Night. That
the phrase resonates with many readers is evidenced by its frequent and usu-
ally context-less appearance on websites and books devoted to useful quota-
tions. Some might reverse the hierarchy, placing music before silence, but
the substance of Huxley’s comment remains the same: these acoustic phe-
nomena communicate something beyond the limits of language.
It is fruitless to venture an elucidation of what Huxley meant by “inex-
pressible.” As the term indicates, the things expressed cannot be justly or fully
described. Nevertheless, we can presume it refers to a category of experience
variously called emotional, non-rational or spiritual. These ineffable sensations,
while universally desirable, are not arrived at easily in our noise-saturated world.
Huxley’s thoughts on the subject are fleshed out in The Perennial Phi-
losophy, a compendium of mystical insights from sages of the world’s reli-
gions. In his chapter on silence, Huxley includes instructive excerpts from
69
the writings of religious figures like Lao Tzu and William Law. His own
remarks are hardly reserved.
The first barrier to silence he identifies is frivolous speech: “Unrestrained
and indiscriminate talk is morally evil and spiritually dangerous.”2 Huxley
claims that most words thought or spoken during the course of the day fall
into three main groups: “words inspired by malice and uncharitableness
towards our neighbors; words inspired by greed, sensuality and self-love;
words inspired by pure imbecility and uttered without rhyme or reason, but
merely for the sake of making a distracting noise.”3
The other impediment to silence Huxley cites is incessant ambient noise.
Writing toward the middle of the twentieth century, he diagnosed a reality that
has only been exacerbated in the intervening years. As Huxley astutely notes,
“the resources of our almost miraculous technology have been thrown into the
current assault against silence.” Most damaging from his perspective is the still-
ubiquitous radio, which “penetrates the mind, filling it with a babel of distrac-
tions—news items, mutually irrelevant bits of information, blasts of corybantic
or sentimental music, continually repeated doses of drama that bring no cathar-
sis, but merely create a craving for daily or even hourly emotional enemas.”4
As is apparent from the passages above, Huxley’s praise for the non-
material rewards of silence is matched by his disdain for unfiltered and unre-
warding sounds—whether of our own making or mechanically produced.
Quietness of mind and environment is, for him, the most effective path to
emotional ease, psychological calm and spiritual awakening. Next on his list
is music, which cuts through jumbled noises, diverts distractions and com-
municates directly with the realm of affections. Music combats noise not by
eliminating it, but by organizing it. In this respect, Huxley would likely give
preference to instrumental music, which is free of the potential contamination
of linguistic assertions (like of the “sentimental music” he condemns).
For Huxley and the many admirers of his famous phrase, expressing the
inexpressible is a lofty and virtuous aspiration. It implies reaching a level of
awareness obscured by the trappings of ordinary existence. In the materialistic
landscape of the modern world, meaningless words and noisy devices are
among the obstacles blocking our way to a deeper experience. And for the
reasons discussed, silence and music are perhaps the best antidotes.
Expressing Expression
The popular appreciation of music as a language beyond words has ori-
gins in nineteenth-century German Romanticism and its unrestrained obses-
8. Language 71
sion with the expressiveness of musical sound. While composers of the genre
were busy expanding the emotional dimensions of their craft, poets were
writing about music with equal sentimental effusiveness. The expression
heard in the works of Schubert, Schumann and Brahms inspired poets like
Tieck, Schlegel and Heine to pour out laudatory verses proclaiming music’s
unsurpassed ability to convey true feeling. To the poets, music was the
embodiment of expression itself—their most venerated aesthetic principle—
and they regularly infused their poems with musical references in hopes
of harnessing that emotive power. Their ethos is captured in a quote from
E. T. A. Hoffmann: “Music is the most romantic of all the arts—one might
say the only purely romantic one.”5
The view of music as a transmitter of emotions spread throughout
Europe and influenced other fields. Herbert Spencer, the English philosopher
and biologist, concluded that “primitives” developed the capacity for music
specifically as a means of communicating their state of being.6 This anthro-
pological assumption, while a product of its time, had many antecedents.
The ancient Greeks, for instance, devised a musical system consisting of
modes intended to evoke or intensify particular reactions. Other societies
past and present possess a similar (if not as systematic) awareness of music’s
potential to penetrate and manipulate our inner lives. Nonetheless, the exu-
berance with which Romantic-era writers emphasized and exalted music’s
expressiveness has not been equaled.
As an example, here are some of Hoffmann’s comments on Beethoven:
“Thus Beethoven’s instrumental music opens us to the monstrous and
immeasurable. Glowing rays shoot through the deep night of this realm, and
we sense giant shadows surging to and fro, closing in on us until they destroy
us, but not the pain of unending longing in which every desire that has risen
quickly in joyful tones sinks and expires. Only with this pain of love, hope,
joy—which consumes but does not destroy, which would burst asunder our
breasts with a mightily impassioned chord—we live on, enchanted seers of
the ghostly world!”7
Embedded in this characteristically verbose appraisal is the contradic-
tory concession that music is “immeasurable” and thus incapable of being
justly described in words. Goethe said it best: “Music begins where words
end.”8 Try as they might to explain the sounds and effects, the poets freely
admitted that their verse—like other art forms—could only approximate the
purity of emotional transmission they felt in music. Theirs was an era when
composers and performers greatly expanded the range and intensity of
dynamics, phrasing, articulation, tempo, harmony and all manner of musical
coloration. Sympathetic feelings aroused in audiences reached unprecedented
levels, and it was widely held that the soul of music made contact with the
soul of the listener. All of this put music outside the grasp of language.
It is not necessary to adopt the often-exaggerated stance of the Roman-
tics to value music’s emotional impact. Nor must one agree with the view of
post-modern detractors, who argue that feelings induced by music are illu-
sory, to acknowledge the limits of musical expression. Still, it is easy to accept
the basic Romantic assertion: our emotional responses to music, real or
imaged, account largely for our interest in the art form.
The Limits of Language
“Where words fail, music speaks.”9 This saying, attributed to Hans Chris-
tian Andersen, has been restated in one way or another in numerous sources.
A random survey of musical quotations yields endless similar remarks,
including one from Victor Hugo: “Music expresses that which cannot be said
and on which it is impossible to be silent.”10 Pulitzer-Prize winning composer
Ned Rorem opines, “If music could be translated into human speech, it would
no longer need to exist.”11 Charles William Wendte, a renowned Unitarian
minister of the early 1900s, expanded on the theme: “When words fail to
express the exalted sentiments and finer emotions of the human heart, music
becomes the sublimated language of the soul, the divine instrumentality for
its higher utterance.”12
An assemblage of like statements from notable personalities could fill
an entire volume. The frequency and eloquence with which the sentiment is
repeated is a testament to its accepted truth. Without need for deep reflection
or the parsing of meaning, such comments just seem to ring true. The sense
that musical expression picks up where language leaves off is an inference
made by luminaries and laypeople alike. Music, in its various manifestations,
is felt to communicate something that exceeds the conceptual limits of vocab-
ulary.
Exactly what this information is can only be hinted at. The fact that
music’s impact occurs outside the bounds of language means that language
is inadequate to describe it. Our conversations with music occur in the realm
of emotions, and insights we glean from that experience are no less (and can
be more) significant than that which is gained from reading or speaking.
This assessment is hardly novel. As mentioned, it is alluded to or
expressly made in all sorts of literature. Still, it is striking that the observation
usually comes from people of words: poets, novelists, philosophers, theolo-
gians and the like. It seems the more fluent one is with language, the more
8. Language 73
one recognizes its insufficiencies. For reasons more intuitive than intellectual,
music is reached for as the next level of expression. It can be assumed that
authors arrive at this point independently; but similarities between their
articulations reflect a common process and shared epiphany.
Among the clearest examples of a wordsmith turning to music is Augus-
tine of Hippo (354–430), whose theological output includes one hundred
separate titles. His writings span apologetics, exegesis, letters, sermons,
polemics, personal confessions and doctrinal teachings. But even Augustine,
arguably the most prolific Latin writer, admitted instances when music is a
better communicator than words.
This is especially apparent in his commentary on Psalm 33:3: “sing Him
a new song; play sweetly with shouts of joy.” Augustine asked, “What does
singing in jubilation signify?” His answer: “It is to realize that words cannot
communicate the song of the heart.” This inner-song—which, again, is more
intuitive than intellectual—is best sung as jubilus: a spontaneous and wordless
musical divulgence. “In this way,” he wrote, “the heart rejoices without words
and the boundless expanse of rapture is not circumscribed by syllables.”13
Whether the writer is religious or secular and whether the medium is
literary or philosophical, the assertion is the same: music conveys that which
words cannot. It is a reality easier to acknowledge than to explain, but a pow-
erful reality nonetheless.
Scripted Thoughts
A song consists of words set to music for the purpose of being sung.
This definition is so basic that it hardly needs mention. What is perhaps less
obvious is the power that language exerts on the music to which it is set.
Lyrics give musical sounds a specific character, turning a notoriously abstract
medium into a delivery system for potential crystal clarity—potential because,
depending on the subject’s accessibility and the intelligibility of the language,
a song can approach a level of directness rarely achieved in other modalities.
To be sure, lyrics can at times seem superfluous, regardless of how poorly
or finely crafted they are, or how well or badly they merge with the music.
For some people, the words are merely a doorway into a musical experience,
and have little attraction in and of themselves (I tend to fall in this camp).
Songs are also multidimensional artifacts, saturated with cultural assump-
tions, subject to critical judgment, and filtered through personal lenses.
Moreover, each individual has heard songs wearing different sets of ears,
sometimes gravitating toward the words and other times not. Still, despite
this diversity of engagement, the greatest strength of song remains its poten-
tial for clarity.
Lyrics have a distinct advantage over other types of linguistic expression.
The placement of words in musical confinement yields many clarifying con-
straints and devices, including: metered stanzas that regulate the number of
syllables; recurring phrases that eliminate ambiguity; familiar idioms and
clichés that provide instant messages; choruses that reiterate central themes;
poetic tools like rhyme, assonance and alliteration, which help weed out
extraneous language. Of course, some songs employ these elements better
than others, and there is room for nuance and creativity (and miscommuni-
cation), even with these controls. But, taken as a whole, songs are uniquely
adept at compressing, containing and conveying streamlined concepts.
This unclutteredness runs counter to the human condition, which con-
demns our minds to ceaseless and often-disjointed thoughts. True, most of
us can steer ourselves into clear thinking when needed; but it is impossible
to harness the mechanism at all times. The thought motor is always running,
even in our sleep.
I’m reminded of a scene in Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, when Mrs.
Pefko complains to Dr. Breed, “You scientists think too much.” “I think you’ll
find,” replied Dr. Breed, “that everybody does about the same amount of
thinking. Scientists simply think about things one way, and other people
think about things in others.”14 This is the blessing and burden of our species.
Songs embody the elusive ideal of lucidity. They are neatly packed con-
tainers, carefully arranged and efficiently delivered. They are, in short, the
opposite of wandering words.
Notes
1. Aldous Huxley, “The Rest is Silence,” in Music at Night and Other Essays (Leipzig:
Albatross, 1931), 19.
2. Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy (New York: Harper, 1940), 216.
3. Ibid., 217.
4. Ibid., 218.
5. David Charlton, ed., E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Musical Writings: Kreisleriana, the Poet
and the Composer, Music Criticism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 96.
6. Herbert Spencer, “The Origin and Function of Music” [1857], in Essays: Scientific,
Political, and Speculative, vol. 2 (London: Williams and Norgato, 1891).
7. E. T. A. Hoffmann, Werke, ed. Georg Ellinger (Berlin: Deutsches, 1900), 42.
8. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, quoted in Crofton and Fraser, A Dictionary of Mu-
sical Quotations, 159.
9. Lorin F. Deland, ed., The Musical Record: A Journal of Music, Art, Literature (May
1895): 15.
8. Language 75
10. Victor Hugo, William Shakespeare (London: Hauteville, 1864), 73.

11. Ned Rorem, Music from Inside Out (New York: George Braziller, 1967), 95.
12. Charles William Wendte, quoted in Helen Granat, Wisdom Through the Ages: A
Collection of Favorite Quotations (Victoria, BC, Canada: Miklen, 1998), 17.
13. Augustine, St. Augustine on the Psalms (New York: Newman, 1961), 2:111–112.
14. Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle: A Novel (New York: Random House, 2009), 33.

Goldsmith, Mike. Discord: The History of Noise. New York: Oxford University Press,
2012.
Hendy, David. Noise: A Human History of Sound and Listening. New York: Harper-
Collins, 2013.
Higgins, Kathleen Marie. The Music Between Us: Is Music a Universal Language?
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012.
Lussy, Mathis. Musical Expression, Accents, Nuances, and Tempo, in Vocal and Instru-
mental Music. Stockbridge, MA: Hard Press, 2012.
Patel, Aniruddh D. Music, Language, and the Brain. New York: Oxford University Press,
2010.
Rebuschat, Patrick, ed. Language and Music as Cognitive Systems. New York: Oxford
Rorem, Ned. Music from Inside Out. New York: George Braziller, 1967.
Thomson, Virgil. Music with Words: A Composer’s View. New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1989.
Vandercook, H. A. Expression in Music. New York: Hal Leonard, 1989.
Williamson, John, ed. Words and Music. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2005.
9
Nature
The natural world provided the earliest inspiration for musical expres-
sion. Natural sonic phenomena motivated our ancient ancestors to create
their own demonstrative sounds. An echo of this natural history is present
in the “gravity” of melodic phrases, and the (usually unconscious) influence
of environmental sounds on musical concoctions. As time progressed and
music developed into a recognizable cultural form, it became a self-referential
art, imitative of itself rather than its primitive sources. Recently, researchers
have been drawn back to the wild in search of musical possibilities. Some are
convinced that, contrary to popular opinion, human beings are not the only
musical species on the planet. Others note that certain animals react to human
music in very human ways.
The Rise and Fall of Melody
Music exhibits the human propensity to imitate nature and the delight
we take in that imitation. Rhythm is a stylization of natural motion. Beating
hearts, falling rain, rustling leaves, prancing animals and other organic pat-
terns inspire rhythmic mimesis. Birdsong has influenced musicians through-
out history, from indigenous folk singers to classical composers like Mahler
and Messiaen. Harmonic dissonances and consonances are unconsciously
sensed as simulations of human passions. Since the beginning, natural forces
have molded and been woven into music’s very essence.
The bond between music and nature did not escape Italian Renaissance
composer and music theorist Franchinus Gaffurius. A noted humanist and
personal friend of Leonardo da Vinci, Gaffurius was keenly interested in how
people derive musical sounds from their environment and utilize those sounds
to achieve specific aims. Among his contributions to the naturalistic concep-
tion of music is the notion of “musical gravity,” which he introduced in his
76
9. Nature 77
major treatise Practica musicae: “A descent from high to low causes a greater
sense of repose.”1 With this simple statement, Gaffurius encapsulated the
instinct of tonal music to resolve in a cadence to the tonic, or first scale degree.
This movement is imitative in two important ways. First, the downward
movement of the musical line resembles forces that regulate motion in the
natural world. The descending pull reinforces our orientation toward the
tonic and causes us to feel as though we have arrived at the ground level. Sec-
ond, it simulates a sense of emotional resolution or closure. By bringing us
back to the home or tonic note, melody gives a sensation of gratifying release.
Acknowledging the tendency of musical phrases to descend and rest at
the tonic, composers of tonal music employ various methods to protract the
time leading to the inevitable conclusion. What often results is a series of
ascensions, which generate tension and energy, followed by the much-
anticipated resolution, which bestows satisfaction proportional to the dura-
tion the listener has waited for it.
Music theorists since Aristotle have recognized tension as one of music’s
fundamental properties. Like a coiled spring that is pushed and pulled, musi-
cal passages portray a cyclic dance, passing through increases and decreases
in intensity on their way to a resting position. Human beings seem hardwired
to perceive this musical interplay. We feel musical tension on a primal level,
as if it were a visceral or kinesthetic experience. When musical suspense
reaches its height, our muscles tighten, and with musical resolution, our mus-
cles relax. Of course, no tone, interval, or harmony is intrinsically tense. The
impression of tension stems from culturally derived expectations, which may
differ from place to place. But, regardless of cultural variation, musical gravity
almost universally wields its power on melodic structure, alleviating tension
through downward movement.
The mutually reinforcing elements of musical gravity and tension and
release go a long way toward explaining our affinity for melody. These forces
are an imitation of nature, both in terms of mimicking the rise and fall of
objects and in terms of replicating emotional life. Moreover, the usual melodic
path toward repose appeases our longing for closure. Through a succession
of notes, melody creates and resolves drama in a clean and logical manner
that is a human ideal.
Civilizing Soundscapes
Suggestions of music are present everywhere in nature. The rustling of
leaves, the babbling of brooks, the pattering of rain, the howling of wolves,
the singing of birds, the chirping of crickets. Such sounds may be the original
impetus for human musical creativity. They are not yet compositions, but
hints of musical form, whispers of motifs, invitations for sonic expansion.
The receptive ear recognizes and collects them. The brain organizes, imitates
and embellishes them. The imagination combines them with other tonal ele-
ments. They are made into music.
This natural history of music is a dominant narrative in the theoretical
literature. Mark Changizi, an evolutionary neurobiologist, paints a compelling
portrait in Harnessed,2 and Bernie Krause, a prolific archivist of natural
soundscapes, shares decades of meticulous research in The Great Animal
Orchestra.3 In addition to tracing musical inclinations to the non-human
environment, these and related studies confirm the broader instinct of human
beings to turn nature into culture.
Culture is prepared more than it is created. Available materials are
manipulated to fit our needs, fashioned to meet our tastes, adapted to serve
our ends. In the process, we carve a place for ourselves on the planet and
gain a semblance of control over our surroundings. What Claude Lévi-Strauss
famously wrote about food preparation applies to all aspects of human civ-
ilization: it is the continuous effort of transforming the raw into the cooked.4
Nature provides, we construct.
The culinary view of culture is particularly apt when the subject is music.
Musicians sometimes call their influences a stew, composers cook up new works,
improvisatory players sizzle, musical choices are likened to a buffet. Implicit in
these gastronomical comparisons is recognition that, like meals made from
scratch, music involves measuring, mixing and preparing ingredients.
Of course, as cultures advance and humanity increasingly separates itself
from the untamed world, pure sonic resources are harder to come by. Music
becomes less an imitation of nature and more an imitation of other music.
But we nevertheless remain susceptible to natural influences. Just as the land-
scape offers up an array of edible material, so does the soundscape offer audible
material waiting to become music. Musical potential is detected in the many-
voiced environment; musical possibilities exist in the listener’s mind. The
organic substance is harvested, organized and repackaged in endless ways for
human expression, reception and appreciation. Sounds are made civilized.
From Source to Self-Reference

There was a time in our distant past when sounds emanating from non-
human animals were a major source of musical inspiration. Our ancient
9. Nature 79
ancestors were completely absorbed in their wild habitats. Their ears perked
at the calls and songs of birds and other animals. They mimicked those sounds
in their own voices, adding a human signature to the dense and varied bio-
phonic soundscape. Over time and through waves of experimentation, repli-
cation, manipulation and refinement, human sounds developed their own
logic and conventions. The sequences became more and more complex and
yielded increasingly numerous varieties. Found and handcrafted instruments
were added to the acoustic mixture. At some point, probably early on, their
efforts came to resemble what we call music: nonlinguistic and conscious
control of sound exhibiting structure and intent.
The above hypothesis is consistent with what is known about the devel-
opment of human culture. Biological evolution does not achieve adaptations
by concocting novel mechanisms, but by modifying what is already in
place. New skills and behaviors are not the result of radical blueprints, but
of re-configuring existing capacities and apparatuses. Quoting neurophiloso-
pher Patricia S. Churchland, evolution’s modus operandi is “tinkering-oppor-
tunistically rather than redesigning-from-scratch.”5 Likely, then, music is
an outgrowth of our biological predispositions for language, sensuality,
motor control, dexterity, emotionality and, perhaps most importantly, imi-
tation.
Imitation is the hallmark and foundation of human culture. We innately
transmit information and pass on practices from person to person and gen-
eration to generation. We learn from, add to, and carry forward this imitative
process. Elements are preserved and gradually upgraded, culminating in cul-
ture: an assortment of behaviors, customs, skills, methods, standards, norms
and expectations.
Cultural evolution occurs at a far quicker pace than biological evolution.
Modification of tendencies is much more fluid than the extremely slow
process of adaptation that brought about those tendencies. Of course, the
speed of change within a society tends to be self-regulated, hinging on things
like access to resources and social outlook (conservative, progressive or some-
thing in between).
Musically, this helps explain how the urge to add human sounds to the
biophony (animal soundscape) developed relatively rapidly from imitation
of natural sounds to musical invention. This process occurred in three gen-
eralized stages (accounting for thousands of years and inclusive of untold
variations): (1) The human capacities for language, emotionality, etc., set the
conditions for nonlinguistic sound production; (2) These capacities combined
with the inclination to mimic, making environmental sounds the fodder for
musical production; (3) Human beings began imitating each other’s music,
thereby distancing themselves from nature (in degrees relative to the group’s
physical distance from a natural setting).
The third stage has particular relevance for music in the West. As West-
ern culture has separated itself incrementally from the natural world, its
music has followed suit. Sounds become further and further detached from
organic sources and more and more abstract. The progressive distancing
from nature is perceptible in the timeline of musical periods. Instead of draw-
ing inspiration from wild landscapes, we base our music on other music, our
instruments on other instruments, our techniques on other techniques.
We have reached a point where musical iterations and innovations occur
in an almost purely human domain. True, a few composers have replicated
birdsong in Western form or sampled field recordings from native habitats;
but these are novelties and not the norm. Western music is millennia removed
from its feral origins. It is a self-referential art.
Music in Wild Places
When George Berkeley posed the question, “If a tree falls in the forest
and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”6 he apparently
assumed that humans are the only sentient beings capable of hearing. Given
the perpetual popularity of this eighteenth-century hypothetical, many are
still convinced that audible events can only be confirmed in human ears. This
anthropocentric view is often coupled with an equally condescending
assumption that acoustic behaviors of birds, fish, insects and non-human
mammals have just two basic functions: mating and territory. Aside from
being psychologically reassuring—providing much-desired, yet difficult-to-
substantiate, solace that the gap between human beings and “mere” creatures
is unbridgeably wide—these beliefs betray our musical ignorance. As natu-
ralist and musician Bernie Krause warns us, “When it comes to natural
sounds, there are few rules.”7
For forty-plus years, Krause has traveled the world recording and ana-
lyzing wild soundscapes. His archive includes over 4,000 hours of sound from
more than 15,000 species. Captured at undisturbed locations, these chronicles
reveal an aural aspect of natural selection. Contrary to what the untrained lis-
tener might suspect, the vast array of biological sounds did not come about
arbitrarily. Rather, Krause explains, “each resident species acquires its own
preferred sonic bandwidth—to blend or contrast—much in the way that vio-
lins, woodwinds, trumpets, and percussion instruments stake out acoustic
territory in an orchestral arrangement.”8 Krause calls this the “niche hypoth-
9. Nature 81
esis,” or a partitioning process in which voices of a biome form unique sonic

signatures that serve as terrestrial voiceprints or sound-marks. The nuanced
audibles of each species accomplish specific functions: mating, protecting ter-
ritory, capturing food, group defense, social contact, emotional cues, play, etc.
From Krause’s vantage point, such sounds can be considered “musical” in the
broad sense of being controlled patterns that exhibit structure and intent and
are organized vertically (texture and layering) and horizontally (over time).
The impulse to find a niche may have also been a driving force of human
music. Our forest-dwelling ancestors paid close attention to their native
soundscapes, listening for signals in the rich textures of their habitats, finding
distinct bandwidths to communicate with one another, and imitating the
sounds of other species, both for play and practical purposes (like the hunt).
From there, human cultures gradually developed the diverse sounds and
sundry uses that comprise what we know as music.
Krause also opens our awareness to the multiplicity of sound sources
on our planet. He proposes three distinct categories. The oldest is geophony:
natural sounds springing from non-biological phenomena, such as wind,
rainfall and bodies of water. All acoustically sensitive animals—including
humans—evolved to accommodate the geophony, as “each had to establish a
bandwidth in which its clicks, breaths, hisses, roars, songs, or calls could
stand out in relation to nonbiological natural sounds.”9 Animal sounds come
in two types: biophony, or sounds emanating from nonhuman biological enti-
ties; and anthrophony, or human-generated sounds (physiological, controlled,
electromechanical and incidental).
One of the implications of Krause’s work is that it can help evaluate the
health of a biome. Not only can studying the acoustic community demonstrate
the intrusion of foreign elements—i.e., human-made noise and the audible
response of native creatures (silence, restlessness or alarm calls)—it can also
indicate the diversity and vibrancy of the wildlife, or the absence thereof.
Sadly, over a half of the wild habitats Krause has recorded no longer exist
due to human encroachment—a reality discerned in part from the silencing
of biophonic activity and the rise of anthrophonic noise.
Funktionslust, Birdsong and Beauty
Ethology, the biological study of animal behavior, concerns itself pri-

marily with uncovering survival advantages in animal activities. Balancing
a desire to find purpose in animal behavior and avoid the sin of anthropo-
morphism, ethologists refrain from ascribing emotions or extraneous pleas-
ures to non-human species. What appears to the untrained observer as a cre-

ative act or outpouring of feeling is reduced to a survival impulse or an
instinctive behavior. It is, of course, wise to keep from seeing too much of
ourselves in other animals. Our tendency to anthropomorphize everything
around us says less about reality than it does about ourselves. Yet strict adher-
ence to the ethologist’s code can create undue distance. As Jeffrey Moussaieff
Masson asks in his controversial bestseller, When Elephants Weep: “If humans
are subject to evolution but have feelings that are inexplicable in survival
terms, if they are prone to emotions that do not seem to confer any advantage,
why should we suppose that animals act on genetic investment alone?” 10
This question is all the more penetrating given the impressive spectacles
exhibited by many species. A gibbon swinging fervently from branch to
branch, a dolphin thrusting itself out of the water, a cat hunting backyard
critters for sport. The German language has a word for such behavior: funk-
tionslust, meaning “pleasure taken in doing what one does best.” This, too, is
thought to be adaptive. Pleasure derived from an activity increases an animal’s
proneness to pursue it, thus increasing the likelihood of survival. A gibbon
who spends extra time swinging in the trees is better fit to flee leopards and
snakes when they attack.
But is that all there is to it? Masson points out that a loving animal (again,
a controversial concept) may leave more offspring, making lovingness a sur-
vival trait. But the same animal may also provide excessive care to a disabled
(and therefore doomed) offspring, exposing itself to hazards in the process.
The presumed practicality of funktionslust is further challenged by the per-
formance of songbirds: the roughly 4,000 species of perching birds capable of
producing varied and elaborate song patterns. To the standard scientist, the
sounds these birds produce—no matter how inventive—serve the basic purposes
of establishing territory and advertising fitness to potential mates. But some
researchers argue that survival alone cannot account for the amount or variety
of imitation, improvisation and near-composition evident in birdsong, nor the
seemingly arbitrary times and circumstances in which the songs are often heard.
David Rothenberg and other birdsong experts see this music-making as
approaching pure funktionslust, or pleasure derived from a native ability
exceeding any evolutionary purpose. In his book Why Birds Sing, Rothenberg
proposes that songbird patterns rival human music in terms of structure,
aesthetics, expressiveness, interactiveness and extra-practical life enhance-
ment.11 A philosopher and jazz clarinetist who “jams” with songbirds in the
wild, Rothenberg has been accused of the double infractions of anthropo-
morphism and evaluating birdsong with the bias of a musician. In his defense,
he concedes that birds, not people, are the arbiters of their own songs, and
9. Nature 83
only they can know what their repertoires mean to other birds. But he calls
it art nonetheless, quoting Wallace Craig: “Art is a fact and after all it would
be rather ridiculous from our evolutionistic ideology to deny the possibility
that something similar may occur in other species.”12
Following this argument, we might deduce that songbirds experience
beauty in their songs. This proposition harmonizes with the work of Denis
Dutton, a philosopher of art who posits an evolutionary basis for the human
perception of artistic beauty.13 Dutton identifies Acheulean hand axes as the
earliest hominid artwork. Prevalent from 500,000 to 1.2 million years ago,
these teardrop carvings have been located in the thousands throughout Asia,
Africa and Europe. This sheer number and the lack of wear on their delicate
blades suggest they were not used for butchering, but for aesthetic enjoyment.
Indeed, they remain beautiful even to our modern eyes. The reason for this,
explains Dutton, is that we find beauty in something done well. We are
attracted to the meticulousness and skill evident in the axes. They satisfy our
innate taste for virtuosic displays in the same way as well-executed concertos,
paintings and ballets. Beauty is in the expertise.
If this attraction existed among our prehistoric ancestors, why not in
songbirds? Taking funktionslust in a logical direction, might we assume that
songbirds sing for the joy of it, and that their skilled displays feed aesthetic
yearnings of other songbirds? These questions point to a possible compro-
mise, in which animal behavior retains its evolutionary explanation and art
finds evolutionary justification outside of the drive to survive.
Music and Animals
Music has always been thought of in human terms. We detect and

respond to certain sounds as music. We set aesthetic parameters within which
those sounds are assessed. We decide where to place the sounds on the spec-
trum of genres. We determine which sounds we like and which ones we do
not. This process is unconscious and automatic: we naturally distinguish
musical from other sounds and label them as this or that quality and type.
From an anthropological perspective, humans are the only creatures capable
of this brand of discernment. We have convinced ourselves that of all the
animals on the planet, we are the musical judges.
Semiologist Jean-Jacques Nattiez summed up the conventional view:
“[I]t is a human being who decides what is and is not musical, even when
the sound is not of human origin. If we acknowledge that sound is not organ-
ized and conceptualized (that is, made to form music) merely by its producer,
but by the mind that perceives it, then music is uniquely human.” 14 Thus,
even when we hear music in a cricket’s chirp or rustling leaves, it is us—not
the phenomenon itself—that makes music out of the sounds. There is, how-
ever, a growing body of research that challenges this basic assumption.
Music can be defined as the purposeful arrangement of sounds with
relation to pitch, rhythm and tonality. The organization and appreciation of
this information are widely held as human capacities. But animals such as
whales emit songs displaying human-equivalent rhythms, phrase lengths and
compositional form; and birdsongs include pitch variances and rhythmic pat-
terns compatible with human musical expression.
Scientists have long presumed that these and other non-human animal
sounds serve only biological functions, such as mating, and are not received
as art. It is through our ears that they are anthropomorphized into music.
Yet some experts, like Cornell neurobiologist Ronald R. Hoy, are inclined to
consider that animals experience music the way we do.15
There is a minor field of science called zoomusicology, which studies the
musical sounds and perceptions of animals. In addition to discovering what
appears to be an aesthetic attraction to species-specific sonic stimuli,
researchers have shown that certain animals have clear reactions to human-
made music. For instance, one study found that java sparrows prefer Bach ver-
sus Schoenberg.16 An experiment with carps suggests that they enjoy Baroque
music more than the songs of John Lee Hooker.17 Work done with lab rats indi-
cates that classical pieces that are “rodentized” (sped up and adjusted to the
hearing range of rodents) have an enriching effect on their behavior.18
The most provocative implication of this research is that animals respond
to human music in remarkably human ways. Or, more accurately, that there
is something about musical stimulation that is so universal as to include
beings beyond the human. The main indicator of humanity’s musicalness is
not our music-making skills, which vary from unrefined and rudimentary
to pristine and virtuosic. Rather, it is our innate ability to recognize and
respond to music. If this ability is present in animals, as zoomusicologists
contend, then musical processing is not just a human venture.
Notes
1. Franchinus Gaffurius, Practica musicae, Book 1, Chapter 8 (Millan: 1496).
2. Mark Changizi, Harnessed: How Language and Music Mimicked Nature and Trans-
formed Ape to Man (Dallas, TX: BenBella, 2011).
3. Bernie Krause, The Great Animal Orchestra: Finding the Origins of Music in the
World’s Wild Places (New York: Little, Brown, and Co., 2012).
9. Nature 85
4. Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Raw and the Cooked, trans. John and Doreen Weight-
man (New York: Harper and Row, 1969).
5. Patricia S. Churchland, Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us About Morality
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), 98.
6. George Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge [1710]
(Whitefish, MT: Kessinger, 2004).
7. Krause, The Great Animal Orchestra, 59.
8. Ibid., 97.
9. Ibid., 39.
10. Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson and Susan McCarthy, When Elephants Weep: The Emo-
tional Lives of Animals (New York: Random House, 1995), 15.
11. David Rothenberg, Why Birds Sing: A Journey into the Mystery of Bird Song (New
York: Basic Books, 2006).
12. Wallace Craig, “The Song of the Wood Peewee” (1943), quoted in Ibid., 127.
13. Denis Dutton, The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution (New
York: Bloomsbury, 2009).
14. Jean-Jacques Nattiez, Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music (Prince-
ton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 58.
15. See, for instance, Ronald R. Hoy, “Acute as a Bug’s Ear: An Informal Discussion
of Hearing in Insects,” in Comparative Hearing: Insects, eds., Ronald R. Hoy, Arthur N.
Popper and Richard R. Fray (New York: Springer, 1998), 11–17.
16. Shigeru Watanabe and Katsufumi Sato, “Discriminative Stimulus Properties of
Music in Java Sparrows,” Behavioural Processes 47:1 (1999): 53–57.
17. Ava R. Chase, “Music Discriminations by Carp (Cyprinus Carpio),” Animal Learn-
ing & Behavior 29:4 (2001): 336–353.
18. S. Fekete, C. Winding and T. Rülicke, “Effect of Human as Well as Rodentized
Mozart and Bach Music on the Open-Field Activity of BALB/c Mice” (paper presented
at the CEELA-II Triannual Conference, Budapest, 2012).

Changizi, Mark. Harnessed: How Language and Music Mimicked Nature and Transformed
Ape to Man. Dallas, TX: BenBella, 2011.
Crocker, Richard L. A History of Musical Style. New York: Dover, 1986.
Krause, Bernie. The Great Animal Orchestra: Finding the Origins of Music in the World’s
Wild Places. New York: Little, Brown, and Co., 2012.
_____. Wild Soundscapes: Discovering the Voice of the Natural World. Berkeley: Wilder-
ness, 2002.
Marler, Peter R., and Hans Slabbekoorn. Nature’s Music: The Science of Birdsong. San
Diego, CA: Academic, 2004.
Martinelli, Dario. Of Birds, Whales, and Other Musicians: An Introduction to Zoomusi-
cology. Scranton, PA: University of Scranton Press, 2009.
Nattiez, Jean-Jacques. Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music. Princeton,
Rothenberg, David. Bug Music: How Insects Gave Us Rhythm and Noise. New York:
Macmillan, 2013.
_____. Why Birds Sing: A Journey into the Mystery of Bird Song. New York: Basic Books,
2006.
_____, and Marta Ulvaeus, eds. The Book of Music and Nature: An Anthology of Sounds,
Words, Thoughts. Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2013.
10
Folk Music
The use of music as entertainment is a late a relatively rare practice in

human history. Rather than an end in itself, music most often serves as an
aid to other objectives and an enhancement of everyday life. This chapter
focuses on “ordinary” music, commonly known as “folk music” or “music of
the people.” It begins by framing creativity as a common trait of our species,
and looks at how the creative drive manifests in folklore. From there, we turn
to the cultural processes that give rise to folk music, and probe various mean-
ings of that musical category. Lastly, the chapter highlights the crucial role
of anonymous individuals and cultural forces in shaping the music of the
“greats.”
Creativity Within
Western music history attempts a straight line connecting the “greats,”

whose biographies demarcate the beginnings and endings of musical periods
(Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Modern, Contempo-
rary). Like any effort to construct a palatable narrative from multitudinous
ingredients, this image of music’s march through the ages sweeps over out-
liers, ignores “lesser lights,” overlooks ambiguities, excludes styles, and defines
and focuses on centers rather than peripheries. Sniffing out deficiencies in
this approach is nothing new. Ethnomusicologists, for instance, strive for an
inclusive and holistic appreciation of “music as culture,” which embraces
music of all sorts (and of all sorts of people) as group-specific repositories
of information, identification, social cues, and symbolism.
The Western outline of music history also presumes that creativity “pro-
gresses” or “improves” with time. For example, it is held that Medieval music
was harmonically inferior to the complex techniques of later centuries. But
it can just as well be claimed that intricate harmonies simply didn’t work in
Medieval social and spatial contexts. Similarly, the excessive orchestration
86
10. Folk Music 87
and emotionalism of the Romantics are regarded as more evolved than the
refinement and gentility of Classical composers. But, again, music that works
in one setting typically doesn’t work in another. The same applies to folk and
popular musics, which should be recognized as group-centric and purpose-
serving cultural containers, rather than artifacts to be placed on an evolu-
tionary continuum.
This revised conception resonates with the work of Ellen Dissanayake,
who puts aesthetic creativity in anthropological perspective. In her convinc-
ing analysis, presented in Homo Aestheticus, Dissanayake argues that an artis-
tic drive was key to the emergence, survival and adaptation of early humans.1
Departing from the dominant view of aesthetics as a tangential feature, Dis-
sanayake illustrates how art grew from an innate impulse to mark certain
objects and activities as “special,” thereby ensuring their perpetuation.
It is no coincidence that art—in the form of song, dance, poetry, jewelry,
painting, sculpture, engraving, costume, piercing, decoration, etc.—devel-
oped around occasions and practices crucial for group survival. These include
but are not limited to: birth, rites of passage, marriage, mourning, hunting,
food production, warfare, peacemaking, and religious ceremonials. Art can
thus be understood as both a behavioral predisposition and a human necessity
(like language and lovemaking).
This view puts into question the notion of creative progress. Creativity
is an innate human trait, part and parcel of the artistic drive. Cultural con-
ditions, social expectations, and technological advancements steer this ten-
dency into diverse manifestations, all of which satisfy basic human needs. To
be sure, some individuals are encouraged and excel in this tendency more
than others; but it is present in us all. If artistic displays observable across
cultures and throughout history tell us anything, it is this: creativity is a con-
stant.
Heart Song
The heart and mind are in some ways theoretical constructs. Though
both can be located within physical space—the chest and cranial cavities
respectively—they have deeper significance in metaphysical discourse. The
heart is not just a vital organ pumping blood around the body. In Western
and some non–Western cultures, it is the seat of passion, empathy, love, con-
viction, intuition and emotional impulses. The mind is not just the locus of
high-level cognitive activity—consciousness, perception, memory, etc. It is
viewed as somehow separate from the brain (and physical existence in gen-
eral). In popular usage, the mind represents self-awareness and intellect,

which are considered distinct from the emotion-based attributes assigned to
the heart.
Whether rational and emotional states can truly be separated is a subject
of ongoing debate. Judgments, convictions, sensations and decision-making
derive from a mixture of thoughts and sentiments. Feelings inform cognition;
cognition informs feelings. Nevertheless, the heart and mind remain useful
(and inescapable) metaphors for a complex entanglement of functions and
traits.
A case in point comes from Zoltán Kodály, an influential twentieth-
century composer, ethnomusicologist and educator. Kodály spent his early
career on the Hungarian countryside collecting phonograph cylinder record-
ings. From that experience, he concluded that human beings have two native
tongues. One is the language spoken at home. The other is folk music. Verbal
communication is the language of the mind: the principle medium of thought
and sensory processing. Folk music is the vocabulary of the heart: a store-
house of emotions and longings.
Rather than getting bogged down in ambiguities surrounding what is
and what is not folk music, we can broaden Kodály’s observation to include
all music that is “indigenous” to an individual. Most of us possess an assort-
ment of musical selections that are folk-like: they capture our spirit, embody
our history and encapsulate our identities. Hearing or performing them helps
ground us in our pasts, situate us in our surroundings and remind us of who
we are. To use a symbolic term somewhat analogous to the heart, a personal
soundtrack is the record of one’s soul. In a pre-rational yet undeniable way,
it puts us in contact with our interior selves.
Of course, the impact of such music is not purely emotional or otherwise
ineffable. It stirs memories, images and ideas—things usually ascribed to the
mind. This demonstrates the difficulty of demarcating between feelings and
thoughts (heart and mind). The notions, imagery and recollections aroused
by our favorite music tend to be feeling-laden: they are attached to senti-
mental moments in our lives, and inspire emotionally infused concepts and
mental pictures.
This brings us back to Kodály’s observation. Whatever standards are
used to identify music as “folk,” the qualifying sounds typically evoke regional
and/or ethnic pride, rich communal associations, and the shared sentiments
and experiences of a specific population. All of this constitutes a multi-layered
heart—one consisting of nuanced and particularistic feelings. It is not an
unthinking seat of emotions; it has an identity. These aspects are easily
adapted to individual playlists. Like the “people’s music” of a culture or sub-
10. Folk Music 89
culture, personally meaningful pieces forge a connecting line to one’s inner

life. They speak the language of the heart.
That’s All Folk
Louis Armstrong once remarked to the New York Times, “All music is
folk music; I ain’t never heard no horse sing a song.”2 This quotable quip sug-
gests that music-making is among the creative behaviors that set human
beings apart from the instinct-driven animals of nature. This supposition
has been challenged with some success in recent years. There is growing
recognition of intentional sonic production (read: music) among nonhuman
species from rodents to whales. Armstrong’s point reflects the conventional
view that humanity’s claim to distinction—which is ever diminishing in light
of evolutionary theory—is somehow proven by our musical imagination.
Although the notion of a song-less horse may be faulty, the first part of
the phrase jives with the deconstructive tendencies of the postmodern age.
All human music is, in a sense, folk music—or at least has the potential of
achieving that distinction. This is true not only in the literal sense Armstrong
implied—folk is a synonym for people—but also in the technical sense that
folk music, as a category, has become less amenable to definition and more
inclusive of kaleidoscopic sounds.
Folk music first entered the nomenclature in the nineteenth century,
alongside other cultural elements somewhat derogatorily identified as folk-
lore. Words like simple, savage, unsophisticated, primitive, rough and
unschooled were common in those early writings. As the designation prolif-
erated in the musical literature, its meaning expanded at a corresponding
rate. A casual review of its usage over the past century and a half reveals an
array of imperfect, oft-chauvinistic and non-binding definitions: music
passed on orally; music of indigenous peoples; music of the lower classes;
music with unknown composers; music with collective origin; music inter-
woven with a national culture; music long associated with an event; non-
commercial music; music that comes to identify a people in one way or
another.
Any one of these meanings is susceptible to collapse under closer inspec-
tion, and contradictions arise when they are placed side by side. For instance,
cherished songs of unknown authorship are commonly packaged for con-
sumers as art songs, recordings, concert performances and other profit-
seeking ventures. Does this eliminate their folk-ness? Oftentimes, too,
melodies identified as folk can be traced to known composers and may have
been extracted from more elaborate works written with commercial aims.
This is the origin of many “traditional” melodies of the church and synagogue,
and describes how show tunes and other popular idioms find their way into
the nursery, where they pass from the mouths of one generation to the next.
While matching a presumed-anonymous tune with its true composer is
admirable and responsible, it does nothing to change its folk status. The same
can be said for similar investigative pursuits. This is because folk music is a
process, not a thing (we might dub it “folkalization”). Almost any music of
almost any origin can become folk through widespread circulation, contin-
uous use, accumulated associations and its role as an identity marker for an
affinity group.
In his instructive book, Folk Music, musicologist Mark Slobin concedes
that the term folk music is so widely applied and has so many nuanced mean-
ings as to evade simple summary. He stresses that it is a fluid amalgam of
sounds that constantly adapts as it travels from person to person, location to
location, and age to age, and that it is best to identify it using the practical,
though unscientific, measurement of “we know it when we hear it.” One of
Slobin’s key points is that folk music is not a body of fossilized tunes but the
record of a living experience, which is subject to shift depending on cultural
trends, courses of events, a performer’s whim, etc. As he relates: “Every group
has a stock of tunes and texts that have come together so skillfully that they
have no past and which expand into an unlimited future.”3
With all of the sentiments, convictions, disputes and controversies a dis-
cussion like this entails, the best we can do is scratch the surface. The topic
is endless. Yet despite the uncertainties, speculations and counter-speculations
folk music has and will provoke, it is increasingly apparent that Louis Arm-
strong was, perhaps unintentionally, on to something.
Sound Stories
Scottish historian and essayist Thomas Carlyle observed, “History is the

essence of innumerable biographies.”4 The biographies he had in mind were
not those of famous men and women, but the lives of anonymous individuals
who constitute the real spirit of a nation. The notion of regular folk as history
makers was almost unheard of in Carlyle’s day. And although some modern
historians focus on ordinary people and groups long neglected—like women
and indigenous populations—our awareness of history is overwhelmingly
shaped by profiles of the “greats.”
Understandably, writers of history are drawn to high profile players, dra-
10. Folk Music 91
matic episodes and popular places. In order to map out and find patterns in
the sweep of time, dots are connected between a handful of carefully selected
people and events. What the writer chooses to include or exclude is shaped
by biases and pet interests. The story presented invariably favors certain
views, parties and locations. However, while this process is faulty and subject
to revision, it is essential for reducing the immensity of human experience
into a comprehensible snapshot.
Music history is similarly conceived of as a linear path punctuated by
luminaries. The annals of historical musicology—the study of musical com-
position, performance and reception over time—are filled with anecdotes
and analyses of the lives and works of big-name composers. In the West, the
periodization of music is centered on famous figures, both representative and
transitional. Mozart, for instance, is seen as a quintessential Classical com-
poser, while Beethoven is considered a bridge between the Classical and
Romantic periods.
That the musical timeline is organized around emblematic personalities
is perfectly logical. Music is a human invention and those who make it deter-
mine its course. Yet, while we can trace stylistic developments by linking one
famous composer to the next, this neat (and in some ways necessary) con-
struction not only obscures less prominent musicians, but also ignores mul-
tifarious influences that inform each piece along the way.
It is no secret that major composers inspire other major composers,
either through friendship, study, admiration or a master-disciple relationship.
The inspiration is sometimes acknowledged by the composers, and other
times gleaned from their compositions. But musical information does not
pass on exclusively through masters and masterworks.
The ear of the composer is alert and sensitive to all sorts of sounds,
some of which are consciously or unconsciously recalled during the act of
composition. The sources of these sounds may be famous, folk or forgotten,
but their imprint is indelible. No piece of music is an island. Whether con-
ventional, groundbreaking or somewhere in between, music involves the
absorption and manipulation of existing sonic material. Even the most inno-
vative composition is built upon previous efforts. And the more musical
access a composer has, the more eclectic and plentiful the influences.
The potential complexity of this musical picture is captured in a remi-
niscence from trumpeter Frank London: “We studied [at the New England
Conservatory] a mixture of classical and jazz, as well as lots of other stuff—
pop, folk, and ethnic musics—while developing a particular philosophy that
still guides my own musical life and that of many of my peers. The idea is
that one can study and assimilate the elements of any musical style, form, or
tradition by ear. You listen over and over to a Charlie Parker solo or a Peruvian
flute player and learn to replicate what you hear…. We became cultural con-
sumers. No music was off limits.”5
The history of a single piece contains the histories of many other pieces,
which are themselves built on the histories of other pieces, and on and on.
Thus, as Carlyle might conclude, music is the “essence of innumerable biog-
raphies.”
Notes
1. Ellen Dissanayake, Homo Aestheticus: Where Art Comes From and Why (Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 1992).
2. Louis Armstrong, quoted in New York Times, July 7, 1971, 41.
3. Mark Slobin, Folk Music: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2011), 8.
4. Thomas Carlyle, Works, vol. 27 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1904), 86.
5. Frank London, “An Insider’s View: How We Traveled from Obscurity to the
Klezmer Establishment in Twenty Years,” in American Klezmer: Its Roots and Offshoots,
ed. Mark Slobin (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 206. 206–210.

Alves, William. Music of the Peoples of the World. Belmont, CA: Cengage, 2012.
Bohlman, Philip V. The Study of Folk Music in the Modern World. Bloomington: Indiana
Cahn, William L. Creative Music Making. New York: Psychology, 2005.
Cohen, Ronald D. Folk Music: The Basics. New York: Routledge, 2006.
DeNora, Tia. Music in Everyday Life. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Gelbart, Matthew. The Invention of Folk Music and Art Music: Emerging Categories from
Ossian to Wagner. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Govaner, Alan B. Everyday Music: Exploring Sounds and Cultures. College Station: Texas
A&M University Press, 2012.
Legdin, Stephanie P. Discovering Folk Music. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2010.
Slobin, Mark. Folk Music: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press,
2011.
Titon, Jeff, et al. Worlds of Music: An Introduction to the Music of the World’s Peoples.
Belmont, CA: Thomson.
11
Art Music
“Art” as something set apart from the rest of life is a construct of the
modern West. Since prehistoric times, humanity has exhibited an aesthetic
impulse that has given rise to the various art forms we know today. Although
not every culture sees these beautifying adornments and artifacts as art, they
all fit into branches of that modern category: painting, jewelry, makeup, sculp-
ture, architecture, poetry, music, etc. This chapter posits that beneath the
enormous surface variety, all cultures share artistic forms, including music.
It looks at how “art” as a separate construct developed in the West, and chal-
lenges the notion of “absolute” music, or music for its own sake. It argues
that artistic elements are present in music of every kind, and outlines the
problem of thinking of musical creations as “works.” The chapter closes with
the claim that broad musical judgments, like “good” and “bad,” owe more to
functionality than to objective values.
Art Everywhere
Some assert that it is a fallacy to compare cultural elements cross-

culturally. Sometimes called the “incommensurability thesis,” this position
posits that because objects, concepts and behaviors tend to have very specific
meanings for the groups that produce them, they must therefore be utterly
unique. Variety negates universality. Basically a version of cultural relativism,
this attitude emanates from three circles (or, rather, minorities within three
circles): philosophers who attack commonalities in human experience; critics
who over-emphasize outlier phenomena in order to challenge conventional
assumptions; and ethnographers who argue for the absolute uniqueness of
the populations they study, in part to elevate their own stature as privileged
experts. Yet, just because human activities take heterogeneous forms does
not eliminate the possibility of shared motivations.
Steven Pinker argues this point as it relates to the human capacity for
93
language. He concludes in The Language Instinct: “Knowing about the ubiq-

uity of complex language across individuals and cultures and the single men-
tal design underlying them all, no speech seems foreign to me, even if I cannot
understand a word.”1 This observation seems indisputable: language is a bio-
logical characteristic of the human species.
Philosopher of art Denis Dutton expands on Pinker’s claim in The Art
Instinct. He asks: “Is it also true that, even though we might not receive a
pleasurable, or even immediately intelligible, experience from art of other
cultures, still, beneath the vast surface variety, all human beings have essen-
tially the same art?”2 Dutton contends that, like language, artistic behaviors
have spontaneously appeared throughout recorded human history. Almost
always, observers across cultures recognize these behaviors as artistic, and
there is enough commonality between them that they can be placed within
tidy categories: painting, jewelry, dance, sculpture, music, drama, architec-
ture, etc. To Dutton, this suggests that the arts, again like language, possess
a general omnipresent structure beneath the varied grammar and vocabu-
lary.
It should be noted that Pinker himself has elsewhere challenged this
assumption. Most famously, he dubbed music “auditory cheesecake,” or a
non-adaptive by-product (of language, pattern recognition, emotional calls,
etc.) that serves no fundamental role in human evolution.3 It is not my inten-
tion here to place that hypothesis under a microscope or investigate the many
arguments against it. (Perhaps, being a linguist, Pinker sees language as a
sort of holy ground that mustn’t be stepped on by “lesser” human activities.)
Wherever the evolutionary debates travel and whatever clues or counter-
clues they accumulate, one thing is convincing: art appears rooted in universal
human psychology.
The Invention of “Art”
Marxist philosopher Paul Mattick, Jr., once remarked that “art” has only
been around since the eighteenth century.4 On the surface, this audacious
claim seems to dismiss the creative impulse evident in hominids since the
cave-painting days and probably before. But, really, the idea of art as some-
thing abstract or “for itself ” is a Western construct with roots in the Enlight-
enment. That era gave rise to the notion of “the aesthetic” as a stand-alone
experience, as well as individuals and institutions that actively removed artis-
tic creation from organic contexts: critics, art dealers, academics, galleries,
museums, journals, etc. Terms previously used in other areas, like “creativity,”
11. Art Music 95
“self-expression,” “genius” and “imagination,” were re-designated almost

exclusively as “art words.”
Prior to that period (and still today in most non–European cultures) art
was not a thing apart, but an integral and integrated aspect of human life.
Sculpture, painting, ceramics, woodwork, weaving, poetry, music, dance, and
other expressive mediums were more than mere aesthetic excursions. They
beautified utensils, adorned abodes, demarcated rituals, told stories, and gen-
erally made things special. Skill and ornamentation were not valued for their
own sake, but for their ability to draw attention to and enhance extra-artistic
objects and activities.
Eighteenth-century Europe witnessed the extraction of art from its func-
tionalistic origins. It was segregated from everyday life and displayed as some-
thing of intrinsic worth. With this program came the panoply of now-familiar
buzzwords: commodity, ownership, property, specialization, high culture,
popular culture, entertainment, etc.
In the world of music, the contrivance of “absolute art” is even more
recent. As New Yorker music critic Alex Ross explains, the “atmosphere of
high seriousness” that characterizes classical concerts—with the expectation
of attentive listening and quiet between movements—did not take hold until
the early twentieth century.5 When public concerts first became widespread,
sometime after 1800, they were eclectic events featuring a sloppy mix of
excerpts from larger works and a miscellany of styles. Attendees chatted,
shouted, scuffled, moseyed about, clanked dishes, and yes, even applauded
(or booed) between (or during) movements. The performance was less a cen-
terpiece than an excuse for a social happening.
As concert going morphed into a refined, bourgeoisie affair, the rigid
format we are now acquainted with became the norm. Hushed and immobi-
lized audiences sat in specially designed symphony halls and opera houses,
which allowed composers to explore dynamic extremes hitherto impossible.
“When Beethoven began his Ninth Symphony [1824] with ten bars of
otherworldly pianissimo,” writes Ross, “he was defying the norms of his
time, essentially imagining a new world in which the audience would
await the music in an expectant hush. Soon enough, that world came into
being.”6
The impact of this development was wide-ranging. In no small way, it
signaled the birth of music as an attraction in and of itself—a brand-new
conception in the history of human culture. Like other artistic tendencies fil-
tered through the Western consciousness, music was artificially detached
from activities with which it had always co-existed. The radical break paved
the way for the more general phenomenon of “music as entertainment” (high-
brow, lowbrow and in between), and the commercialization and profession-

alization that came with it.
Absolutely Not
German Romantic authors introduced the concept of “pure” music, or

music without extra-musical meaning. They conceived of instrumental music
as the language of a higher realm—a language transcending anything that
could be said about it and any link that could be made between it and the
things of this world. Richard Wagner was an early critic of their proposition.
To him, music without signification was as impossible to create as it was
worthless to consume (he coined the term “absolute” music to mock the very
idea). Even when devoid of words, subject matter and programmatic purpose,
music is intertwined with the environment in which it is heard and the images
and feelings it induces. Its message might be abstract and open to interpre-
tation, but it is not absent.
Life occurs in context. Being alive means being engaged in a perpetual
and usually unconscious process of amassing observational input, experiential
data and sensory information. Nothing that we taste, touch, smell, hear, see
or think can be divorced from prior experiences, and all of it is present when
we encounter new stimuli. We cannot help but make connections between
incidents current and past, and the lens through which we perceive reality is
modified with each passing moment. We are swimming in a stream of con-
stant accumulation.
Our relationship with music exists in this perceptual complex. Aesthetic
tastes and artistic meanings are influenced by factors like culture, environ-
ment, schooling, philosophy and politics, not to mention the settings and
situations in which listening takes place. It is possible in a lab or study hall
to reduce music to an organized composite of pitches, intervals, alignments
and values. But music is not received in this mathematical manner. It comes
to us as a container brimming with associations, the contents of which are
the by-product of our unique life experiences. It triggers a varied assortment
of memories, visuals, sensations and sentiments. In short, we derive meaning
from it whether we intend to or not.
The same is true for the music’s creator. Composers tend to work within
inherited rules and conventions, or actively reject those norms. Either way,
they situate themselves in relation to other composers or styles, and cannot
escape the connotations they carry. As much as they might desire to write
music for its own sake, it will always be about something. Absolute music—
11. Art Music 97
or, better, music that pretends to be absolute—may be vague in purpose; but

neither the composer nor audience hears it as purposeless.
This discussion is summed up in the words of musicologist Nicholas
Cook: “Pure music, it seems, is the aesthetician’s (and music theorist’s) fic-
tion.”7 Music is never just sound. It is everything the sound evokes.
Always Art
The designation “art music” has come under fire in recent years. As a
synonym for “legitimate music,” “serious music” and other labels rife with
elitism, the term generally refers to notated music composed with advanced
structural frameworks and theoretical tools. It is regarded as distinct from
“lesser” types of music, which are commonly heaped into two overcrowded
categories: folk and popular. Many contemporary scholars and performers
refrain from applying these distinctions, and those who do tend to be critical
of the old assumptions they carry.
The objections center on two main issues. First is the notion that only
Western classical music (in the various ways that descriptor is used) is sophis-
ticated enough to qualify as “art.” There are numerous examples from rock,
jazz, soul and other sources that display a level of complexity exceeding that
of the usual fare. Second is the belief that technical refinement and difficult-
ness are prerequisites for artistry. This view ignores the dignity intrinsic to
all kinds of music—no matter how simplistic from an analytical standpoint—
and creates an artificial hierarchy in which complicated means superior.
To these criticisms can be added a third. If we take “art” to mean works
of human skill and imagination that express beauty and emotional power,
then no music should be considered artless. Whatever guise it takes or genre
it fills, music is designed with and directed toward aesthetic sensibilities. In
this basic way, it is inaccurate (and disingenuous) to identify certain music
as artistic and other types as something else. Doing so reveals more about
one’s biases than it does about the music itself.
Part of the problem is that when it comes to music, art is understood
in terms of style and substance rather than attraction and effect. For those
set on distinguishing art music from the rest, things like intricacy, instru-
mentation and theoretical considerations are the deciding factors. However,
none of this makes the music automatically more beautiful or emotionally
potent than a simple folk tune or popular hit. In fact, the opposite is often
the case. It is as though the parts comprising music—harmonic progressions,
tonal variety, colorations, etc.—are of greater significance than how listeners
respond. By these standards, the most artful music is that which is most
advanced with respect to performance demands, occurrences of modulation,
number of notes and the like. It is almost a plus if the music has limited
audience appeal—a sign that it is artistic in the most elitist sense of the
word.
This is not meant to suggest that all music is of equal quality or that
classification serves no purpose. There are objective measurements by which
musical creations can be judged and categorized, especially when examining
structure, range, meter and other compositional elements. The point here is
that music, in all its incalculable manifestations, has the potential to move
listeners in profound ways, regardless of the box it fits or doesn’t fit into.
From a results-based view of art, in which art is something that happens when
a person is touched aesthetically, virtually no music can escape the label.
Music as Work
A musical “work” is the axiomatic unit of measurement in Western con-

cert music. Like a book, play or painting, a musical work is conceived of as
a clearly defined entity with hard edges and a fixed identity. This sense of
concreteness stems from the assumption that the music a composer writes
is the same thing that performers play, audiences hear and musicologists
study. Thus, only that music which is written down (and has the appearance
of “art”) is given the status of a work. The history of Western music is paved
with these presumably self-contained artifacts, and its periodization relies
on their firm borders.
While it would be a mistake to abandon “work” as a taxonomic category,
its implied immutability, reliance on written notation, and dominance in
conventional hierarchies of music have generated much criticism. British
musicologist Michael Talbot brought focus to these objections at a symposium
entitled “Musical Work: Reality or Invention?” (University of Liverpool,
1998).8 Among other things, participants argued that a musical work is a his-
torically and culturally conditioned construct of relatively recent lineage.
Ethnomusicologists and popular music scholars noted that musical works
provide only one possible way of understanding music-cultures, and have
little analogy in global contexts. Avant-garde and improvisational musicians
disputed the fixity implicit in the concept, showing how spontaneous input
exists within the fuzzy edges of their music. Technologists pointed out that
computers offer new and evolving ways of encoding and producing music
that bypass the written page. What these challenges propose is that work is
11. Art Music 99
not only a limited concept, but also undeserving of the legitimacy it is typi-
cally given vis-á-vis other types of music.
Still, it is possible to retrieve the idea of work and apply it to all music—
not just pieces in the classical mold. Such an approach requires looking at
the term from the opposite direction, wherein fixity is replaced with action
and stability with fluidity. Instead of seeing work as a final product, we can
understand it as effort exerted toward a result.
Viewing work as a tightly constructed end product obscures the active-
ness of music. Musical performance is labor-intensive. Whether scripted or
unscripted, premeditated or unplanned, music unfolds in real-time. Musi-
cians actively perform it, listeners actively receive it, and the participation of
both parties actively shapes the musical outcome. If there happens to be sheet
music, it is a blueprint rather than a culmination of the composer’s vision.
In order to become music, the notes must be decoded by musicians, who
bring their own experiences to bear, and interpreted by listeners, who bring
their experiences to bear as well. The composer sets the musical process in
motion, but the music itself is recreated each time it is performed.
Scholars are becoming increasingly aware of music’s global diversity, the
artistic value of popular forms, and new avenues of musical thought and
practice. These realities, along with an aversion to ethnocentrism, have con-
tributed to growing dissatisfaction with “work” as a high and reliable meas-
urement of music. Its implied changelessness and reliance on written notation
make it obsolete in many instances. But if we take work to mean an activity
involving efforts and outcomes, then all music is work.
Is All Music Functional?
The role function plays in determining aesthetic qualities is far greater

than we might intuit. Responses to artistic creations and performances are
largely rooted in perceived levels of functionality. “I like it” or “I don’t like
it” are, in essence, statements about whether or not the artistic object left us
moved and, if so, whether it moved us to a desirable or undesirable outcome.
If the goal is to be sent into a state of awe or a flood of tears, does it happen
or not? When we dial through the radio on a highway drive, does the music
aid the journey or not? If the artwork accomplishes the task and/or meets
certain expectations, it is “good”; if it fails, it is “bad.”
Along with this observation come two sub-points: (1) No creative display
satisfies everyone’s tastes (which are, more accurately, needs); (2) Evaluation
of the art’s effectiveness (the foundation of aesthetic judgment) varies depend-
ing on the setting, season, activity, momentary mood, and so on. As such,
phrases like “It does it for me” and “It doesn’t do it for me” are closer to the
functional-aesthetic mark.
If we travel along this line of thinking, we might conclude that aesthetics
are utterly arbitrary. This may or may not be so. (The adverb “utterly,” in any
case, gives too strong a sense of certainty.) External conditions constantly
and subconsciously inform our sense of beauty, including cultural norms and
evolutionary adaptations. What the functional lens brings into focus is the
active nature of aesthetics—that is, the degree to which deciding that some-
thing is pretty, repulsive, profound, trite, pleasant, disturbing, inspiring,
bland, touching or cold is shaped by what we’re doing and what we’re looking
for while we’re doing it.
Turning to music specifically, we find explicit and implicit ways in which
functionalism is linked to appraisal. The explicit group includes all music
that is overtly functional, or music made for an extra-musical purpose (the
majority of music in the history of music-making). A holiday concert, a com-
mercial jingle, a nursery rhyme, a military march, a movie soundtrack. These
and countless other situational sounds either work—and earn positive assess-
ments—or do not work—and collect harsh critiques.
Here, associations are key. If a particular genre or manner of perform-
ance is generally or personally associated with a context other than the one
for which it is presented, it is likely to be called “bad.” Stylized renditions of
“The Star-Spangled Banner” and identifiably secular styles in religious serv-
ices are common illustrations of this. Yet, the mere fact that a performance
location is odd or unusual does not automatically make it bad. If the person
sitting next to the grumpy critic is fond of the associations the music con-
notes, then the opposite reaction will take place. The music works for her,
therefore it is “good.”
Implicit functional music is music that is not overtly attached to a pur-
pose. Pop music, for instance, is not designed for or heard within a single
designated setting. It is accessible virtually anywhere and at virtually any
time. If it supports, synchronizes with, or in any way resonates with what
one is doing in the listening moment (including “just” listening), then it is
positively labeled. If the opposite occurs, then an opposite label occurs too.
Again, this appraisal is prone to fluctuate depending on the circum-
stances: something heard as lousy in one situation may be heard as lovely in
another. And even our aversion to certain styles or songs can serve the ben-
eficial function of reminding us of who we are, which is almost synonymous
with what we do or do not like.
All music can be placed in either the explicit or implicit functional cat-
11. Art Music 101
egories. Thus, by simple extension of the argument, all music can be viewed
as functional. More important, the functional efficacy or inefficacy of a given
piece of music (or any artwork) contributes mightily to our judgment of it.
A simple formula: what works is “good,” what doesn’t work is “bad.”
Notes
1. Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct (New York: W. Morrow, 1994), 480.
2. Dutton, The Art Instinct, 29.
3. Pinker, How the Mind Works, 534.
4. Paul Mattick, “The Institutions of Art” (paper presented at the Forty-Seventh An-
nual Meeting of the American Society for Aesthetics, New York City, October 25, 1989.
5. Alex Ross, “Why So Serious? How the Classical Concert Took Shape,” The New
Yorker, September 8, 2008, <http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2008/09/
08/080908crmu_music_ross?currentPage=all>
6. Ibid.
7. Nicholas Cook, A Guide to Musical Analysis (New York: Oxford University Press,
1987), 1.
8. Michael Talbot, ed., Musical Work: Reality or Invention? (Liverpool, UK: University
of Liverpool Press, 2000).

Chua, Daniel K. L. Absolute Music and the Construction of Meaning. New York: Univer-
sity of Cambridge Press, 1999.
Dahlhaus, Carl. Esthetics of Music. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
_____. The Idea of Absolute Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
Danto, Arthur C. What Art Is. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013.
Gracyk, Theodore. Listening to Popular Music, Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and
Love Led Zeppelin. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007.
_____. On Music. New York: Routledge, 2013.
Ingarden, Roman. The Work of Music and the Problem of Its Identity. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1986.
Scruton, Robert. Beauty: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press,
2011.
Talbot, Michael, ed. Musical Work: Reality or Invention? Liverpool, UK: University of
Liverpool Press, 2000.
Van der Braembussche, A. A. Thinking Art: An Introduction to Philosophy of Art. New
York: Springer, 2009.
12
Consumer Music
Music is made to be heard. The way it sounds, the manner in which it

is presented, the success it enjoys—all of these are determined or shaped by
the interplay of creator(s) and audience. This chapter explores the process of
musical reception. It analyzes the sensation of boredom in music, and what
it can teach us about ourselves. It surveys the development and effectiveness
of the three-minute norm of popular songs. It espouses the appropriateness
of calling listeners “consumers.” And it explains how listening to the same
music on multiple occasions can yield different reactions.
Useful Boredom
Conventional wisdom has it that boredom is of two main types. The

first occurs when stimuli or circumstances are too simple, as when the gifted
child finds herself in a remedial classroom. The second is when sensory input
is so complex as to lull the mind into a quasi-vegetative state. This accounts
for the general avoidance of subjects like philosophy and math. Musically,
these species of boredom are embodied in the overly simplistic pop song on
the one hand, and the overly orchestrated concert work on the other. The
former is boring because it poses no challenges and offers no surprises. The
latter is boring because its multitude of interacting tones and timbres require
more concentration than most are willing to dedicate. In this binary view,
the culprits reside at the poles: underload and overload.
On the surface, this analysis might seem uncontestable. But there is a
sense in which it derives from and supports an elitist view of music appre-
ciation. Pop music is labeled as such because its style, structure and conven-
tions appeal to the general public. Whether a selection is fairly or unfairly
painted as “simple” has little impact on the audience’s acceptance of it. In
fact, its obviousness can be gratifying, as it satisfies a primal desire for pre-
dictability. In contrast, it is not always the case that education or exposure
102
12. Consumer Music 103
causes one to derive pleasure from a drawn-out classical piece. There are
many classically trained musicians who find it difficult to sit through a sym-
phony performance (myself included)—a reality that dispels the assumption
that understanding eliminates boredom. The typical abundance of valleys
and paucity of peaks make for a tedious experience, regardless of the subtleties
and layers aficionados detect and convince themselves to enjoy.
It is fair to blame symphonic fatigue on the music itself and not the lis-
tener. If we do so, we can begin to see the value this sort of boredom holds.
As Bertrand Russell reminded us in The Conquest of Happiness, the rhythm
of nature is slow. The human body has evolved and adapted according to the
leisurely pace of the seasons. The ultra-fast speed of modernity and the quest
for convenience have numbed our patience and obscured the virtue of stag-
nancy. The boringness in classical music can help us to retrieve our long-
forgotten tolerance for life’s unexciting moments, and discover in those
moments opportunities for fruitful contemplation.
Russell made this point with the following illustration. Imagine a mod-
ern publisher receiving the Hebrew Bible as a new and never-before seen
manuscript. It is not difficult to imagine the response: “My dear sir, this chap-
ter [in Genesis] lacks pep; you can’t expect your reader to be interested in a
mere string of proper names of persons about whom you tell him so little.
You have begun your story, I will admit, in fine style, and at first I was very
favorably impressed, but you have altogether too much wish to tell it all. Pick
out the high lights take out the superfluous matter, and bring me back your
manuscript when you have reduced it to a reasonable length.” 1
In a similar way, classical music exposes the difficulty most of us have
engaging in “superfluous matter.” But instead of taking the common path of
frustration or the snobbish approach of elevating musical lulls into something
more than they are, we should accept boring passages as boring, and embrace
the stillness they can invite within us. After all, if everything were exciting
or immediately appealing, nothing would be.
The Three-Minute Rule
Most popular songs heard on the radio run about three minutes. This
convention has roots in the 1920s, when the 10-inch 78 rpm gramophone disc
was the industry norm. The crude groove cutting and thick needle limited
each side of a disc to roughly three minutes. This engineering constraint
forced songwriters and musicians to compress their creative expression into
three-minute singles. The habit persisted despite the introduction of
microgroove recording (LP, or 33⅓ rpm) in the 1950s and the possibility of
longer durations. Even in our boundless world of digital technology, the
three-minute song remains the archetype.
To be sure, there are successful exceptions to the three-minute rule, such
as Don McLean’s “American Pie,” Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and Guns
N’ Roses’ “November Rain,” which run between six and nine minutes. But
there is something universally satisfying about the radio standard.
This owes to a mixture of conditioning and natural inclination. From
the beginning, three-minute songs proved to be both practical and highly
profitable. Radio stations earned money by airing advertisements, and shorter
songs meant more space for commercials. Producers also turned a better
profit from short songs than long recordings, which were more expensive to
press. As a result, listeners were fed a steady diet of time-restricted tunes,
and were culturally trained to expect and derive pleasure from them.
It is also thought that the three-minute length caters perfectly to the
attention span of young people, the primary consumers of popular music.
The duration fits comfortably within their threshold of patience, which aver-
ages five minutes or so. And most people’s ability to concentrate on music
does not increase much after youth, save for those accustomed to drawn-out
classical works, jazz improvisations and other expanded forms.
Moreover, three minutes seems an optimal timeframe for the delivery
of music’s emotional and informational content. Anything more risks dis-
solving into tedium. Of course, there are short pieces that bore quickly and
longer pieces that retain interest. But, as a general rule, our tolerance for
musical intake peaks at the radio play limit.
Igor Stravinsky is quoted as saying, “Too many pieces of music finish
too long after the end.”2 The comment was directed at his compositional col-
leagues and forbearers, and could be applied to a few of his works as well.
Yet it is not exclusive to the orchestral realm. Many pieces in many genres
could benefit from some trimming. And we do not need Stravinsky’s knowl-
edge or experience to recognize when endings come too late. A combination
of musical exposure and musical intuition signals whether a piece has over-
stepped its temporal maximum. It is the same instinct that attracts us to
three-minute songs.
For Human Consumption

There are two basic modes of musical transmission: direct and indirect.
Direct transmission consists of live performers and auditors in relatively close
proximity with one another, while indirect transmission involves the emission
of prerecorded music through speakers. In the first, performers are visible,
identifiable and capable of interacting with listeners. In the second, listeners
have no immediate or real-time connection with the music, other than the
spontaneity with which sounds are processed in the brain. As populations
grow in size and technological sophistication, the main route of musical
transmission shifts from direct to indirect. Performances are increasingly
replaced by phonograms, and music becomes a commodity.
In small-scale societies, where technology is limited and participation
is the norm, senders and receivers of music tend to be the same people. The
entire community is involved in all aspects of the musical happening: singing,
dancing, playing and listening. In large-scale mechanized societies, where
music is given to specialists and indirect transmission is the dominant modal-
ity, there exists a separation between producers and listeners. Rather than an
integrative and cooperative means of expression, music is packaged as a pur-
chasable item.
Fittingly, those who receive music through indirect transmission are
called “consumers.” Like other products in the marketplace, music can be
obtained for personal use, and buying trends dictate the sorts of new music
that are made available. Because of its collective pocketbook, the general lis-
tenership retains an active role in the musical experience. But the part it plays
is distant compared to the community-based music-making typical of tribal
and other small-scale societies.
Yet, even as cultural observers stress distinctions between direct and
indirect modes of transmission, “consumer” is being used more and more to
refer to all listeners of music, regardless of the modality. This equal applica-
tion is partly meant to downplay tendencies to raise one mode above the
other (namely, direct above indirect). Both types of musical experience are
genuine to the participants, well suited for their social settings and serve the
basic needs of the respective listeners. Additionally, the term highlights the
reality that everyone consumes music, regardless of the activeness or pas-
siveness of our musical involvement.
Interaction with music goes deeper than simply hearing, a sensory per-
ception localized in the ears. Listening is a holistic activity incorporating a
variety of physical, cognitive and emotional processes. We consume music
in a way similar to how we consume food. It enters the ears (ingestion) and
is distilled into perceptible material (mastication). From there it travels to
processing centers (swallowing), where it is further broken down (digestion),
and useful substances are extracted from it (absorption).
It is no coincidence that eating-related words are routinely used to depict
musical listening. We drink in sounds, chew on musical passages, digest

phrases, absorb musical input, and so forth. Plus, we talk about musical pref-
erences in terms of taste. In this elemental sense, music is made for human
consumption, and each of us is a musical consumer.
Never Heard Twice
Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 535–475 BCE) coined one of the most well-
known aphorisms of Western philosophy: “You can never put your foot in
the same river twice.” Nothing in the universe remains the same; everything
is in perpetual motion. This principle is equally applicable to physical phe-
nomena and our recollections of them. Not only does each moment differ
from those that precede and follow it, but memories of things past and
thoughts of the future are also in constant flux. History changes, technology
changes, fashion changes, etiquette changes. Relationships change, religions
change, demographics change, social mores change. To list everything that
changes is to list everything. And once the list is finished, it too must change.
Critics of Heraclitus argue that, while appearances certainly alter, the
underlying reality is steady. Our minds and senses are faulty, but the things
we perceive are rooted in something eternal. However, any “underlying real-
ity” is, in the end, a theoretical property, and thus subject to revision, inter-
pretation, elaboration, imagination and other unstable processes of the
intellect. Even things that are ostensibly unwavering, like recorded music and
motion pictures, are subtly transformed with each experience, both percep-
tually and materially (physical and chemical deterioration occurs in discs,
reels, tapes and other storage formats).
Philosopher-composer Leonard B. Meyer made this point in Emotion
and Meaning in Music. He wrote that repetition in music never “exists psy-
chologically,” since our mindset and store of experiences are different each
time we listen to a piece. Thus, while the musical substance may be fixed (or
as fixed as anything can be said to be), it is never received through identical
ears. Consistency is demonstrated in sound specifications, but the thoughts
and feelings conjured differ depending on when the music is heard. Meyer
explained it this way: “The fact that as we listen to music we are constantly
revising our opinions of what has happened in the past in the light of present
events is important because it means that we are constantly altering our
expectations.”3
This truism applies to repetition within a musical selection as well.
Repeated patterns of rhythm, melody, and harmony are prominent in all sorts
of music. According to Meyer, this internal repetition—which is relentless

in minimalist compositions, Sufi qawwali and other genres—generates
changes in meaning as the music pushes forward. Take the example of the
classical sonata form, with its exposition, development and recapitulation.
When the listener hears the recapitulation of the opening section, the mean-
ing is very different from that communicated in the original statement. The
same occurs with the verse-chorus form of popular music and other such
musical structures.
Like everything known and unknown, observed and learned, music is
ever changing. It is always experienced in the non-replicable present tense.
To adapt Heraclitus’ famous maxim, “The same music is never heard twice.”
Notes
1. Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness [1930] (New York: Routledge, 2006),
39.
2. Igor Stravinsky, quoted in Galewitz, Music, 49.
3. Leonard B. Meyer, Emotion and Meaning in Music (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1956), 49.

Appell, Glenn, and David Hemphill. American Popular Music: A Multicultural History.
Belmont, CA: Cengage, 2010.
Clarke, Donald. The Rise and Fall of Popular Music. New York: St. Martin’s Griffen,
1995.
Gronow, Pekka, and Ilpo Saunio. International History of the Recording Industry. New
York: Bloomsbury, 1999.
Hull, Geoffrey P., Thomas William Hutchison, and Richard Strasser. The Music Business
and Recording Industry: Delivering Music in the 21st Century. New York: Taylor and
Francis, 2011.
Inglis, Ian. Performance and Popular Music: History, Place and Time. Burlington, VT:
Ashgate, 2013.
Meyer, Leonard D. Emotion and Meaning in Music. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1956.
Neer, Richard. FM: The Rise and Fall of Rock Radio. New York: Random House, 2001.
O’Hara, Kenton, and Barry Brown. Consuming Music Together: Social and Collaborative
Aspects of Music Consumption Technologies. New York: Springer, 2006.
Weisbard, Eric. Listen Again: A Momentary History of Pop Music. Durham, NC: Duke
Williams, Andrew. Portable Music and Its Functions. New York: Peter Lang, 2007.
13
Creativity
Musical creation is often explained as a mysterious or supernatural event.

The elusiveness and intangibility of the creative act lends itself to otherworldly
explanations. This chapter chips away at these romantic assertions. In place
of a divinely gifted composer or performer, we find a person devoted to edu-
cation and practice, and unfazed by errors and setbacks. Additionally, the
inspiration for a musical offering is more often found in outside conditions
and circumstances than strictly inward impulses. What all of this implies is
that inborn talent can only take one so far: training and persistence are nec-
essary factors. The chapter concludes with current research into walking as
a creativity nurturing exercise.
From Thin Air
The genesis of musical creativity has long been perplexing. As a medium

composed of the invisible properties of silence and sound, music seems to
emerge from and return to thin air. Its substance and impact defy pictorial
and linguistic descriptions, and the experience of it is beyond the grasp of
notated scores and mathematical graphs. Of all the arts, music is both the
most mysterious and the most intimate. It is intangible and transient, yet
deeply affects the interior of our being.
Because music-making is so difficult to unravel, many cultures have
arrived at supernatural explanations. These range from calling musical genius
a “gift from heaven” to more involved mythologies. An extreme example is
found among the Suyá, a tribe of about three hundred located at the head-
waters of the Xingu River in Mato Grosso, Brazil. The Suyá maintain that all
new music originates outside of their dwellings. The composer’s spirit is sent
to a village of animal spirits, where it listens to and learns different songs.
When the spirit returns, the composer transmits the songs to the people.
The Suyá also believe that the spirits of tribespeople are linked with par-
108
13. Creativity 109
ticular animal spirits. This has musical implications, as the spirit of one per-
son may travel to the spirit village of fish, while the spirit of another might
go to a community of deer spirits. The former will return with fish songs, the
latter with deer songs. According to Anthony Seeger, an anthropologist and
author of Why Suyá Sing, about thirty percent of Suyá men and women in a
generation claim to have spirits that acquire new songs.1
However fantastical this and other beliefs about musical creativity may
be, they do illustrate the enigma of the process. Musical inspiration is difficult
to pinpoint, as it is often spontaneous and rarely perceptible by sight or other
senses. Cultural factors naturally shape the details of the musical stories. A
monotheistic group places its deity at the inspirational center, animistic tribes
locate music with animals, polytheistic societies assign the role of muse to a
god or two, and so on.
Whatever form a myth takes, its impetus is the mysteriousness of musical
creation. While a painter begins with paints and a sculptor starts with stone,
the composer commences with seemingly nothing but air. Of course, on a
technical level, all of the available notes, durations, and articulations are
already present in nature, and the organization of these sounds can be dis-
tilled, mapped, and analyzed with precision. But music-making may be as
close to creatio ex nihilo as we can approach.
The materials of music differ from materials in the physical sense. Most
creative activities involve selecting, arranging and shaping pre-existing exter-
nal matter, or creatio ex materio. But music, while played on instruments and
within mechanical parameters, seems to reside in a spiritual or otherwise
inexplicable realm. As a result, musical creativity lends itself to supernatural
storytelling.
The Myth of the Gift
A person exhibiting talent in the arts is often said to possess a “gift.”

Though usually said with kind or neutral intentions, this phrase can have a
negative impact on both the “gifted” and the less impressive majority. For the
owner of artistic talent, the term “gift” is, at best, a reminder of the role of
heredity in creative excellence. Darwin set the framework for this now-
obvious observation, surmising that his daughter Annie’s aptitude for the
piano was passed on from her musical mother.2 True, inborn capacities and
innate dispositions can pre-condition people for imaginative exploration.
But this is a relatively small ingredient. As any prodigious artist will attest,
time, energy, passion and practice play a far greater role than mere genes. To
overlook all of that work (10,000 hours worth by one popular estimation3)
and reduce it to a “gift” is tantamount to an insult. The impact is compounded
when aptitude is identified as “God-given”—a label that erases human agency,
hereditary or otherwise, from the equation.
This (mis)conception can also be discouraging for those who admire
the über talented and don’t feel particularly talented themselves. If they have
not been blessed, then why bother with artistic pursuits? Again, this places
too much focus on native talent, which is, in the strictest sense, an impossible
concept. Whatever influence genetic factors have in determining one’s artistic
aptitude, artistry is not something one can excel at without having to learn
it. Finely honed skills and effortless performances are the product of copious
study, instruction, refinement and repetition. This is equally true for the
highly educated and informally seasoned, whose learning process is called,
perhaps overstatedly, “self-teaching.”
Recent studies in psychology show that even “super-skills,” like perfect
pitch and lightening-fast manual dexterity, are not inherited advantages, but
the result of training. The myth of the gift crumbles further. According to
psychologist K. Anders Ericsson, author of landmark papers on this topic,
people thought of as “gifted” share three distinguishing traits: They balance
practice and rest over long periods of time; their practicing is driven by deep
passion and interest; they redirect adversity into success.4
The last point is easy to overlook. A finished product does not reveal
what took place behind the scenes. For every masterful painting, virtuosic
performance or architectural marvel, there are countless failed visions and
discarded projects. But, rather than insignificant inevitabilities, these failures,
false starts and dashed ideas are the foundation upon which great creations
arise. Quality comes from quantity.
Master author Ray Bradbury, no stranger to trial an error, put it thus:
“A great surgeon dissects and re-dissects a thousand, ten thousand bodies,
tissues, organs, preparing thus by quantity the time when quality will count—
with a living creature under the knife. An athlete may run ten thousand miles
in order to prepare for one hundred yards. Quantity gives experience. From
experience alone can quality come. All arts, big and small, are the elimination
of waste motion in favor of the concise declaration.”5
Practical Creativity
Creativity is conventionally defined as the use of imagination for the
purpose of achieving something novel. The Romantics understood it as a
13. Creativity 111
supernal gift bestowed upon a select and superior few. In the present day,
“creative genius” is generously recognized in almost anyone involved in an
artistic or quasi-artistic pursuit. Whether framed as a rarified possession or
a universal property, creativity is made out to be a disembodied quality,
appearing in a flash of insight and removed from everyday matters. Forgotten
in all of this is the utilitarian proverb: “Necessity is the mother of invention.”
This saying reverberates throughout music history. The acoustic demands
and tolerances of a music-making venue—forest, cave, hut, chapel, cathedral,
club, concert hall, amphitheater, stadium, living room—have done more to
shape musical styles, instruments and ensemble configurations than any other
single factor. Technological advances in the 1920s gave us the 10-inch 78 rpm
gramophone disc, which played for just three minutes on each side and forced
songwriters to invent the three-minute popular song form—still the industry
norm. Architects of worship music often keep track of changing tastes of the
general public, adjusting devotional sounds accordingly in hopes of filling
the pews. Even jazz improvisation had a practical beginning. People wanted
to continue dancing after the melodies were exhausted, so the musicians
accommodated them by jamming over chord changes to stretch out their
playing.
These and countless other musical developments were born of necessity.
Their inspiration was more contextual than spiritual, more pragmatic than
epiphanic. Like everything else, musical innovation is motivated by and
responsive to perpetual forces: cause and effect, need and satiation, transition
and mutation, problems and solutions. It is, then, better to think of creativity
as an adaptive awareness than as something emerging from mythical noth-
ingness.
Music is a living art. It is guided by evolutionary pressures. The survival
of music in any of its myriad genres and forms requires that elements be
modified and redirected to fit the social, physical and acoustic environment.
When conditions are relatively static, music undergoes few and subtle alter-
ations. When circumstances shift, musical creativity shifts along with them.
These adaptive traits—technical, instrumental, presentational and other—
are further tweaked as settings continue to morph. With the passage of time,
and the technological advancements, trends and counter-trends that come
along with it, some of these features persist and are absorbed into new mix-
tures, while others are rejected and replaced with new adaptations. And so
it goes, down through the ages.
Need creates an opening for artistic maneuvering. Thus, at the risk of
over-simplification, we might re-define creativity as the practical confronta-
tion with necessity.
Musical Motivation
Motivation to compose music is often portrayed in spiritual terms. A
flash of inspiration consumes an abnormally gifted individual. A supernat-
urally selected musician channels a mysterious surge of energy. A person
becomes possessed by cosmic sounds, which find their way onto the manu-
script page. Melodramatic depictions like these were promulgated during the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and continue to influence how we think
of the music-writing process. Composition is viewed as an inaccessible and
unlearnable art. It is the endeavor of a chosen few, who have been blessed by
fate and deemed worthy by the heavens above.
In case these characterizations seem exaggerated, let us look at a couple
of actual examples. Music critic and theoretician Heinrich Schenker wrote
this of a compositional moment: “The lightning flash of a thought suddenly
crashed down, at once illuminating and creating the entire work in the most
dazzling light. Such works were conceived and received in one stroke.” 6
Arnold Schoenberg perpetuated this sensational image, stating that musical
inspiration can well up as “a subconsciously received gift from the Supreme
Commander.”7
Such statements are faulty for at least four reasons. First, they imagine
music as materializing out of nowhere. Without preparation or hesitation,
the composer sits at the piano and lets the opus pour forth. But anyone who
has improvised music or jotted down a melody knows that it involves practice,
forethought and trial and error. Moreover, most composers write within gen-
erative musical systems, which provide structures and formulas to draw upon.
Their motivation is exposure and experience, not divine direction.
A second and related issue is the false notion that composition cannot
be taught, learned or acquired. Romantics and their ideological inheritors
willfully ignore that composition has many prerequisites: listening, studying,
performing, reading, etc. Rather than a skill bestowed at birth or received
through revelation, music writing is available to anyone who has the desire,
discipline and determination to do it.
Third is the elitism implicit in the mystical view. Almost without excep-
tion, writings about the inspirational muse involve composers of Western art
music. It is their music that cannot be replicated. Classically trained musicians
like Schenker and Schoenberg acknowledged that folk music and other pop-
ular forms exist in wide variety. But, for them, the homegrown-ness and
abundance of such music indicated its worldly origins, and made it less than
the rarified creations of “high culture.” The bias of this view is too obvious
to warrant comment.
13. Creativity 113
Fourth, most of the world’s music has practical aims. The impulse to
compose is more likely to come from necessity than artistic urge. The many
functions of music range from instruction and storytelling to work and exer-
cise. These “mundane” motivations have proven strong enough to generate
the majority of music ever heard.
And then there’s the revealing statement from Cole Porter. When asked
what stimulates him to write, he responded: “My sole inspiration is a tele-
phone call from a producer.”8
Creativity’s Conditions
Creativity in any enterprise is spurred on by some perceived need, the

type and magnitude of which are usually proportional to the issue being
addressed and the field in which the innovation is taking place. Anthropol-
ogists point to a slew of social and environmental factors that determine the
presence and rate of innovation in a given society. Among them are popula-
tion density, area of inhabitance, natural resources, inter-group interaction
and societal organization (bands, tribes, chiefdoms and states). Certain com-
binations of factors encourage invention, while others do not. As Jared Dia-
mond writes in Guns, Germs, and Steel: “All human societies contain inventive
people. It’s just that some environments provide more starting materials, and
more favorable conditions for utilizing inventiveness, than do other environ-
ments.”9
This rule applies equally to inventions that are practical, artistic or a
combination of the two. Where necessity is absent, so is ingenuity. This is
why, for example, slow technological development is a hallmark of indigenous
hunter-gatherers, while rapid advancements characterize post-industrial soci-
eties. Hunter-gatherers are continually on the move, following the animals
on which they depend and migrating to where the plants they use are avail-
able. These small and mobile populations lack the motivating circumstances
to devise new and potentially cumbersome tools, and have little of the down-
time necessary to experiment with technologies. In contrast, producing new
ideas is the main way to grow the diverse, globally connected, information-
rich and service-based economies of the post-industrial world.
Musical innovation follows a similar pattern. Societies that are small,
isolated and relatively uniform generally do not demand fresh musical styles
or forms. Their music is almost entirely of a functional sort, serving practical
aims such as warfare, ritual and storytelling. There is room for improvisation,
but musical customs tend to be conservative, operating within longstanding
and typically limited musicways. In other words, their music is consistent

with the rest of their lifestyle.
The opposite occurs in first-world societies, where everything seems in
constant flux and there is seemingly unlimited access to the world’s music
library. With endless musical influences comes virtually endless musical pos-
sibilities, particularly in (sub)cultures that demand continuous output. More-
over, larger populations produce larger numbers of musical innovators, as
well as larger audiences to appreciate the innovations.
The crucial role of human and natural environments in musical creativ-
ity is not just evident when we compare radically divergent populations,
like hunter-gatherers and denizens of an American metropolis. Historically
and cross-culturally, those climates most conducive to musical creativity
have yielded the greatest inventive flourishes. It is no coincidence that chrono-
logical lists of famous Western composers are heavily represented by a
few countries, or that certain performers living in certain places are more
popular and prolific than others stationed in similar societies elsewhere on
the globe.
This discussion and its supporting examples could go on and on. The
specific ingredients favorable for musical creativity or non-creativity vary
from cultural setting to cultural setting. However, there is a simple formula
that can be used to make the broader point: Creativity has conditions; inno-
vation has inducements.
Walk Like a Composer

Beethoven’s daily routine included vigorous walks with a pencil and
sheets of music paper. Robert Schumann’s regular walks were punctuated
with poetry writing and drawing sketches. Tchaikovsky took two walks per
day: a brisk stroll in the morning and a two-hour hike after lunch. Benjamin
Britten had company on his walks, during which he talked about music and
after which he wrote it down. The list of strolling composers could go on and
on. More than just mundane details of famous biographies, these examples
give credence to Nietzsche’s overstated but still compelling aphorism: “All
truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.”10
The link between walking and creativity is apparent across disciplines.
Celebrated cases include John Milton, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens,
Immanuel Kant, Sigmund Freud, and Eric Hoffer. Again, the list could stretch
on without end. A skeptic might note that walking is a natural human activity:
it is something that creative and not-so-creative people share in common.
13. Creativity 115
But this is walking of an intentional and recreational kind, not the humdrum
mode of moving the body from place to place.
Until now, connections between walking and novel idea generation have
come from historical and personal anecdotes. Britten working out a musical
passage on a leisurely jaunt has parallel in the average person working out
an average problem on a stroll around the neighborhood. Perhaps the benefits
are so apparent that scientific confirmation is not needed. Be that as it may,
the emerging science provides intriguing confirmation.
A recent paper in the Journal of Experimental Psychology outlines pre-
liminary findings of four walking experiments. “Give Your Ideas Some Legs:
The Positive Effect of Walking on Creative Thinking” (a highly technical
study with a deceptively inviting title) shows that walking not only increases
formation of creative ideas in real-time, but also for a period afterward.11
Without going into depth here, the experiments, conducted by Marily
Oppezzo and Daniel L. Schwartz of Stanford University, record thought
processes of people in various combinations of seating and walking. Not sur-
prisingly, walking resulted in substantial creative boosts, with outdoor walk-
ing producing thought patterns of the highest quality and novelty.
Without jumping to premature conclusions, the authors predict that the
walk-thought mechanism “will eventually [be shown to] comprise a complex
causal pathway that extends from the physical act of walking to physiological
changes to the proximal processes.”12 This is something we could have learned
from Brahms, who was often seen walking around Vienna with hands folded
behind his back. He gave this advice to Gustav Jenner, his only formal com-
position student: “When ideas come to you, go for a walk; then you will dis-
cover that the thing you thought was a complete thought was actually only
the beginning of one.”13
Notes
1. Anthony Seeger, Why Suyá Sing: A Musical Anthropology of an Amazonian People
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004), 55.
2. Darwin, The Descent of Man, 477.
3. Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success (New York: Hachette, 2008).
4. See K. Anders Ericsson, ed., The Road to Excellence: The Acquisition of Expert
Performance in the Arts and Sciences, Sports, and Games (New York: Psychology, 2014).
5. Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing (New York: Bantam, 1992), 131.
6. Heinrich Schenker, “Eugen d’Albert,” Die Zukunft 9 (1894): 33.
7. Arnold Schoenberg, Style and Idea: Selected Writings, ed. Leonard Stein, trans.
Leo Black (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 222.
8. Galewitz, Music: A Book of Quotations, 38.
9. Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (New
York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 408.
10. Saying widely attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche.
11. Marily Oppezzo and Daniel L. Schwartz, “Give Your Ideas Some Legs: The Pos-
itive Effect of Walking on Creative Thinking,” Journal of Experimental Psychology
(2014): 1–11.
12. Ibid., 7.
13. Gustav Jenner, “Johannes Brahms as Man, Teacher, and Artist,” in Brahms and
His World, ed. Walter Frisch and Kevin C. Karnes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2009), 404.

Beeching, Angela Myles. Beyond Talent: Creating a Successful Career in Music. New
Deliège, Irène, and Geraint A. Wiggins, ed. Musical Creativity: Multidisciplinary Research
in Theory and Practice. New York: Psychology, 2006.
Donovan, Siobhán, and Robin Elliott, ed. Music and Literature in German Romanticism.
Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2004.
Ericsson, K. Anders, ed. The Road to Excellence: The Acquisition of Expert Performance
in the Arts and Sciences, Sports, and Games. New York: Psychology, 2014.
Lippman, Edward A. Musical Aesthetics: The Nineteenth Century. New York: Pendragon,
1986.
Mazzola, Guerino, Joomi Park, and Florian Thalmann. Musical Creativity: Strategies
and Tools in Composition and Improvisation. New York: Springer, 2011.
Odena, Oscar, ed. Musical Creativity: Insights from Music Education Research. Burling-
ton, VT: Ashgate, 2013.
Prager, Brad. Aesthetic Vision and German Romanticism: Writing Images. New York:
Camden House, 2007.
Schoenberg, Arnold. Style and Idea: Selected Writings. Edited by Leonard Stein, and
translated by Leo Black. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.
Seeger, Anthony. Why Suyá Sing: A Musical Anthropology of an Amazonian People. Ur-
bana: University of Illinois Press, 2004.
14
Music-Making
Music does not make itself. It emanates from the talents and imagina-
tions of human beings, especially the subspecies known as musicians. This
chapter peers into the musician’s mind, searching for what makes it tick and
how it perceives the world. Topics include how finite musical elements yield
unlimited possibilities, what it is like to be in the musician’s “zone,” why some
musicians feel they are in constant contact with the sacred, what musical dis-
plays teach us about human potential, and the importance of silence in musi-
cians’ lives.
The Art of Tune
“In battle, there are not more than two methods of attack—the direct
and indirect; yet these two in combination give rise to an endless series of
maneuvers.”1 This truism, taken from the classic tome The Art of War, speaks
to the almost inexhaustible possibilities that can arise from limited choices.
Like much of the treatise, attributed to Chinese general Sun Tzu (c. 544–496
B.C.E.), this aphorism has been applied to areas outside of warfare where
slight tactical changes can have an enormous impact. It is especially apt for
competitive entities like sports teams and marketing firms, which are con-
strained by conventions and regulations, yet find sometimes-subtle ways to
out-smart and out-play their opponents.
Sun Tzu (or whoever wrote The Art of War) was aware of the book’s
multiple applications, as he frequently used non-military examples to illus-
trate battlefield insights. In the sentences leading to the words quoted
above, several comparisons are made to non-combative life pursuits. The
possibilities arising from direct and indirect attacks are likened to the
five primary colors (blue, yellow, white, red, black), which in combination
“produce more hues than can ever be seen,” and to the five tastes (sour, acrid,
salt, sweet, bitter), which in combination “yield more flavors than can ever
117
be tasted.” The author cites a musical analogy as well, explaining that the five
tones of his native pentatonic scale “give rise to more melodies than can ever
be heard.”2
The inclusion of these examples in The Art of War shows the diversity
of painting, food and music known in China at the time. When we add the
rest of the world and the centuries that have passed since the treatise was
written, the amount of creations made from finite raw materials is staggering.
And new mixtures are being concocted each day.
This becomes apparent when we consider the variety of potential
melodic phrases. A widely cited article posted at the collaborative website
Everything2 computes the number of one-measure melodies possible within
a Western octave.3 Assembling the twelve notes in their various values (whole,
half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth and thirty-second) gives us a figure thirty-six
digits long—a theoretical integer far exceeding our comprehension. Actual
melodies are much less numerous, partly because they are subject to restric-
tive forces like taste and cultural expectation. Even so, music that has and
will be composed borders on endless.
Similar observations could be made about visual, culinary and other
art forms. The drive to invent through combination is a peculiar trademark
of our species. It may, in fact, be the only type of creativity we are actually
capable of. Whether the activity is battle, artistic expression or something
else, minor gradations and small manipulations can make a significant dif-
ference.
The Musician’s Mentality
Legendary jazz musician Nina Simone once remarked, “Music is my

God. The structure, the cleanliness, the tone, the nuances, the implications,
the silences, the dynamics … all having to do with sound and music. It is as
close to God as I know.”4 These words echo the feelings of many musicians.
The experience of making music can (and regularly does) bring one into a
spiritual zone: a state of being in which cognitive functions, emotional highs,
sensory perceptions and creative energies fuse into a transcendental whole.
There is no need for theology in such a state. Holiness becomes a sensation
rather than an idea.
Of course, there are devout musicians who contextualize musical sen-
sations in the language of their faith. The God they encounter in music is the
same one they read about in holy writ. (They might agree with Luther: “Apart
from theology, music is God’s greatest gift. It has much in common with the-
ology because it heals the soul and raises the spirits.”5) But countless others
feel as Simone did.
Her position is supported by the long list of prominent atheist musicians,
including such luminaries as Hector Berlioz, Georges Bizet, Giuseppe Verdi,
Béla Bartók, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Frederick Delius. These composers
were in contact with their inner-nature and explored the recesses of the
human mind and spirit. Music provided them with the sort of spiritual nour-
ishment commonly sought in religious concepts and practices.
A glimpse into this aspect of the musician’s psychology is found in Music
as an Asset to Spirituality, an enigmatic book written by Laura J. Richards.
The origins and ideology of this old book are difficult to decipher, and nothing
is available of the author’s biography. In truth, it is an almost incomprehen-
sible work of pseudo-science and pseudo-mysticism, and probably deserves
less attention than it is getting here. A random sampling exposes its baffling
content: “How to cultivate a musical feeling is a very difficult subject. It takes
many centuries for the musician to come to this state of perfection”; “What
is mind? It is the soul functioning perfectly according to the laws of nature”;
“Winds are nature’s entities to destroy the impure forces that cause the vibra-
tions to intermingle.”6
The bulk of the text reads in this fashion. Like other theosophical writ-
ings, its sentences can be poetic and may on the surface seem profound; but
when we pierce through the flowery language, we discover jumbled thoughts
that offer nothing of substance. Richards’ clumsy esotericism and happy dis-
regard for reason are typical of early twentieth-century spiritual literature,
and persist in some contemporary New Age publications.
Even so, there are moments when Richards is coherent and insightful—
as long as her exaggerations are read as metaphors. One such instance is her
section on the musician’s mentality. She notes that musicians are often mis-
understood “because their organism is created of an entirely different material
than other individuals.” There is no literal or scientific validity to this claim:
we are all made of the same matter. But the “material” she refers to is dispo-
sitional, not elemental. One who is perpetually engaged in musical activities
can, as it were, lose touch with the ordinary. Musicians familiar with the
upper reaches of human consciousness can effortlessly drift into a heightened,
spiritual or transcendent state (whichever terminology one prefers). “Con-
sequently,” writes Richards, “the material world is very difficult for them to
endure.”7
Music-making is a sacred act: it is removed from the mundane and hints
at something deeper than the physical. This has made it a helpful aid to reli-
gion and prayer. However, music is just as readily experienced as an equiv-
alent to (or a substitute for) theological concepts. For the musician, music
can be God enough.
Art and Apartness
Art is a sacred endeavor. Not in a theological or ideological sense—

which is clouded by intellectualism and socio-religious determinations—but
in the purer and more experiential sense of apartness. The primary aim and
impetus of art is connection with the “beyond-the-ordinary”: a sensation of
transcending the confines and occurrences of the mundane world. The artist
who labors undisturbed in the creative process occupies a separate and all-
consuming sphere of consciousness.
This explains the casual observation that artists are rarely drawn to
the usual aspects of religious life: regulated rituals, group affiliation and
formalistic prayers. Without having statistics to support this perception,
it nevertheless seems that utterly artistic people—those who exist in an
almost perpetual state of inward reflection and inspired invention—live the
ideals that religion strives to impart through texts and structured practices.
The artist is intimately familiar with transformation and elevation, making
religion’s attempt to manufacture these qualities superfluous or even disrup-
tive.
This does not mean that artists cannot be religious in the normative
sense. The same variations of religiosity and non-religiosity are found among
artists and the general population. Obviously, too, numerous artworks have
been created for and commissioned by religious institutions, and many per-
forming artists (mainly musicians) find steady employment in houses of wor-
ship. Even so, artists need not rely on public rituals or religious calendars to
tell them how or when to encounter otherness.
From a humanistic perspective, religion, in all its forms and modes of
engagement, is but a particularistic means toward a universal goal. The aspi-
ration for transcendence is present within every human being. It is built into
our biology. The fact that religions emerged at all in the course of human
evolution is proof of this inborn longing of our species. Those who do not
find sacred peaks in the everyday often turn to religious events (or pseudo-
religious events, such as sports or concerts) in order to be pushed into that
experience.
William Sharlin, a cantor-composer who found ecstasy alone at the piano
and transmitted ecstasy through liturgical singing, included this remark in
a lecture on the topic of art and the sacred: “The non-artist at best may strive
for the occasional moment of transcendence and therefore may need the help
of worship to separate himself from the ordinary.”8 Not so the artist.
Beauty and Human Potential
Beauty is chiefly understood as a matter of the senses rather than of the

intellect. Familiar phrases like “in the eye of the beholder” and “there’s no
accounting for taste” stress the role of individual perceptions and gut reac-
tions in arriving at aesthetic conclusions. More than an absolute law, beauty
is typically described as a feeling, emotion, passion or sentiment. From one
point of view, this removes aesthetic judgments from the plane of rational
discourse, essentially eliminating the possibility of an empirical framework
for measuring gradients of beauty. However, aesthetics remains an active area
of philosophy concerned with principles of attractiveness and taste. Even lib-
eral humanism, that branch of philosophy that champions the dignity of per-
sonal values and opinions, has put forward criteria for evaluating beauty.
A particularly lucid formulation comes from Rabbi Daniel Friedman,
one of the founders of the Society for Humanistic Judaism. In “Art and Nature:
Beauty and Spirituality,” a philosophical sketch originally presented at the
2001 Colloquium of the International Institute for Secular Humanistic
Judaism, Friedman offers some yardsticks for aesthetic determination that
approach objectivity (as much as such a thing is possible).9 Friedman con-
tends that beauty is not a property of nature, but a concept formed in the
mind. As human beings, we extract and infuse purpose, meaning and value
in our experiences and observations. Judging something as beautiful is fun-
damentally a conceptualization of feelings evoked inside of us: serenity, won-
der, elation, awe, satisfaction, etc. Aesthetics is thus an internal process. It is
idiosyncratically derived.
Yet, according to Friedman, this does not relegate beauty to an arbitrary
decision or a relativistic whim. While the assessment takes place internally
and is ultimately shaped by forces like culture and biography, the object or
phenomenon itself remains outside of us. It is in that realm of creation—
rather than perception—that objective standards can be applied, however
imperfectly. Specifically, Friedman argues that higher and lower worth can
be assigned to human artworks based on how much and to what degree they
utilize distinctly human qualities.
He gives the example of comparing Mozart to elevator music (presum-
ably meaning easy-listening instrumentals with simple and unobtrusively
looped melodies). A Mozart composition is aesthetically superior, Friedman
claims, because it uses more and better-refined human capacities, including

reason, intellect, imagination, discipline, education and talent. It demands
deeper understanding and appreciation from both the composer/performer(s)
and the listener. It requires more of our humanity, and is thus more beautiful.
The obvious flaw in this comparison is a confusion of kind: it is improper
to apply the same criteria or expectations to two selections from disparate
musical spheres. Mozart should be compared to other composers of the Clas-
sical period, just as bluegrass should be judged against other bluegrass and
yodeling against other yodeling. (It also follows that all elevator music should
not be lumped together—some elevator music exhibits more and fuller
human qualities.) Nevertheless, Friedman’s proposal—the measurement of
beauty by degrees—is consistent with the broader thrust of humanism, which
celebrates the exploration of human potential as the highest goal one can
strive for. In art or anything else, the more of our potential we use and the
further we push ourselves toward that end, the more worthy the outcome.
The Musician’s Burden
“Maybe due to my involvement in it, I feel I have to either listen intently

or tune it out.”10 This statement by Talking Heads front man David Byrne
speaks for many who make a living in the musical arts. It is an expression of
the professional’s burden: an inability to subdue the analytical impulse when
confronted with the subject of expertise. Total immersion in a craft or line of
work—be it music, medicine, gardening, or child rearing—makes casual expe-
riences in that area hard to achieve. The more time and energy one spends in
a field, the less that field invites frolicking. For the musician, this leaves the
two polar options Byrne suggests: conscious listening—which invariably
involves critical assessment—or conscious distancing—which, in his words,
makes music “an annoying sonic layer that just adds to the background noise.”
This might seem counterintuitive. Musicians are obviously music lovers,
and their profession is largely a pursuit of that love. But theirs is usually a
refined affection rather than a wild passion. As skills are honed and knowl-
edge sharpened, so are opinions deepened and judgments polished. Nuances
of performance and details of construction are ever apparent to the learned
listener; it is difficult to readjust the ear for “just” listening. True, such a state
is more easily attained when listening to music of a type or culture other than
one’s own. Yet, because the brain still recognizes those foreign sounds as
music, it may instinctively launch into assessment mode, whether or not it
is justified in doing so.
This is not to diminish the value of music appreciation courses and other
programs of cultural enrichment. The premise of such enterprises is undoubt-
edly valid, namely, that listening is enhanced through greater understanding
of musical styles, materials, and techniques. However, a line tends to be
crossed when avocation becomes vocation, when amateur infatuation
becomes professional discipline. Enjoyment is no longer the primary goal or
foremost outcome. Music—all music—becomes work.
Of course, this condition is not universal. Some musicians have more
success than others dividing musical labor from musical play. A rare and
enviable few can even derive endless pleasure from listening. But most are
more selective and methodical in picking their musical spots. Again quoting
Byrne: “I listen to music at very specific times. When I go to hear it live, most
obviously. When I’m cooking or doing the dishes I put on music, and some-
times other people are present. When I’m jogging or cycling to and from
work down New York’s West Side bike path, or if I’m in a rented car on the
rare occasions I have to drive somewhere, I listen alone. And when I’m writing
and recording music, I listen to what I’m working on. But that’s it.” 11
Notes
1. Sun Tzu, The Art of War, trans. Lionel Giles (Radford, VA: Wilder, 2008), 15.
2. Ibid.
3. “How Many Melodies Are There in the Universe?” Everything2, <http://
everything2.com/title/How+many+melodies+are+there+in+the+universe percent253F>
4. Nina Simone, Live at Ronnie Scott’s, DVD (MVD Music Video).
5. Martin Luther, quoted in Heiko Augustinus Oberman, Luther: Man Between God
and the Devil (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), 310.
6. Laura J. Richards, Music as an Asset to Spirituality [1928] (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger,
2011).
7. Ibid., 51.
8. William Sharlin, “The ‘Artist’ and the Sacred,” undated/unpublished lecture.
9. Daniel Friedman, “Art and Nature: Beauty and Spirituality,” in Secular Spirituality:
Passionate Journey to a Rational Judaism, ed. M. Bonnie Cousens (Farmington Hills,
MI: Milan, 2003), 101–108.
10. Byrne, How Music Works, 136.
11. Ibid.

Berkowitz, Aaron. The Improvising Mind: Cognition and Creativity in the Musical Mo-
ment. New york: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Blanning, T. C. W. The Triumph of Music: The Rise of Composers, Musicians and Their
Art. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008.
Boardman, Eunice, ed. Dimensions of Musical Thinking. New York: Rowman and Lit-
tlefield, 1989.
Clarke, Eric, Nicola Dibben, and Stephanie Pitts. Music and Mind in Everyday Life. New
Howard, Vernon Alfred. Charm and Speed: Virtuosity in the Performing Arts. New York:
Peter Lang, 2008.
Klickstein, Gerald. The Musician’s Way: A Guide to Practice, Performance, and Wellness.
Lehmann, Andreas C., John A. Sloboda, and Robert H. Woody. Psychology for Musicians:
Understanding and Acquiring the Skills. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
McAllister, Lesley Sisterhen. The Balanced Musician: Integrating Mind and Body for Peak
Performance. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2012.
Rothko, Mark. The Artist’s Reality: Philosophies of Art. New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 2006.
Wade, Bonnie C. Thinking Musically: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2013.
15
Mind
Musicians are not the only active participants in the musical experience.
Much of the process falls on the ears that receive the sounds and the minds
that interpret them. True, composers and performers often imbue their music
with certain meanings, but their intentions do not always determine how the
music will be understood. This chapter investigates the role of perception in
creating musical meaning. This includes the “inside information” contained
in group-specific melodies, the memories and associations housed in music
of personal importance, the role of the auditor in completing the formation
of music, the listener’s ability (or inability) to separate the artist from his or
her art, and the fluidity and malleability of musical essence.
Economy of Notes
Jean-Paul Sartre posed the following scenario: Imagine listening to a

raw recording of everyday conversations transpiring in a foreign time and
place. They begin mid-sentence, jump organically from topic to topic and
come with no guidelines or commentary.1 Even if we could understand the
language, much of the substance of the dialogue would be lost. The words
would be laden with subtleties, references and turns of phrase natural to the
speakers’ environment and experiences, but alien to our own. Context would
be a matter of conjecture, as people generally avoid dwelling on the details
of their surroundings or the larger conditions in which their discussions are
taking place. Extraneous and unnecessary information is left out without
conscious consideration. The actors simply know who they are, where they
are and what they’re talking about. They intuitively favor an economy of lan-
guage.
Sartre saw a parallel between such conversations and literature written
in and about a given culture. Native readers do not require lengthy descrip-
tions, meticulous word-pictures or fleshed-out narratives. As Sartre wrote:
125
“[P]eople of a same period and collectivity, who have lived through the same
events, who have raised or avoided the same questions, have the same taste
in their mouth; they have the same complicity, and there are the same corpses
among them. That is why it is not necessary to write so much; there are key-
words.”2 But when their stories and ideas are told to an outside audience,
many pages are needed to introduce history, outline customs, explain prej-
udices, chronicle social tensions, describe economic conditions and so on.
Something similar occurs in music. Like the direct language of everyday
speech and the concision of certain time- and space-specific writings, music
is able to communicate an abundance of information with minimal material.
A brief melodic sequence, stylistic signature or pithy phrase can capture the
ethos of the group or subgroup from which the music sprang and to which
it is addressed. Its sound—and, in the case of song, its subject matter—encap-
sulates collective experiences, consolidates common concerns, addresses
ubiquitous feelings, accentuates shared fondnesses and enfolds many layers
of cultural expression.
Group-defining music is like a time capsule, gathering together tastes,
struggles, longings, tendencies, aspirations and other particulars. Take the
American baby boomer who nods knowingly to a Bob Dylan record, or the
Yoruba of West Africa who understand the messages and milieu of their talk-
ing drums. Each time the music is played, its contents are spilled out. The
insider knows precisely what it means; she is overtaken by a flood of familiar
associations. For that person and others of her background and heritage, the
music is an instant and unmistakable identity marker. It is history, memory,
emotion, spirit, essence and conviction rolled into a sonic container.
This is partly why we are attracted to the music that attracts us: it is our
music in a deep sense of the term. But it also accounts for why outsiders
often have difficulty relating to or fully appreciating the music of others. For
those who lived the stories and know the references, the music is a constant
source of meaning and identification. Yet those unfamiliar with the music
and its context can find it dated, irrelevant, uninteresting, unimportant, unap-
proachable or worse. And when an outsider desires to learn what the music
recalls and represents, he needs the sort of informational and analytical
framework insiders happily do without.
Listening to Ourselves
Linguist Dwight L. Bolinger included this observation in his classic
book, The Symbolism of Music: “Repetition, or return to the familiar, to the
15. Mind 127
learned, is more striking in music than elsewhere—a very good book may be
read twice, a masterpiece of literature three or four times, a poem a dozen
times; but in no other art-form could we expect the literally hundreds of rep-
etitions to go on pleasing us.”3 Three things are especially striking about this
statement. First is that it came from a professor of Romance languages—a
man whose passion for linguistic form, function and meaning far surpassed
the norm. Despite his personal and professional proclivities, Bolinger
acknowledged the superiority of music in the crucial area of pleasure-making.
Second, the type of music he refers to is the “favorite”: a song or piece that a
person elevates above others and has a special attachment to. Third, Bolinger
alludes to the essential contribution of musical favorites to the human expe-
rience. Favorites are valuable to us precisely because they are a reliable and
potentially boundless source of satisfaction.
It seems a human instinct to isolate, accumulate and curate a personal
pantheon of greatest hits. The content of these customized collections is
informed by interwoven forces, such as cultural conditioning, personality
type, life experience, peer group, social station, education, exposure and her-
itage. Virtually everyone gravitates toward and snatches up favorites that
(almost) never grow dull and often become more fulfilling with the passage
of time. Counter to rational expectation and contrary to our relationship
with literary works, musical favorites are heard (or performed) on countless
occasions without the decrease in interest normally associated with repeti-
tion.
What accounts for this persistent gratification? The answer boils down
to a simple proposition: when we listen to our favorites we are listening to
ourselves. To understand this, it is best to think of music extra-musically—
that is, in terms of what it does and stands for. Although certain and varied
musical qualities make a piece attractive to certain and varied people, it is
mainly what the music connotes that will make it a favorite.
Familiar music is a storehouse of personal information. It brings us into
instant and powerful contact with emotional memories, nostalgic feelings,
significant events, past and present relationships, group affiliations, intellec-
tual leanings and other vivid reminders of who we are. To use an analogy
from the computer age, musical favorites are data storage devices. They are
a repository of cognitive and sentimental associations that flash into con-
sciousness each time we hear them. They are, in short, externalized portals
to our inner selves. And since identity and meaning derive largely from the
data housed in this music, its repetition is a kind of self-reinforcement.
Among other things, this discussion helps us understand the affinity for
recurring prayer-songs in worship services. Few ritual changes stir as much
controversy as the introduction of new melodies. Musical innovations in

church and synagogue have long encountered fervent objections from the
people in the pews. This is conventionally attributed to factors like the reli-
gious impulse for preservation, the comfort of routine and the perceived holi-
ness of long-established tunes. These are certainly important forces. However,
if we apply the above analysis to the worship setting, we begin to appreciate
that replacing cherished melodies with unfamiliar settings is, for many peo-
ple, tantamount to an identity crisis. For this reason in particular, it must be
handled with care.
The Role of the Listener
In The Role of the Reader, Umberto Eco carefully elucidates “the coop-
erative role of the addressee in interpreting messages.”4 When processing a
text, the reader derives meaning(s) based on his or her linguistic and cultural
competencies. Eco explains that the text itself is never a finished or enclosed
product. Its essence is incomplete until it meets the readers’ eyes. And each
time it does so, it assumes a new and person-specific character.
This observation fits into Eco’s wider theory of interpretative semiotics,
in which words and other signs do not disclose a full range of meaning, but
invite readers to construct signification from them. As Eco writes elsewhere,
“Every text, after all, is a lazy machine asking the reader to do some of its
work. What a problem it would be if a text were to say everything the receiver
is to understand—it would never end.”5 Among the types of signs open to
individualized interpretation are natural languages, secret codes, formalized
languages, aesthetic codes, olfactory signs, cultural codes, tactile communi-
cation and visual input.
Eco distinguishes these systems from music (or “musical codes”), which
he considers to be resolutely indeterminate. In his view, there is no depth to
the semantic levels produced by musical syntax. A musical line, even when
conventional, reveals no real baseline or essential undercurrent for the inter-
pretive process. Virtually everything we extract from the listening experience
is culturally conditioned and subjectively filtered. To be sure, this issue is less
indicative of song, which is actually a species of text, or “music with a mes-
sage.”
The abstractness of music is evident whenever an instrumental piece is
performed. Take, for example, Vivaldi’s “Spring.” Though it is program-
matic—linked by title to a seasonal theme—its Baroque pleasantries can
inspire an endless slew of associations, even for listeners familiar with the
15. Mind 129
intended subject matter. It can conjure images of horseback riding, a morning

cup of coffee, aristocratic tea parties, falling snowflakes, frolicking dinosaurs,
a tray of cupcakes, a journey to Mars. Along with these representations are
companion feelings, such as relaxation, invigoration, exhilaration and bore-
dom. The possibilities are as numerous as the individuals who hear it. And,
because music is a living and continuously unfolding art, any future listening
can evoke an assortment of different connotations.
The vagaries of music make the listener’s role even more crucial than
that of the reader (or the receiver of other semiotic stimuli). Not only is musi-
cal meaning absent without someone to derive it, but music’s very existence
depends on ears to detect it. Operating in the amorphous medium of sound
and traveling through the invisible element of air, it needs sensory organs to
hear it, bodies to feel it and imaginations to engage it. It has no material form;
it takes shape inside the listener. And it is in that materialization that meaning
is born.
Art Is Not Artist
Biographies and backstories can taint our perception of artistic creations.

The more that is known of the life and views of the artist, the more potentially
challenging it is to embrace the art. Classic examples include the bigoted
composer, the abusive author, the misogynistic painter, the egotistical archi-
tect, the politically opinionated actor. Without providing names, these epi-
thets likely bring specific individuals to mind—a fact that itself shows the
difficulty of separating the art from the artist. Because human minds and
human hands are the imaginative and actualizing forces behind the art, the
artist’s personality is, it would seem, inextricably woven into the work.
It hardly needs mention that the foregoing dilemma is specific to con-
troversial creators. The upright artist is outside of this discussion, as is the
one we know little about. It is also true that the nature and severity of a neg-
ative trait will determine our ability or inability to excuse a less-than-noble
artist. Still, the reality remains: as soon as we learn of something incriminating
or offensive (universally or personally) about an artist, the experience of his
or her art is irreparably influenced.
Although this judgment is natural and perhaps unavoidable, there are
three ways in which it is unfair to both artist and audience. First, like any
human being, the artist is composed of an assortment of qualities, some good,
some bad, some neutral. Artists may differ from “ordinary” people in areas
such as talent, training, creativity and vision, but they have flaws and virtues
like everyone else. Indeed, the inner complexity of the artist is popularly
thought to exceed that of others—a stereotype that should, at the very least,
caution us from reducing the artist to his or her blemishes.
Second, artistic expression is an indicator of higher attributes. That
things of beauty can emerge from someone possessing a despicable quirk is
proof of an internal coexistence of dark and light. It should not be forgotten
that Beethoven, whose compositions are among the outstanding achieve-
ments of Western culture, practiced his craft in a pigsty apartment, replete
with piles of garbage, un-emptied chamber pots, and a stew of foul odors.
These physical conditions were an extension of Beethoven’s psychological
condition; but just as his music transcended the filth in which it was written,
so did it rise above the smudge in his mind.
Third, a work of art is but a stage in a larger process. The creative offer-
ing—whether a piece of music or a building—is made to be perceived. Art
is not fully formed unless and until it enters the consciousness of someone
other than the artist. It has no absolute identity apart from the perceiver’s
interaction with it. Reception is, in a sense, the completion of creation. Our
own personalities—our characteristics, inclinations and experiences—
actively shape what we perceive, thereby nullifying (or mitigating) whatever
trace of the creator’s persona is present in the work.
The key is to preserve our initial response to art, which occurs on a pre-
rational and pre-interpretational level. It is only when the analytical mind
kicks in that gut reactions are obscured by thoughts of the artist and other
reflections. To avoid such second-level impediments, it is helpful to remember
that art is not artist.
Essence and Non-Essence
The absence of essentialism is a recurring motif in postmodern philos-

ophy. In that line of thinking, there are no foundational or inherent charac-
teristics that distinguish one entity, object or idea from another. Whatever
essence or defining substance there appears to be is an illusion shaped in the
mind of the perceiver. Even the concept of human nature comes into question.
Without confidence in our suppositions or in data derived from reason and
observation, there cannot be a stable or set core of human characteristics.
Our personalities become a malleable matrix of personal and socially con-
structed thoughts, perceptions and experiences.
The notion that we are the product of dispositions and circumstances
can be overstated. Physical and elemental properties, scientific laws, genetic
15. Mind 131
encoding and other measurable aspects of the material world inform who we
are and what we know. Still, the practice of critical self-reflection—the “post-
modern pause”—does help us confront tendencies, proclivities and prejudices
we unknowingly possess, and realize the degree to which the beliefs we hold
are grounded in subjective consciousness. Whatever the limits of the postmod-
ern position, it does force us to examine and re-examine our assumptions.
This is particularly valuable for subjects rooted in aesthetics, such as
music. For the strict postmodernist, music has no essence defining its fun-
damental nature. Rather, it exists in boundless varieties, each with culturally
based particularities and expectations.
It is hardly novel to suggest that musical reactions and assessments are
dependent upon the listener’s prior conditioning and exposure. Musical con-
ventions, like a modulation or turn of phrase, arouse generalized emotions
for listeners familiar with those devices. Music tied to a holiday or special
event brings entire communities into shared sentiments connected with that
day. Melodies are often linked to one’s past, stirring feelings and memories
of a particular time, place or relationship.
But these observations can be taken too far. Even without the questioning
voice of postmodernism, it is clear that how we think and feel about music is
largely the product of our composite identities. Yet postmodern claims are
softened by the fact that musical signatures and strains are felt in similar ways
across wide audiences (within a cultural setting). If we concede that musical
appraisal is essentially subjective, then consensus response is a valuable rubric.
Musical conventions, figurations, parameters, conclusions and anticipations
were not forced upon us or dictated from on high. They developed over time
through an organic and collective process of experimentation, consolidation
and familiarization. As such, standard reactions and attitudes toward musical
stimuli are firmer than postmodernists would contend.
No experience, musical or otherwise, is entirely pure or unadulterated.
However, this does not mean that qualities attributed to music are simply
imaginary. Music appreciation occupies a middle ground, in which sounds
are inextricably combined with multi-dimensional experiences. The music’s
essence is both intrinsic and entangled with the listener’s personal history.
The two cannot be separated.
Notes
1. Jean-Paul Sartre, Literature and Existentialism, trans. Bernard Frechtman (New
York: Citadel, 1994), 68.
2. Ibid.
3. Dwight L. Bolinger, The Symbolism of Music (Yellow Springs, OH: Antioch Press,
1941), 27.
4. Umberto Eco, The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts (Bloom-
ington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1979), vii.
5. Umberto Eco, Six Walks in Fictional Woods (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1994), 3.

Aitkin, Hugh. The Piece as a Whole: Studies in Holistic Musical Analysis. Westport, CT:
Greenwood, 1997.
Bolinger, Dwight L. The Symbolism of Music. Yellow Springs, OH: Antioch Press, 1941.
Cumming, Naomi. The Sonic Self: Musical Subjectivity and Signification. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 2000.
Eco, Umberto. The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts. Blooming-
ton, IN: Indiana University Press, 1979.
_____. Six Walks in Fictional Woods. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994.
Hallam, Susan, Ian Cross, and Michael Thaut, eds. Oxford Handbook of Music Psychology.
Hughes, Robert. Nothing If Not Critical: Essays on Art and Artists. New York: Random
House, 2012.
Jones, Mari Reiss, Richard R. Fay, and Arthur Popper, eds. Music Perception. New York:
Springer, 2010.
Lehrer, Keith. Art, Self and Knowledge. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Nussbaum, Charles O. The Musical Representation: Meaning, Ontology, and Emotion.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007.
16
Listening
The previous chapter looked at the part that listeners play in creating
musical meaning. The present chapter focuses on another important piece
of the listening experience: evaluation. Musical judgments arise very
quickly—almost at the speed of instinct. This is because everything a person
hears passes through layers of criteria forged from prior musical exposure.
It is also true that because musical experiences are predominantly emotional,
whatever reaction one has will invariably be subjective and subject to change
with time. Music that clashes with one’s preferences can be highly offensive,
while sounds that resonate can bring immense comfort and satisfaction.
Evaluating Music
Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina begins with a maxim: “Happy families are
all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” 1 By this, Tolstoy
meant that harmony in the home requires a checklist of essential ingredients:
parental authority, child discipline, respectful discourse, mutual support,
political agreement, good humor and so on. The list is long and largely unspo-
ken, but failure in any one respect can upset the family balance. Happiness
is predicated on success in numerous general areas, but unhappiness can
result from varied sources of discord. There is no single-issue explanation
for why one family is dysfunctional and another isn’t, but functional families
are functional for basically the same reasons.
Of course, not all inner-family differences are irreconcilable or severe
enough to produce absolute unhappiness. Gradients of joy can be achieved
without perfection. Few are the marriage and family counselors (or people in
marriages and families) who would side wholeheartedly with Tolstoy’s saying
and all that it implies. Still, there is wisdom in the underlying premise: positive
feelings about anything in life depend on a number of converging factors.
These factors tend to reveal themselves slowly within interpersonal rela-
133
tionships—familial, platonic, passionate and otherwise. It takes time to ana-

lyze our compatibility with another human being; the complexity of each
person necessitates a thorough evaluation. The process is usually quicker in
relationships with other things, such as food and recreation. In those cases,
we rely on our senses for instant verdicts. But the rapidness with which these
decisions are made does not mean they are casual or unrefined.
For example, musical judgments are usually formed within ten seconds
of listening. That is all the time we need to assess whether or not we like
what we hear. Our conclusion comes with such speed and certainty that it
might seem arbitrary or unreflective. However, many categories of appraisal
are present in the moment of listening. It is just that they are triggered auto-
matically and are most often unconscious.
Without realizing it, we make musical decisions based on styles and gen-
res, hooks and phrases, colors and moods, vocals and instruments, perform-
ance technique, recording quality and other features. The music needs to
satisfy each area in order to be liked. As with Tolstoy’s observation about
family health, music that fails in just one way may cause disapproval. A lyric
or guitar lick can spoil our relationship with the music.
This is not to say that musical judgment is always reflexive or cannot
change over time. Elmer Bernstein argued this point with a crude analogy:
“A piece of music is an art work, and to try to judge it by ‘instinct’ in four
seconds has about as much validity as trying to evaluate the worth of a woman
by the size of her bust.”2 Yet, even when the period of appraisal extends beyond
a few seconds, music that is embraced must meet an assortment of usually
unarticulated and always-personal requirements.
Subjective Sounds
Music is widely considered the most emotional of the arts. While other
art forms may awaken ideas and images that act upon the feelings, music’s
first and most lasting impact is emotional. This is true when music aims at
particular sentiments, and when it provides no definite clues as to an intended
response. We are vulnerable to sounds that enter our awareness. They can
deliver us to emotional states bearing no resemblance to our prior feelings.
The speed with this occurs can make the emotions difficult to decode or
articulate. Whether we are moved slightly or profoundly, music tends to
inspire an immediate change (or changes) in mood. And since all this takes
place in the private interior realm, the experience evades critical analysis.
As a predominantly emotional enterprise, music is saddled with the
same term given to the emotions themselves: subjectivity. In music as else-
16. Listening 135
where, this label is used in both a positive and negative sense. On the one
hand, feelings derived from and felt toward music are biased—a uniformly
ugly term. On the other hand, musical reactions and opinions are part of
what makes us autonomous beings—a high and holy concept.
Musical bias is an inevitable byproduct of the listening experience. Each
person filters auditory input through a singular and entangled web of per-
ception and cognition. The type and magnitude of the elicited response rest
on a host of conscious and unconscious forces, like personal history, cultural
heritage, group affiliation, generational membership, general temperament
and momentary frame of mind. As a result, reactions to music are not timeless
or objective in the way that thoughts can be, but are embedded in a person’s
peculiar and non-replicable point of view. Judgments about music are, then,
necessarily distorted: in whole or in large part, they involve feelings expressed
as facts. These biases come to the surface in heated exchanges between fans
of different artists, and when lists of the “best” composers/compositions/per-
formers/songs are assembled and reacted to.
However, factors that contribute to bias become admirable when viewed
from a different perspective. This is because musical opinions, when not at
the center of contentious debates, reside in the sacred realm of self-
knowledge. Tastes comprise an area of “me-ness”: they are distinctive to the
individual and their subjectivity needs no apology. Their basis in emotions
shields them against rational and quantitative challenges. They retain per-
sonal validity no matter what anyone else says.
Musical preferences cannot be divorced from emotional responses. The
former is essentially an expression of the latter. Even when we judge a piece
using theoretical analysis or culturally accepted standards, our personal feel-
ings play a determining role. We may decide that a piece or performance is
“good” (problematic as that is), but we still might not like it. (It is also true
that theoretical measurements and cultural assumptions are, at core, attempts
to quantify emotional responses.)
Musical experiences are thoroughly subjective, with all the positive and
negative meanings the term implies. Like the feelings music evokes, musical
preferences are unabashedly our own.
Moved from Within

Force in music is usually understood metaphorically. Unlike the physical
motion of water or wind, which can move objects between two points, musical
force symbolically transports the hearer from one mental state to another.
The sound’s causal effect is akin to psychological manipulation: the listener
is pushed and pulled into a particular mood. The sensation is commonly

described as being “swayed,” “bowled over,” “carried along” and “taken away.“
The potency of such metaphorical movement is attested in diverse musical
situations, including therapy, religious devotion, classical performances,
patriotic displays and lullabies. In these settings, the listener is moved without
actually moving.
Musical force can, however, manifest in another way. We detect move-
ment in music partly because we experience it as a living organism, with
coursing blood and appendages gesturing in various directions. As described
above, this animation is often seen in the mind’s eye and affects our psycho-
logical state. But it can also occur within our bodies.
According to Gary Ansdell, a research associate at the Nordoff-Robbins
Music Therapy Centre in London, motion in music is more than just a mental
inference or psychological response.3 Music can stimulate a person’s spirit or
will, which then animates the body. Although music originates outside of the
person, its mechanism differs from other exterior agents. For instance, when
someone’s leg is bent by an apparatus or machine, the action takes place out-
side the person and is not necessarily reflective of his or her wishes. The leg
is acted upon as if it were an inanimate object. But when music compels the
leg to move, the activity is generated from within. As Ansdell explains it,
music communicates directly with the will, resulting in movement that is
externally triggered yet internally generated.
Music therapists utilize this force to good effect. Many physical impair-
ments can be overcome, circumvented or remediated through musical stim-
ulation. The force of the music is such that it activates physical movement
that is, under ordinary conditions, enormously difficult. The body translates
the living essence of musical sound into fluid motion. This effect has been
documented among patients with varying degrees of emotional constrictions,
motoric impediments and physical damage.
In therapeutic settings and elsewhere, music motivates physical move-
ment in three basic stages. First, the listener interacts with the sound, per-
ceiving in it some type of motion (fast, slow, steady, disjointed, etc.). Second,
the body aligns itself with the music’s tempo and direction. Third, the body
enacts the path of motion. Through this process, music becomes a vectoring
force that literally moves us.
Taste Matters
Value in music is of two kinds. The first is formal, or value in the tech-
nical sense of the term. Within a musical system, there are agreed upon and
16. Listening 137
objectively verifiable measurements for calculating elements such as tonality,

texture, dynamics, temporal properties and structure. For example, theoret-
ical analysis of Western concert repertoire includes specific names for chord
types, normative concepts of articulation, parameters for simple and complex
compositions, qualifications for themes and variations, and numerous other
mechanical and quasi-mechanical computations.
The second kind of value is not so absolute. It is value in the humanistic
sense, or the judgment of aesthetic qualities based on sensuous response.
This is qualitative worth, in which subjective ideas like beauty, purpose, pleas-
antness, truth and goodness are applied to music. Such value exists on a con-
tinuum. An audience’s impression of a piece can range from strong affinity
to staunch dislike, with shades of nuance in between. These varied reactions
are common despite attempts to standardize conceptions of excellence.
Mozart is supposed to be received as beauty nearing perfection, even if a per-
son does not resonate with it, while elevator music is supposed to be repug-
nant, even if one aimlessly rides up and down the shaft just to hear it.
True, one can never fully escape the musical pre-judgments that pervade
a culture. Through cultural membership, we are involuntarily exposed to a
set of consensus-driven artistic rules and expectations. Yet, on an individual
level, there can be varying degrees of agreement and disagreement. This is
because aesthetics are not inherent in the piece or in the mind of the listener.
They arise from a transaction between the two.
Aesthetic valuation occurs in three successive stages: perception, state-
ment of position, and reason for judgment. In a typical scenario, a listener
hears a song, pronounces that it is boring, and explains that it lacks motion
and variation. Another person might hear the same song and find it soothing
for the same reasons. As a general rule, any piece is capable of attracting fans,
no matter how vehement or widespread the opposition. The opposite goes
for pieces widely regarded as good or pleasing: they still have their detrac-
tors.
Thus, the question follows: Is there any right or wrong way to feel about
music? Critics and aestheticians would argue that there is. They point to the
role of norms in determining things like attractiveness, balance and symme-
try. By these guidelines, a selection can be certified as great, good, mediocre,
bad, etc. An exception is made for works outside of one’s purview, namely
music of a foreign culture or subculture. For instance, the average American
cannot accurately assess a gamelan performance, nor can a Baroque enthu-
siast give definitive appraisals of gansta rap. But critics object when similar
leeway is given for music produced in one’s own cultural setting.
Conclusions drawn by critics and aestheticians are often well reasoned
and sometimes thought provoking. But they can also be overly academic and
remote from the actual musical encounter. As much as they strive to distance
music from arbitrary evaluations, the act of listening is by nature arbitrary.
While music has absolute value in terms of its measurable components, the
sensuous value we ascribe to it is the result of intimate contact. Norms and
inherited assumptions can and do inform our decision-making, but the final
judgment remains our own. Music is a matter of taste, and taste matters.
Comfort Music
Contact with the new and returning to the familiar are common occur-
rences among listeners of music. During the course of an average day and
through the duration of an average life, a person is exposed to countless doses
of music. Music is all around: on television, online, on the radio, on cell-
phones, in the grocery store, in children’s mouths, in our own heads. Previ-
ously unheard material is always within access, whether it comes to us
through active consumption or passive reception. And, because music is such
a longstanding and boundlessly varied form of expression, no pair of ears
will ever hear it all.
There is some attraction in music’s apparent infiniteness. The appetite
for the exotic, which exists in most people to a greater or lesser degree, can
always feed upon new musical flavors. Yet, while much is gained from nib-
bling on diverse sounds, listeners eventually return to playlists of a much
smaller size and scope. These individualized compilations are as distinct as
the people who treasure them, and include selections of personal significance.
The pleasure and assurance derived from such music is immediate, reliable
and profound. It is audible comfort food.
Furthering the culinary analogy, the pull of familiar music has been
likened to a hungry American traveling abroad. Native eateries have a certain
appeal, offering unusual recipes and a doorway into local folkways. But for
many tourists, restaurants serving familiar dishes are even more alluring.
When navigating strange surroundings, the taste of home can simulate a
sense of stability. A McDonald’s hamburger helps to “normalize” cities as dis-
parate and anxiety-inducing as Paris and Hong Kong.
The same occurs each time a person hears well-liked music. Recogniz-
able sound patterns mitigate the complexities and uncertainties of existence.
Of course, personal preference is the determining factor regulating which
sounds bring this relief. But the effect is rooted much deeper than taste.
Researchers observe that when foreign noises are introduced into a wild
16. Listening 139
biome, animals exhibit restlessness and other signs of distress. Once natural
sounds are restored to purity, the reactions fade away.4 In a similar and sim-
ilarly basic way, the music we cherish provides an antidote to unwelcome
noises, both literal and metaphorical. Having a special attachment to certain
sounds is less about stubbornness or a fear of change, and more about seeking
refuge from the clutter and stress that confront us daily. Our curiosity appre-
ciates the exotic, but our nerves rely on the familiar.
Notes
1. Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina [1877] (New York: Dover, 2004), 1.
2. Elmer Bernstein, Film Music Notebook, Winter 1974–75, quoted in Nat Shapiro,
An Encyclopedia of Quotations About Music (New York: Da Capo, 1978), 124.
3. See Rachel Verney and Gary Andsell, Conversations on Nordoff-Robbins Music
Therapy (Gilsum, NH: Barcelona, 2010).
4. Krause, The Great Animal Orchestra, 188.

Bruscia, Kenneth E. Defining Music Therapy. Gilsum, NH: Barcelona, 1998.
Bunt, Leslie. Music Therapy: An Art Beyond Words. New York: Taylor and Francis, 2004.
Dickie, George. The Century of Taste: The Philosophical Odyssey of Taste in the Eighteenth
Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Dolan, Raymond J., and Tali Sharot, eds. Neuroscience of Preference and Choice: Cognitive
and Neural Mechanisms. San Diego, CA: Academic, 2012.
Meyer, Leonard B. Style and Music: Theory, History, and Ideology. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1989.
Pellitteri, John. Emotional Processes in Music Therapy. Gilsum, NH: Barcelona, 2009.
Pitts, Stephanie. Chances and Choices: Exploring the Impact of Music Education. New
Rudd, Even. Music Therapy: A Perspective from the Humanities. Gilsum, NH: Barcelona,
2010.
Volpe, Galvano Della. Critique of Taste. New York: Verso, 1991.
Weber, William. The Great Transformation of Musical Taste: Concert Programming from
Haydn to Brahms. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
17
Ownership
The musical experience is autobiographical. Not only does the musician

expose his or her innermost self to the listener, but the listener also filters
the music through his or her own being. Every musical creation can be viewed
as a record of personal influences, ideas, aptitudes, predilections, cultural
location, and more. These same factors account for why a listener gravitates
toward or steers away from a particular musical selection or style. At the
same time, critics and academics can have significant influence when it comes
to identifying “great” music. But, regardless of what others tell us, the music
that occupies the most cherished individual space is that music in which we
hear ourselves.
Self-Sounds
“I think therefore I am.” This phrase has been repeated in countless writ-
ings, courses, discourses and ruminations since they first appeared in René
Descartes’ Discourse on Method.1 Much of Western philosophy sides with
this Cartesian principle, which argues that the act of thinking is the only
certain proof that a thinker exists. While specific thoughts can (and should)
be doubted if there is reason to do so, the fact that someone is thinking
those thoughts cannot be challenged. It is the only thing one can be certain
of.
Whether or not one agrees completely with this reductionist approach
or accepts the mind-body dualism it rests upon, it does give due consideration
to the connection between thought and identity. Ideas about the external
world are born from the internal processes of perception, pondering and
projection, which are necessarily subjective and usually malleable. One’s
notions about the world create the world for that person. The same goes for
how one perceives oneself in the world, both in terms of self-image and the
role that one plays. Thus, we might extend the aphorism “I think therefore I
140
17. Ownership 141
am” to include “What I think is who I am” (acknowledging that the first state-
ment is objective and the second is subjective).
It is possible, then, to understand all works of the mind as autobiograph-
ical. Essays, equations, illustrations, engravings, enquiries and inscriptions
need not tell an oral history or communicate a narrative to divulge details of
the author’s experience. The particular thoughts one thinks and the way those
thoughts are expressed are, in a basic sense, who that person is. The creation
defines the creator.
To be sure, each person who encounters the final product will interpret
(or recreate) it all over again. Even the maker him or herself will appreciate
it differently with each exposure. But regardless if the work is artistic, utili-
tarian or somewhere in between, it reveals the person’s mind, and is thus the
most that can be known of who that person is.
Music provides an illustration. Traces of influence, flashes of inspiration,
flights of ingenuity, records of experience, translations of feelings, indications
of aptitudes, attestations of predilections are all stored in the sounds and
silences, rhythms and phrasings, harmonies and dynamics, articulations and
voicings of a piece. It is the activity of the mind made audible. It is the self
made audible.
Music is also autobiographical in that it captures a moment in time. It
is a snapshot of a creative and reflective instance in one’s always-changing
existence. The sounds capture the nuances of the moment. They stem from
a mind in constant shift. Music written at any other time would be different.
Each piece is like a page in a diary.
Granted, the language of music can be abstract. It may contain the
essence of the composer, but that essence is not always clear or universally
understood (or understood the same way each time it is heard). This, too, is
representative of the mind- located identity. Like all thoughts, musical
thoughts are elusive and temporary. Yet they do not have to be definite or
straightforward to be evidence of the thinker’s realness or constitutive of the
thinker’s identity. To think up music is to exist; the music that is thought up
is who the composer is.
Music Good and Bad
The God of Baruch Spinoza is not a personal or independent creator of

the universe, but the universe itself. The deity, whom Spinoza called “God
or nature,” is the ultimate cause of all things because all things follow causally
and necessarily from the divine essence. There is a definite order in the uni-
verse, and everything operates according to that structure. In this determin-

istic system, where the whole of nature proceeds “eternally from a certain
necessity and with the utmost perfection,” “bad” and “good” are illusory cat-
egories relative to human experience, and free will (as commonly conceived)
is but a figment of human consciousness.2 We are not free to do what we
want: every action is conditioned by circumstances preceding it, those cir-
cumstances are determined by causes preceding them, and on and on. Things
can only turn out one way: the way they do. As such, the appearance of right-
ness or absurdity, justice or unfairness in nature stems from our ignorance
of the coherence of the universe and our demand that everything be arranged
in accordance with human reason.
Arguing the merits and demerits of this concept is a favorite sport among
philosophers. In some ways, Spinoza’s ideas seem as radical today as when
they led to his expulsion from Amsterdam’s Jewish community in 1656. What
is intriguing from a musical standpoint is an analogy he used to challenge
conventional wisdom on morality: “As for the terms good and bad, they indi-
cate no positive quality in things regarded in themselves but are merely modes
of thinking, or notions which we form from the comparison of things one
with another. Thus one and the same thing can be at the same time good,
bad and indifferent. For instance, music is good for him that is melancholy,
bad for him that mourns; for him that is deaf, it is neither good nor bad.” 3
As controversial as this evaluation may be, the comment on music
deserves our consideration. There have been many attempts to devise stan-
dards and categories of good and bad music. Famously, sociomusicologist
Simon Frith proposed four signifiers of bad pop recordings: tracks that rely
on false sentiment; tracks featuring outmoded sound gimmicks; tracks
displaying uneasy genre confusion; and tracks incompetently performed
or produced.4 Yet, aside from perhaps the last part, these are essentially mat-
ters of taste. To use a well-worn aphorism, “one man’s trash is another man’s
treasure.” Similar issues of preference and bias—which, we might add, are
deterministically conditioned by circumstances like exposure and environ-
ment—cloud attempts to separate the trash from the treasure of any musical
genre. Objective measurements simply do not (and cannot) exist.
Spinoza goes a step further in identifying the murkiness and subjectivity
of musical judgment. Namely, he recognizes utility as a determining factor.
Certain music may be appropriate or inappropriate for certain people in cer-
tain states at certain times. (Hence, the examples of the depressed person,
the mourner and the person unable to hear.) It follows, then, that the per-
ceived goodness or badness of a piece derives from two qualities: personal
taste and situational function.
17. Ownership 143
Spinoza sums up this non-absolutist, contextual approach thus: “By good

I mean that which we certainly know to be useful to us.” If the music is “good,”
it is because we like it and because we find it suitable for a particular situation.
“Bad” music fails on both accounts. It is also true that one’s opinion of a piece
may shift from good to bad or vice versa depending on changes in aesthetic
leanings and the contexts in which the music is heard. As Spinoza might say,
the conditions, causes and effects leading up to the listening experience deter-
mine whether the music is heard as good or bad (or indifferent).
Judge for Yourself
“I don’t believe any of you have ever read Paradise Lost, and you don’t
want to. That’s something that you just want to take on trust. It’s a classic …
something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.”5
Mark Twain included this remark in a speech given at the Nineteenth Century
Club in New York on November 20, 1900. His intent was not to shame modern
readers for being disinterested in Milton’s retelling of Adam and Eve—an
epic that expands excessively on the size and scope and simple text of the
original. Instead, he meant to illustrate how fashion in literature changes with
the times. Paradise Lost and other hard-to-digest relics are known more by
name than by content, and remain on lists of classics because the experts
make it so, not because the public demands it.
The further removed we are from the time and culture that produces a
so-called classic, the less we rely on our own opinions and the more we go by
scholarly consensus. If we were to read Paradise Lost, we might enjoy it or we
might not; we might be enthralled or we might wonder what all the fuss is
about. But its status is predetermined, and our view of it is irreversibly tainted.
It is great whether we like it or not, and we tend to blame ourselves—not the
book—if it fails to capture our interest. For that reason, it is often safer to
trust a work’s pre-established classic-ness than to delve into it oneself.
Literary canons do, of course, serve practical purposes. If they did not
exist, works like Paradise Lost would meet the same fate as “lesser” contri-
butions of their day: extinction. Isolating a few works as “great” also helps
keep track of history, since many more words are published than can be
remembered or preserved. Furthermore, pantheons of greatness—whatever
criteria they use—are valuable cultural inventories, cataloging how tastes and
trends alter over time. These pragmatic considerations aside, there is some-
thing odd about accepting works as classics (or anything else) without actually
experiencing them.
Art is made to be experienced. Whether it takes the form of literature,

painting, music, theater, food, architecture or something else, art is not just
the self-expression of its creator or even the creation itself. It also includes
all that occurs when a person sees, touches, smells, tastes or hears it. In this
sense, art is not complete (or even really art) unless and until it is interacted
with.
In the moment of interaction, the work goes through a multilayered
process of impulsive evaluation, informed by the experiencer’s background,
education, affiliation, disposition, etc. This is how we decide if we like it, hate
it, or feel something in between. And whatever we feel is open to debate with
others and subject to revision within ourselves.
Getting back to Twain’s point, an artwork is most alive when it is fash-
ionable (meaning current). Reactions are freely felt, opinions are freely
expressed, pluses and minuses are freely discussed. By the time the experts
give their appraisals, it is almost too late for us to have a pure response. This
is especially so when the art in question is decades or centuries old. But the
process is even skewed when critics review recent albums, movies, gallery
shows and the like. The work is handed to us with a label, which we either
accept or weigh against our feelings. But at least we have our own experience
to draw from.
Music of Mine
The complaint is heard in every age, “How can anyone listen to that
awful music?” The bewilderment is usually generational: the older generation
cannot relate to the music of the youth, and the younger generation cannot
tolerate the music of their elders. When the youngsters become parents them-
selves, their objections will mirror those that were once directed at them,
and they will face the same opposition they exerted in their earlier years. The
drama is repeated whenever two or more generations coexist on the planet.
That is to say, it happens all the time.
The disagreement can be framed as rebellion and counter-rebellion.
Adolescents push away from their parents, attach themselves to their peers,
and assert their youthfulness through music of their own choosing. Mean-
while, the parents become more aggressive in their listening habits, turning
their music louder to ensure that their offspring hear it (especially in closed
confines like an automobile). Of course, this scenario is not an absolute given.
Some families manage to exist in reasonable musical harmony. But disagree-
ment is the norm.
17. Ownership 145
Why is this so? Part of it has to do with the general dynamics of the
parent-child relationship. However, there is a deeper reason. Neuroscientist
Daniel J. Levitin explains that musical preferences are essentially fixed by age
fourteen, setting the stage for a lifetime of stubborn listening.6
Adolescence is a period of tremendous physical and emotional change,
and pubertal growth hormones coursing through the body make every expe-
rience seem important. This perceived importance does not fade away as we
get older, but stays with us in the sanctified form of nostalgia. Musical expe-
riences have a particularly lasting effect, mainly because adolescents are drawn
to music as a source of comfort, guidance and identity-formation. And though
our tastes can fluctuate as our attitudes shift and we encounter different
sounds, the music we liked at age fourteen is favored throughout our lives.
This leads to unavoidable conflict. Whatever music one grew up with is
cherished above the music of previous and subsequent eras. As a result, the
preferences of youths and adults are never in alignment, no matter who occu-
pies the role of child or adult at a given moment.
A manifestation of this can be seen in houses of worship, where melody
choice is an especially heated topic. In that sacred environment, the term
“traditional” is often affixed to the music of one’s upbringing. Prayer settings
heard or sung around age fourteen are judged to be correct and definitive—
not necessarily because of any musical qualities, but because they are part of
the soundtrack of that impressionable period. What tends to be forgotten is
that those beloved melodies—however well established—were themselves
once offensive to an older generation, just as the prayer-songs of today’s youth
disturb the ears of many elders.
What seems to be lacking here is empathy. Musical taste is shaped around
the same time in everybody’s life. However, because that time is relative to
the year a person was born, the sounds adopted differ from those embraced
by older and younger people (and those of the same age in different parts of
the world). Thus, while we might not like or understand the music others
hold dear, we can at least relate to the fondness they have for it.
Notes
1. René Descartes, Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, part IV
(1637).
2. Baruch Spinoza, The Ethics, part I., p. 32 (1677).
3. Ibid., part IV., p. 189
4. Simon Frith, “What Is Bad Music?” [2004], in Taking Popular Music Seriously: Se-
lected Essays (Burlington, VT: 2007), 313–334.
5. Mark Twain, Mark Twain’s Speeches (New York: Harper, 1910), 194.
6. Daniel J. Levitin, This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession
(New York: Plume, 2007), 231.

Bowie, Andrew. Aesthetics and Subjectivity: From Kant to Nietzsche. Manchester: Man-
chester University Press, 2003.
Connell, John, and Chris Gibson. Sound Tracks: Popular Music, Identity, and Place. New
York: Psychology, 2003.
Crafts, Susan D. My Music: Explorations of Music in Daily Life. Middleton, CT: Wesleyan
Frith, Simon, ed. Music and Identity (Popular Music, vol. 4). New York: Routledge, 2004.
Haas, Karl. Inside Music: How to Understand, Listen To, and Enjoy Good Music. New
York: Anchor, 1991.
Karnes, Kevin. Ethnicity, Identity, and Music: The Musical Construction of Place. New
Katz, Ruth, ed. Contemplating Music: Source Readings in the Aesthetics of Music. New
York: Pendragon, 1987.
Stokes, Martin, ed. Ethnicity, Identity, and Music: The Musical Construction of Place.
New York: Berg, 1994.
Washburne, Christopher, and Maiken Derno, eds. Bad Music: The Music We Love to
Hate. New York: Psychology, 2004.
Wilson, Carl. Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste. New York: Continuum,
2010.
18
Prejudice and Tolerance
Music evokes intense responses, both positive and negative. Music that
is loved is loved very strongly; music that is disliked is hated with a passion.
Yet, even with these staunch opinions, we tend to embrace a wide variety of
music into our personal listening repertoires. This chapter explores the con-
stant tension between prejudice and tolerance in our musical habits. It
exposes the unfortunately common tactic of denigrating the musical tastes
of others in order to elevate one’s own. It concedes that all listeners are ide-
ological in that they know what values they desire in music and have opinions
about what is best for the music culture. It then challenges us to avoid harsh
stances, lest we become musical bigots, and argues that much can be learned
from reflecting on our own musical choices.
Prejudicial Listening
Anglo-Irish author Oliver Goldsmith made a hobby of observing people

in taverns, coffee houses and other public gathering spots. One such occasion
is recorded in his celebrated essay “National Prejudices,” which describes a
boisterous “pseudo-patriot” pontificating on the character of European
nations to a group of like- minded men. He calls the Dutch “avaricious
wretches,” the French “flattering sycophants,” Germans “beastly gluttons,”
Spaniards “surly tyrants.” The speaker has only pleasant things to say of the
English, the people to which he belongs. In his not-so-humble estimation,
they excel all the world in “bravery, generosity, clemency, and in every other
virtue.”1
Not wanting to be dragged into the hysterics, Goldsmith strikes a rumi-
native pose and pretends to think about something else. But the speaker,
betraying the insecurity typical of the assertive dogmatist, insists that he col-
lect everyone’s approval, even Goldsmith’s. After some prodding, Goldsmith
reluctantly drops the observer’s cloak and assumes the role of participant.
147
With calm voice and careful words, he explains that he cannot make broad
statements about any population. He then artfully demonstrates how negative
portrayals can be spun into compliments: the Dutch are “frugal and indus-
trious,” the French “temperate and polite,” Germans “hardy,” Spaniards “staid.”
As for the English, they can just as easily be called “rash, headstrong, and
impetuous.” The essay concludes with a question that gets to the heart of the
matter: “Is it not very possible that I may love my own country, without hating
the natives of other countries?”
Prejudice derived from self-love is something most of us are guilty of.
True, citizens of the contemporary West are, for the most part, less ardently
nationalistic than the inhabitants of eighteenth-century Europe. But the larger
point still resonates. Despite our increasing individualism, rising global
awareness and the triumphs of multiculturalism, we have not outgrown the
false premise that in order to applaud ourselves, we must also put down oth-
ers.
For most of us, this impulse has migrated away from chauvinistic nation-
alism and into other facets of life. Its presence is obvious in historically con-
tentious areas like religion, politics, ethnicity and class. But it also thrives in
less severe, but no less sensitive, areas such as food, automobiles, clothing,
sports, television and music. We are quick to attack the character of a blouse
or sedan that is not our own, and freely exaggerate the virtues of things we
possess or to which we are attracted.
Building up and tearing down are prevalent in musical discussions. It
is not enough to simply enjoy or feel a connection to this song or that per-
former. It must also be better than the rest. No musical creation or creator
can stand alone or be appreciated by itself. Comparisons have to be made. A
recording cannot simply draw us in or escape our interest. It must be awesome
or awful.
This impulse is present among professional critics and regular folks
alike. Peruse any music-related online message board and discover droves of
passionate fans making points and counterpoints, striking and counterstrik-
ing, defending and counter-defending. Jimi Hendrix versus Eric Clapton,
Joni Mitchell versus Nina Simone, Richard Tucker versus Jan Peerce, the Lon-
don Symphony Orchestra versus the Berlin Philharmonic. Bring up two
names and watch the heated exchange unfold. Neither side is willing to con-
cede that its evaluation is clouded in personal ties and tastes, or accept that
there is something for everyone in the vast world of music. If your opinions
clash with mine, yours must be certifiably inferior. And let me count the
ways.
Returning to Goldsmith’s essay, loves and hatreds surrounding nation-
18. Prejudice and Tolerance 149
alism and musical preferences seem to have common roots. In both cases,
feelings are hyper-charged because they are part and parcel of self-identity.
Elevating one’s national affiliation or musical tastes is an act of self-elevation,
as is the companion instinct to degrade the nationality and musical affinities
of others.
It doesn’t take much imagination to see the insecurity underlying these
twin inclinations. The rhetoric intensifies as confidence decreases. If a person
is self-assured and comfortable with his or her place in the world, then there
is less need to boast or put down. What Reinhold Niebuhr wrote about fanatic
religiosity applies to national and musical prejudices as well: “[It] is never
rooted in faith but in doubt; it is when we are not sure that we are doubly
sure.”2
Musical Ideologies
As a label, “ideology” usually assumes a pejorative tone. To have an ide-

ology is to be distorted and stubborn in one’s thinking, intolerant of opposing
points of view, forceful in asserting beliefs, willfully ignorant of contrary evi-
dence. These are the so-called “isms,” which are apparently outgrowths and
concretizations of our brain’s tendency to seek out patterns, embrace simpli-
fied explanations, adopt unifying theories, and welcome worldviews that
mask the complexities of reality. Such systems help us to cope with and (at
least pretend) to understand the world around us.
In truth, most of us hold ideas that could be classified as ideological,
and no amount of defensiveness or lack of self-awareness can change that
fact. Even an aversion to ideologies is itself an ideology. As cultural theorist
Terry Eagleton stated, “As with bad breath, ideology is always what the other
person has.”3 Our relationship with the term might improve if we adopted
the confession of economist Paul Krugman, who, in accepting charges of
being an ideologue, reduced ideology to two simple parts: (a) having values;
(b) having some opinion about how the world works.4
The realm of music is no stranger to ideology. As an astonishingly
diverse and remarkably evocative medium, music begs for simplifying clas-
sifications and generates pointed responses. These conditions lead to the
drawing of (often-untenable) lines between “genres”—groups of pieces that
share enough in common to make them a unit—and the construction of bina-
ries, around which musical ideologies coalesce: authentic vs. inauthentic; hip
vs. old-fashioned; pure vs. impure; ugly vs. beautiful; pristine vs. debased.
Whether or not we smell it on our own breath, our musical preferences
tend to coagulate into musical ideologies, or allegiances to certain musical

values and opinions about how the world of music should or should not work.
The caricature of the classical music snob comes to mind. In his defense, and
in our own, it is near impossible to uphold a completely non-judgmental
stance on things musical. While we might concede philosophically that music
criticism (sophisticated and garden variety alike) is planted in the soil of sub-
jectivity, music’s raison d’être is to move us, making it difficult to stand sto-
ically still.
Personally, while I am convinced that aesthetics is not a science and that
music is a receptacle for non-rational value judgments, I frequently catch
myself turning the radio up in delight or off in disgust. Most of the time,
musical ideology takes this harmless, visceral form. Other times, it gushes
from influential pens and oozes into academic circles, as with Theodor
Adorno’s Marxist critique of popular music.5 On thankfully rare occasions,
musical ideology can have a damaging or even devastating effect, especially
when it is part of a nationalist agenda, as with Hitler’s censorship of Jewish
musicians and Stalin’s crusade against “formalism” (an amorphous concept
that included modernist trends, like dissonance and atonality, and famously
targeted Shostakovich and Prokofiev).
The issue, then, is not about whether we are ideological by nature or
ideologues when it comes to music. As Eagleton and Krugman remind us,
to be human is to be homo ideologicus—creatures driven by ideas, judgments,
viewpoints and firm beliefs. The issue instead is one of degrees. To restate,
ideology has accumulated negative connotations because of its potential for
distasteful manifestations and harmful consequences. Ideology has led (and
will continue to lead) to some terrible things. Plus, most of us fancy ourselves
as open-minded, which is presumed to be the opposite of ideological. (This,
even as we proudly identify as Democrats, Presbyterians, Capitalists, Mystics,
Foodies, Deadheads, and countless other ideologies we prefer not to think
of as ideologies.) All of this can be sorted out with a crude prescription: ide-
ologies are unavoidable—just don’t be a jerk.
Lessons from the Ear

In many circles and in much of contemporary discourse, dogmatism is
held up as a paramount virtue. Consistency of belief, firmness of position
and unwavering opinions, whether of a religious, political or other kind, are
viewed as treasured and noble traits. Conversely, those who exhibit intellec-
tual flexibility and openness to revision are thought untrustworthy or insin-
cere. This attitude persists despite our being the inheritors of millennia of
ideas, our knowledge of the swiftly changing world, and our awareness of the
historical tragedies ideologies have wrought. It seems that no matter how
antiquated or simplistic the mindset—and regardless of the quality or amount
of contrary evidence—steadfastness and cocksureness are judged intrinsically
virtuous.
Allegiance to narrow principles and provincial notions does have its
benefits, not the least of which are a (false) reduction of life’s complexities, a
sense of stability in an unstable world, a solid foundation for self-identity
and a basis for group cohesion—unrealistic and un-nuanced though some
of this may be. But the truly critical mind is never satisfied with this type of
thinking, since it necessarily involves surrendering to inherited assumptions
and accepting conclusions arrived at by a person or persons other than one-
self. More importantly, the supposed nobility of ideological stubbornness
conflicts with another, more compelling, virtue: learning from experience.
Situations, circumstances, observations, readings, reflections, interac-
tions, trial and error, cause and effect and other undertakings offer the open
mind ample opportunities for reevaluation. The challenge is to keep a portion
of our slate blank enough to accept, adopt and adapt new information, and
to be willing to dismiss cherished views when they are proven faulty or insuffi-
cient. To quote nineteenth-century ethicist Thomas Fowler, “intellectual hon-
esty requires that, if need be, we should sacrifice our consistency and our
favorite dogmas on the altar of truth.”6
In spite of its current unpopularity, this approach is more practical than
radical, and far more ancient than it might appear. Its roots are planted in
Greece and Rome, where minds as celebrated as Posidonius, Cicero and
Seneca conceded that no single system of thought was adequate for under-
standing reality. Instead, these philosophical eclectics drew upon multiple
theories and methods to gain insights into a subject or decipher a scenario.
They favored reason over elegance, constructing sometimes-messy world-
views from existing beliefs and their own ideas.
Their apparent inconstancy was as pragmatic as it is opposed to con-
ventions of modern discourse. Yet even the current-day dogmatist tends to
be eclectic in some ways. A case in point is musical listening. If we were to
take an inventory of the music we enjoy (or have enjoyed in the past), we
would likely be astonished by the variety and lack of unifying characteristics.
Most of us draw musical selections from abundant sources and styles. Others
have a disciplined relationship with music, limiting themselves to a certain
period or genre of recordings. But even when the range is relatively small,
there is still diversification enough to dispute dogmatism.
Added to this, the way we listen to a piece at any given time tends to
vary. Our hearing is usually directed toward one or more specific dimensions,
be it melody, orchestration, rhythmic pattern, tonal density, timbre, col-
oration, phrasing or something else. Whether this variation of perception is
conscious or unconscious, the result is that we are always processing musical
sounds differently. The heterogeneity of our listening habits rivals that of our
musical choices.
Like the philosophical eclectic who un-rigidly searches for ideas best
suited to address an inquiry, the listener seeks out music that best matches
personal leanings and the situation at hand. And like the adherent of eclec-
ticism, whose outlook and theoretical tools are receptive to reassessment and
modification, our musical preferences are subject to change. If at any time
we were presented with a thousand recordings representing far-flung styles,
we would find some of them bearable, others unlistenable and select a few
as favorites. The determining factor would be this: whether or not the music
“works.”
Of course, there are ideological purists in every area of life, including
music. They fancy themselves honorable conservationists, but are just as
often stubborn fossilizers artificially removed from the evolving experience
that is life. Musical purists are unable and unwilling to budge, even if there
are practical reasons for doing so. Clinging is construed as righteousness.
But such purists, while adamant and often vociferous, are the musical
minority. Most of us have eclectic ears: we are open to and excited about
adding to our constantly adjusting playlists. We approach music not as dog-
matists, but as experimenters whose views derive from exposure and analysis.
Honest engagement in all aspects of life requires a similar level of open-
mindedness. If only we would listen to our ears.
Reflecting on Experience
Experience alone does not teach. Our lives are made up of a constant
succession of experiences, some dull, some profound and most somewhere
in between. If ridden through without reflection, these occurrences might
leave a subconscious imprint, but they do not necessarily make us wiser or
more informed. In the 1970s, educational theorists David Kolb and Ron Fry
proposed a model outlining the stages by which experience becomes
learning.7 Referred to as Kolb’s cycle of experiential learning (or the Kolb
cycle), it is a repeatable spiral consisting of four elements: concrete experi-
ence, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization and active experi-
mentation. The experience itself—whether it is a day at the office or a stroll

through the park—is only the beginning. Personal growth occurs through
examination, abstraction and future application.
For most people some of the time (and some people most of the time),
this is a natural process. There is a sense in which we are all born philoso-
phers, or homo philosophicus. On occasion, we find ourselves asking deep
questions, contemplating our purpose and pondering the things we have
observed. Aristotle addressed this inclination in the opening line of Meta-
physics: “All men by nature desire to know.”8 Yet knowing from experience is
not as simple as experiencing an experience. It requires a few additional steps,
not to mention a motivating sense of curiosity.
Of course, some things in life are riper for exploration than others. For
instance, we might readily progress through the Kolb cycle when the concrete
experience is mowing a lawn, but are less inclined to do so when the activity
is listening to music. This is partly because of the relative abstractness of the
musical experience. Being moved by a piece or selecting a track for a playlist
are processes more impulsive than cognitive, and thus hard to penetrate with
intellectual methods. It is also the case that musical affinities are a matter of
taste: a sensitive part of the human makeup, and one particularly resistant
to critique.
When it comes to music, most of us adhere to the unreflective phrase,
“I know what I like and I like what I know.” This principle of subjective pref-
erence helps to protect our musical opinions. We need not justify (or even
understand) our like or dislike for a particular selection. We simply know
our position. This has its advantages, as musical penchants do not usually
hold up well under analysis. Critical evaluation and experimentation have
little regard for those individualistic factors that shape our musical beliefs:
exposure, upbringing, peer influence, cultural biases, inherited assumptions,
generational trends, etc. None of this leads to an objective conclusion. The
further and more honestly we pursue the steps of observation, conceptual-
ization and experimentation, the shakier our convictions become.
In the end, there may be no scientific or otherwise satisfactory rationale
for musical taste. However, the philosopher in us should not view this as an
impediment, but as an invitation. The questions that arise from musical self-
inventory are themselves invaluable teachers. Bertrand Russell made this
point in The Problems of Philosophy. His eloquent words are applicable to all
areas of thought—whether musical or existential: “Philosophy is to be studied
not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite
answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the
questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our intellectual imag-
ination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against
speculation….”9
Notes
1. Oliver Goldsmith, The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith, vol. 1, ed. James
Prior (London: John Murray, 1837), 220–223.
2. Reinhold Niebuhr, quoted in Howard Bloom, Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass
Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century (New York: Wiley, 2000), 194.
3. Terry Eagleton, “Why Ideas No Longer Matter: Modern Politicians Deal Only in
Facts, Not Philosophical Reasoning,” The Guardian, March 22, 2004, <http://www.
theguardian.com/books/2004/mar/23/immigrationpolicy.politics>
4. Paul Krugman, “Everyone Has an Ideology,” The New York Times, April 13, 2011,
<http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/everyone-has-an-ideology/>
5. See Wesley Blomster, “Sociology of Music: Adorno and Beyond,” Telos 28 (1976):
81–112.
6. Thomas Fowler, “The Ethics of Intellectual Work and Life,” International Journal
of Ethics 9 (1899): 305.
7. David Kolb and Ronald Fry, “Toward an Applied Theory of Experiential Learning,”
in Theories of Group Processes, ed. Cary L. Cooper (New York: John Wiley, 1975), 33–
57.
8. Aristotle, Metaphysics, 980a 21.
9. Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy [1912] (Rockville, MD: Arc Manor,
2008), 104.

Beebee, Thomas O. Ideology of Genre: A Comparative Study of Generic Instability. Uni-
versity Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004.
Brown, Steven, and Ulrik Volgsten, eds. Music and Manipulation: On the Social Uses
and Social Control of Music. New York: Berghahn Books, 2005.
Carroll, Mark. Music and Ideology. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012.
De La Fuente, Eduardo, and Peter Murphy, eds. Philosophical and Cultural Theories of
Music. Boston: Brill, 2010.
Howard, Keith, ed. Music as Intangible Cultural Heritage: Policy, Ideology, and Practice
in the Preservation of East Asian Traditions. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012.
Kerman, Joseph. Contemplating Music: Challenges to Musicology. Cambridge, MA: Har-
vard University Press, 2009.
Krims, Adam, ed. Music/ideology: Resisting the Aesthetic. New York: Psychology, 1998.
Leppert, Richard, and Susan McClary, eds. Music and Society: The Politics of Composi-
tion, Performance and Reception. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Paddison, Max. Adorno’s Aesthetics of Music. New York: Cambridge University Press,
1997.
White, Harry, and Michael Murphy, eds. Musical Constructions of Nationalism: Essays
on the History and Ideology of European Musical Culture, 1800–1945. Cork: Cork Uni-
versity Press, 2001.
19
Religion
For most of human history, music has not been a central attraction, but
an accompaniment to other human activities. Some suggest that music’s orig-
inal and still most valuable purpose is as an aid to religious worship. This
chapter explores reasons for the pervasive relationship of music and religion.
Themes include music’s power to motivate religious revivals and vitalize litur-
gical rituals, confirm religious convictions and stimulate emotional cohesion,
contribute extra-textual meaning, bind worshipers together, and draw out
the non-cognitive aspects of belief. The chapter also notes that being religious
is not necessarily a prerequisite for enjoying music created for religious pur-
poses.
Reviving Tones
American Baptist preacher and musician Adoniram Judson Gordon

wrote, “eras of spiritual refreshing in the Church of Christ have generally
been eras of revival in popular and congregational singing.”1 This comment
is specific to American Christianity and its various “Great Awakenings,” but
it can be applied cross-culturally and cross-religiously to revivals like Neo-
Hassidism—a Jewish movement that draws much of its vigor from the songs
of Shlomo Carlebach and others. As a rule, religious revivals are not inno-
vative in the sense of presenting new doctrines or ideas. Their originality lies
instead in how they package and present existing material in new and emo-
tionally convincing ways. As the “re” of the term connotes, the objective is
not creation but restoration, renewal, reassertion, reconnection, reinvigora-
tion, revitalization and return. The success or failure of a revival depends on
how effective it is in converting inherited views and established thoughts
into vibrant sources of energy. This is why group singing is so heavily relied
upon.
Of all the arts, music is understood as the most closely associated with
155
religious life. The freeness and intensity with which music interacts with non-
rational strata of our consciousness is perceived as a deeply spiritual matter.
The sensation is amplified in group settings, where communal song brings
individuals to shared sentiments, common physiological reactions and
strengthened ties to one another. When the context is religious, music-
stimulated group energy is naturally translated into divine or spiritual energy.
The content of the songs and the conditions in which they are sung add a
powerful interpretive layer.
Musical responses play a crucial part in cultivating large-scale religious
revivals and sustaining them over time. Again, the messages that are sung
are typically conventional (though they can be phrased in fresh and relevant
ways). What is novel and attractive is how the messages are experienced. As
Gordon observed, revival songs tend to be popular and congregational: they
embrace current musical tastes and encourage collective participation. Both
of these elements—trendiness and communal engagement—contribute
mightily to rekindling interest and enthusiasm in the religion.
In this sense, lyrical content—whether hymnal, liturgical, scriptural or
other—is less important than how it is performed and received. This reflects
a general musical truth: even when tones are used to transmit texts, they are
perceived to explore and express levels and kinds of feelings that elude or
transcend the words themselves. This has significance for religious revivals,
which, as mentioned, are concerned with reigniting feelings rather than
inventing ideologies. And it is for this reason that “eras of spiritual refreshing,”
as Gordon called them, are almost always propelled by song.
Emotion, Spirit and Sound
Benjamin Ray includes this optimistic observation in his textbook,

African Religions: “Through ritual man transcends himself and communicates
directly with the divine. The coming of divinity to man and of man to divinity
happens repeatedly with equal validity on almost every ritual occasion.”2 The
thought of a ritual—or another periodic activity—having the same impact
or perceived potency each time it is performed is foreign to most people.
Human beings are complicated creatures, and the potential elements of com-
plication—interpersonal conflicts, financial worries, professional turmoil,
indigestion, etc.—tend to hamper full engagement. Even the most devout
will admit that spiritual highs are much less common than spiritual middles
or lows. Perhaps things are different in generic Africa, though that is unlikely.
Added to this is the nature of ritual itself. In order to earn its designation,
19. Religion 157
a ritual must be standardized, controlled and occasional. Several benefits

stem from this predictability, not the least of which are feelings of stability
and authenticity. But the religious ideals of attentiveness and elevation are
often lost in repetition. The struggle to find personal meaning in religious
ritual is as prevalent as ritual itself. This is especially so in liturgical traditions,
where participants are expected to absorb themselves in texts they have read
or heard hundreds of times before.
Music is typically turned to as a tool for fixing fractures in devotional
concentration. There is an implicit awareness that text alone is not always
compelling or stimulating enough to envelope the distracted worshiper, and
musical strains are employed to do the trick—or at least aid the process. Of
course, musical solutions are not infallible: liturgies are sung in faith com-
munities the world over yet the challenge of focus still persists. Nevertheless,
music’s unshakable place in religious services owes greatly to its ability to
ameliorate—though not alleviate—barriers to concentration.
The success of music in this regard derives from the close proximity of
spirituality and emotions. On some level, these sensations are indistinguishable.
A flush of emotions felt in a religious setting—a holy site or house of prayer—
and/or linked to texts considered holy—scripture or liturgy—is likely to be
designated spiritual. Likewise, a peak or epiphanic moment outside of a formal
setting may be understood as spiritual depending on the outlook and vocab-
ulary of the actor(s). Thus, a more precise classification might be that a spiritual
experience is an idiosyncratically determined species of emotional experience.
Whether such emotions are a sign of something beyond, a pathway to
self-realization, or a combination of the two is, from an experiential stand-
point, inconsequential. The important takeaway is that the emotional part
of the human persona must be activated in order for worshipers to feel the
“coming of divinity to man and of man to divinity,” as Ray puts it.
Herein lies the fundamental value of sacred music. Music serves to dram-
atize prayer, giving the language a personality and making it come to life.
Music also generates psychophysical responses, steering the mind and body
to feel a certain way. This influence can be traced to culturally conditioned
reactions to musical techniques, such as tension and release, as well as per-
sonal and communal associations, such as nostalgic memories. In the end,
the effect of the music becomes its character: calming, disconcerting, charm-
ing, invigorating, depressing, etc.
Again, music’s emotionalizing function is not a sure-fire way of drawing
people into prayer or of retaining their attention. Old tunes, like old texts,
can become dry after too many repetitions, and a given piece must be at least
moderately attractive (not repulsive) to the individual. But under ideal con-
ditions, music prompts emotional responses, which kindle spiritual conno-

tations, thereby triggering thoughts of a heavenly source.
Music and Coherence
Religious faith is commonly conceived of as cognitive. Those who are

drawn to beliefs and practices are, by implication, convinced of their hypothe-
ses, evidence and/or explanatory reasoning. Adherents accept the claims—
or many of the claims—as consistent with reality, and assert the overall truth
of the religious system. While this intellectual component is certainly crucial,
a religion’s emotional resonance is nearly (if not equally) as important. Believ-
ers pressed to justify their allegiances frequently bypass logical arguments
altogether, citing instead confirmatory experiences. These might include a
personal encounter with otherness, a feeling of profound consolation, or
some other sensation that evades scientific validation but is felt to be real.
To quote nineteenth-century preacher and theologian Jonathan Edwards,
“True religion in great part consists in the affections.”3
There is a growing body of psychological and neurological studies show-
ing the extent to which we attach emotional attitudes to concepts. When
appraising the value of an idea, we rely not only on reasoned thought but
also on the sentiments we ascribe to that idea. Thus, the discerned accuracy
or inaccuracy of a religious concept hinges in part on its ability to address
specific human needs, such as social bonding, avoidance of anxiety, moral
certainty and life after death. This is not mere wish fulfillment, but a rational
choice informed by irrational and usually subconscious desires. As philoso-
pher Paul Thagard puts it in his theory of emotional coherence, “people adopt
and maintain religious beliefs for a combination of evidential and emotional
reasons that provide satisfaction of cognitive and emotional constraints.” 4
Worship music is one area in which the intellectual and sentimental reg-
ularly converge. For reasons still not fully understood, combinations of
pitches, timbres, rhythms, durations and dynamics effortlessly penetrate the
seat of sentiments. When words are added to music, they tend to take on the
character dictated by the tones. In most cases, the songwriter seeks to match
a text with corresponding sounds, thereby reinforcing the thematic content.
However, the force of music is such that upbeat lyrics sung to a sad melody
will be perceived as sorrowful, while melancholy words set to a gleeful tune
are felt, on some level, to be uplifting.
Whether the music matches the basic meaning of the language or shades
it in a particular direction, the emotions stirred act as a type of confirmation.
19. Religion 159
In devotional settings, this effect serves as affirmation of themes and ideas

present in a prayer. With the aid of melody, a prayer of peace becomes a sen-
sation of peace, a prayer of hope becomes a sensation of hope, a prayer of
compassion becomes a sensation of compassion, and so on. Worship music
can satisfy more general concerns as well, like the need for communal bond-
ing and connection to heritage.
In these instances and more, exposure to music creates or enhances the
emotional coherence of a religious system. It is an area of experience wherein
cognition and affections seamlessly merge, and truth is as much a matter of
feeling as it is of thought
Music as Contagion
The cohesive power of song is well exploited by groups of all sorts. In

settings religious and secular, familiar melodies are used to consolidate feel-
ings and energies and fuse communal consciousness. This transition from
individuals to community owes in part to lyrical content. The words that are
sung tend to emphasize the ethos of the collective or some aspect of its con-
victions or heritage. This is demonstrated whenever a national anthem is
performed publically or a generation-defining song is sung at a frat house.
But an argument can be made that music, more than message, is what truly
brings the group into an experience of itself.
To illustrate this point, it will suffice to describe a typical congregational
gathering. As the service time approaches, people—young, old, and in
between—file into the sanctuary at irregular intervals and scatter into pews or
chairs. Some arrive in families or in small groups; others come alone or with
a companion. Most take to chatting; a few sit in quiet contemplation. They
have entered a shared space, yet they are, for the moment, a loose assortment
of people filling a room. A clergyperson offers perfunctory remarks to quiet
the crowd. Some congregants straighten up in their seats. Others reach into
their pockets to turn off their cellular phones. The atmosphere slowly begins
to change. But it is not until the first syllable is sung that the group really takes
shape. Congregants join their voices and perk their ears as the song continues.
Their attention turns effortlessly to one another. The tones bring them out of
their own thoughts and into a mutual moment. They are no longer “I” but “we.”
Some version of this scenario is repeated in other singing communities.
Yet, as with all commonplace phenomena, it is easier to acknowledge than
to account for. Among the potential explanations is emotional contagion, a
concept pulled from the psychological literature.
Broadly defined, emotional contagion is the automatic tendency to

mimic and synchronize vocalizations, gestures, postures, facial expressions
and movements of another person or persons, thereby generating emotional
convergence. In the words of Gerald Schoenewolf, it is “a process in which
a person or group influences the emotions or behavior of another person or
group through the conscious or unconscious induction of emotion states and
behavioral attitudes.”5
Unconscious mood transfer is innate to the human species. It can be
relatively mild, as with the child who feels happy when she sees someone else
smiling. It can also have serious consequences, as when fear and loathing
infect a crowd to the point of mob violence. Whether the scale is small or
large and whether the outcome is positive or negative, emotional contagion
illustrates our susceptibility to the feelings of others.
This process is indicative of communal singing. To a certain extent,
lyrics and physical space can stimulate infectious emotions. Language and
architecture are known to impact mood and influence demeanor. However,
because singing involves a series of movements that can be imitated, the
music (apart from text and location) is the primary source of contagion. Most
participants intuitively unite in pitch, rhythm, volume, tone quality, swaying,
toe tapping, mannerisms and a host of unconsciously coordinated actions.
These infectious elements, combined with music’s inborn emotional
qualities, promote solidarity of a visceral and lasting kind. Put succinctly,
people merge together when they sing together.
Music Itself
Conventional thought holds that liturgical song is of two basic kinds.

The first is logogenic (word-born), where rhythm, shape, movement, phrasing
and cadences are directed by the ebb and flow of a text. This is essentially
musical grammar—sometimes called speech-melody or stylized speaking—
and is the dominant trait of scriptural cantillation and modal prayer chant.
The second type is melogenic (melos-born), where words are fitted to the
music. This includes prayer-songs in which musical considerations, like meter
and melody, outweigh textual concerns. There is room in each of these cat-
egories for simple and complex music, literal and interpretive approaches,
prosaic and creative treatments.
While the full range of liturgical music can be divided between these
groupings, there is a third, somewhat different class that deserves our atten-
tion: pathogenic. Strictly defined, pathogenic (emotion-born) songs are dis-
19. Religion 161
tinguished by vocables: meaningless or nonlexical syllables sung to deliver

melodies. This is a common feature of Native American songs and the word-
less tunes of Hassidic Jewish origin. The music is devoid of verbal syntax and
substance, and emotional outlet is the foremost purpose.
Although pathogenic songs are technically extra-liturgical—they do not
involve prayer-texts—many who attend liturgical worship experience the
music in a pathogenic way. This is especially so in settings where texts are in
a foreign language and/or contain ideas foreign to a participant’s worldview.
An example would be a Jewish congregant who is an atheist and does not
understand (or care to understand) Hebrew, but still finds satisfaction in syn-
agogue song. He may be an object of pity for the pious clergyperson or the
high-minded composer; but he is common—perhaps the majority in some
places—and his experience is as authentic as anyone else’s.
Whether the design of a prayer-song is logogenic or melogenic, the
music has an essence and vitality of its own. Of course, the skilled composer
or presenter will use musical devices to bring out qualities they find in the
text, and they generally expect worshipers to pick up on the word-music
interplay. However, once notions and emotions are translated into sound,
they tend to take on an independent life. Although the text is the reason for
the music, it is not always the reason a person is attracted to the music. (In
fact, one’s affection for a song may be diminished when he or she discovers
its meaning.)
If we expand the discussion of liturgical song to include the experiential
aspect, then pathogenic becomes a legitimate and profitable classification.
This approach is consistent with the updated understanding of ritual music,
which sees text as one of several components of musical worship.
In contemporary scholarship, ritual music addresses the entirety of the
rite: words, actions, artifacts, music and physical space. This holistic view
looks beyond language and transcends debates about the appropriateness or
inappropriateness of a particular musical setting. It is the rite—not just the
message—that shapes and reinforces identities and brings meaning to the
lives of participants. The words may or may not be understood and may or
may not be relevant for everyone in attendance. But there is acknowledged
value in all elements of the rite, including the music itself.
Collective Voice
Religion always involves community. It is learned in social contexts,
grounded in shared ideas, built upon social relations and sustained by col-
lective actions. As Émile Durkheim reminded us, a religion is a system of

beliefs and practices that unites individuals in a single moral community
called a church (or another faith-specific synonym).6 While there is space for
personal practice—and while such practice is vital for retaining members
and strengthening the whole—religion is not an individualized spiritual path.
There is no religion without a church.
In both Judaism and Christianity, the congregation is the most signifi-
cant and influential level of social organization. It draws adherents together
in a common location and provides them with opportunities for shared devo-
tional, educational, gastronomical and recreational experiences. Because a
congregation’s central aim is to foster and maintain communal cohesion,
group singing has long been its most trusted aid.
The effectiveness of congregational song is rooted in the nature of the
congregation itself. It thus behooves us to look more closely at what a con-
gregation is and what it seeks to achieve. For this, we turn to John Locke, the
English physician and Enlightenment philosopher. Locke’s most cogent
description of a congregation is found in A Letter Concerning Toleration.
Published amidst fears that Catholicism was taking over England, the short
treatise cautions against government-imposed religion. In Locke’s view, reli-
gious tolerance is key to maintaining civil order, whereas civil unrest is the
natural response to magistrates who attempt to outlaw religious sects and
denominations. Since genuine religious converts are gained through persua-
sion and not coercion, governments have no right to intrude upon matters
of the soul. In Locke’s eloquent words, “the power of civil government relates
only to men’s civil interests, is confined to the care of the things of this world,
and hath nothing to do with the world to come.”7
Against this backdrop, Locke defined a congregation as a “voluntary
society of men, joining themselves together of their own accord, in order to
the public worship of God, in such a matter as they judge acceptable to them,
and effectual to the salvation of their souls.”8 This observation pertains spe-
cifically to Protestant contexts, where affiliation choices can be many. Under
ideal conditions, individuals are free to join in or drop out according to their
comfort or discomfort with doctrines, rituals, policies, membership and so
on. Thus, to a certain and important extent, those who gather together want
to gather together.
The voluntariness of congregational affiliation—which obviously varies
from place to place—is precisely why communal song is so valuable. Con-
gregants need compelling reasons to congregate. It is one thing to share val-
ues, views and heritage, and another thing to engage in them. What group
singing accomplishes is a kind of transformation. Voices united turn common
19. Religion 163
beliefs (lyrical content) and identity-affirming sounds (melody) into a lived

collective experience.
It is often said that song is the glue that keeps a congregation together.
Ideologically and emotionally reinforcing music replenishes and rededicates
group commitment. Without group singing—and other means of creating
palpable unity—the church risks losing its appeal and dissolving away.
The Body Thinks
The scene is not uncommon. A group gathers to study the ancient lan-
guage of a scriptural passage or liturgical text. As they delve into the themes
and imagery, judgments are made and ideological lines are drawn. One person
accepts it as unquestioned truth. Another finds it hopelessly linked to a distant
time. Someone else searches for hidden meaning. Another relates it to current
events. The points they argue and sides they take reflect the group’s compo-
sition: a traditionalist, a rationalist, a mystic and a political activist. As always,
their lively exchange ends in respectful disagreement. They put down their
books, finish their coffee, shake each other’s hands, walk into the sanctuary,
and disperse among the congregation. In a few minutes, they will be singing
the words they were just debating. And they will be happily absorbed in the
melody.
To the casual observer, this scene illustrates the dichotomy between
study and song. The first is an intellectual activity, inviting scrutiny, decon-
struction, reconstruction and reasoned dispute. The second is an emotional
experience, disarming the analytical urge and inviting the flow of passions.
Because the first involves critical thought and the second uncritical feeling,
studying is generally viewed as more virtuous. To be moved by music con-
taining words we struggle with is a case of lower capacities overtaking higher
faculties.
There is, however, another, less hierarchical way of looking at it. Anthro-
pologist Michelle Rosaldo challenged us to appreciate emotions as “embodied
thoughts.”9 They are not, she contended, involuntary or irrational exertions
of the animal self, but the result of a deliberate and engaged body. Like cog-
nition, emotion is a genuine and considered expression of who we are. It is
the body’s way of reasoning.
As word-centric beings, we tend to dismiss the non-verbal realm of feel-
ings as primal or crude. We take a dualistic stance, dividing thought and
emotion into firm categories. We appraise the mind as literally and figuratively
above the body. The intellect is the basis of our superiority as a species; feel-
ings arise from our base biology. According to Rosaldo, this viewpoint is a
reflection of culture rather than reality. While the mind processes information
in words, the body processes information in sensations. One is not necessarily
better or more efficient than the other. Both constitute our humanity.
This perspective helps us decipher the liturgical scenario above. Despite
the differing views expressed around the study table, the heterogeneous group
joins in the joyful singing of passages they had argued over moments before.
Objections they raised with the text and one another remain unresolved. But
as the words melt into music, so do their intellects melt into feelings. Their
thinking brains are quieted; their thinking bodies stimulated. The debate is
put on hold until next time.
Feeling Belief
Anthropologists place the world’s religions into several categories,

including animism, ancestor cult, nature religions, polytheism and monothe-
ism. Each of these broad groupings contains a diversity of convictions, prac-
tices and mythologies reflective of the fertility of human imagination.
Religion, it seems, is as variegated as humanity itself. Still, it is possible to
locate shared purposes within these sundry (and in many ways incompatible)
systems. For instance, they all strive to help people deal with uncertainties,
provide meaning for their lives, give answers to difficult questions and pro-
mote social cohesion. While no particular belief or practice is common to or
deemed valid by every group, these aims are universal.
A rationalist might argue that the extreme variety of religious beliefs is
evidence of their falsity. If each claims to be the absolute truth, then none of
them can be absolutely true. It might also be asserted that scientific research
and other modern advances have made and will continue to make religious
answers obsolete. Even sacred subjects like the soul, morality and apparent
glimpses of the afterlife have been shown to have brain-based origins. At the
same time, it is clear that the core issues religions address are inherent to the
human condition. If centuries of philosophical inquiry and empirical data
have taught us anything it is that life is uncertain, unpredictable and devoid
of absolute meaning. That religions construct order in this chaos is justifi-
cation for their persistence, even in the age of science.
It would be a mistake to dismiss religious beliefs as merely wishful.
Though faith derives from and appeals to the intellect, it is not without expe-
riential confirmation. Believers genuinely feel that they are in contact with
supernatural forces. Proof of divine concern is not always observable in the
19. Religion 165
course of everyday life, but there are certain feelings that provide assurance.
Knowledge of horrors and tragedies might pose a challenge to belief, but sen-
sations mitigate doubt.
It is no coincidence that cultures far and wide associate singing with the
supernatural and infuse religious activities with song. Religion needs singing.
It is a primary mode by which convictions become feelings. Songs yield tan-
gible results. Of course, this can be attributed to music-triggered emotional
and neurological responses. But in the context of worship and the mind of
the believer, it is confirmation of faith.
Music’s role in supporting belief can be traced to prehistoric times.
Archaeological ruins indicate that rituals were often performed in rooms and
caverns with the liveliest acoustics. Paleolithic paintings are generally clus-
tered on the most resonant cave walls, suggesting that they were used in con-
junction with ritualistic chant. Neolithic stone configurations, like Avebury
and Stonehenge, were similarly composed of echoing rocks. As society
advanced, the association of vibrant sounds with the holy found its way into
sacred architecture, where reverberating sanctuaries symbolically convey a
back-and-forth between humanity and the supernatural.
It is not necessary to accept this devotional interpretation to understand
music’s confirmatory power. Whether we are religious or not, we remain a
species attracted to the emotionalizing effects of song and vibrant acoustics.
Their impact is enough to convince us that what is being sung is right and
valid. While the beliefs themselves might not resonate with people outside
of a particular worldview, we can at least appreciate the persuasive hold of
the music.
Beauty Before Content
“I take satisfaction in belonging to a species of creatures with the ability

not only to conceive and perform, but also respond appreciatively to such a
work.”10 This declaration comes from Nelson Edmondson’s thoughtful essay,
“An Agnostic Response to Christian Art.” Edmondson, an emeritus professor
of art and art history at Michigan State University, is the agnostic in the title.
The “work” he is referring to is any classic of Christian art, graphic or musical.
His attraction to such pieces, despite his lack of faith and regardless of his
artistic ability, is a hallmark of our species. We need not be wrapped up in
an artwork’s message or subject matter to be moved by it, or to appreciate
the skill involved in its creation. Intellectual investment can deepen our
involvement, but absence of commitment does not eliminate our emotional
susceptibility. To a great extent, the meaning of the work is secondary to its

aesthetic force.
If any example proves this point, it is the confession of evolutionary
biologist and self-professed “militant atheist,” Richard Dawkins. Dawkins
recalls an appearance he had on Desert Island Discs, a British radio show.
When asked to choose the eight records he would take with him on a desert
island, he included “Mache dich mein Herze rein” from J. S. Bach’s St. Matthew
Passion. “The interviewer was unable to understand how I could choose reli-
gious music without being religious,” Dawkins recalls. “You might as well
say, how can you enjoy Wuthering Heights when you know perfectly well that
Cathy and Heathcliff never really existed?”11
The beauty of Bach’s oratorio does not spring from the text, but from his
own musical imagination. In Bach’s time and place, the church was the only
institution that could have supported an opus of such grandeur. The words,
culled from the Gospel of Matthew and librettist Picander (Christian Friedrich
Henrici), provided Bach a platform upon which to apply his genius. But financial
source and linguistic ingredients should not be confused with inspiration. There
are numerous cases of composers jumping between sacred and secular subjects,
and rarely do they make discernable distinctions. Bach can be grouped among
them. Their style, passion, and approach remain virtually the same. Moreover,
there are some composers, like Ralph Vaughan Williams, who suspend their
own agnosticism to sincerely and convincingly set religious words to music.
More important, our response to these creations is not determined by
their ideational content. The music or visual art tends to hit us before we
realize what it conveys, and even after we recognize the image or implication,
we can stay enthralled. The same occurs when we gravitate to a pop song.
The lyrics might be repugnant, imbecilic, or otherwise offensive (if they are
intelligible at all), but the music still moves us.
Notes
1. Adoniram Judson Gordon, Congregational Worship (Boston: Young and Bartlett,
1874), 60.
2. Benjamin Ray, African Religions: Symbol, Ritual, and Community, 2nd ed. (Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999), 17.
3. Jonathan Edwards, A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections [1746] (New York:
Cosimo, 2007), 27.
4. Paul Thagard, “The Emotional Coherence of Religion,” Journal of Cognition and
Culture 5:1–2 (2005): 64.
5. Gerald Schoenewolf, “Emotional Contagion: Behavioral Induction in Individuals
and Groups,” Modern Psychoanalysis 15 (1990): 50.
19. Religion 167
6. Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life [1912], trans. Karen E.
Fields (New York: Free Press, 1995), 44.
7. John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration [1689] (Huddersfield, UK: J. Brook,
1796), 14.
8. Ibid.
9. Michelle Z. Rosaldo, “Toward an Anthropology of Self and Feeling,” in Culture
Theory: Essays on Mind, Self and Emotion, ed. Richard Shewder and Robert LeVine
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 137–157.
10. Nelson Edmondson, “An Agnostic Response to Christian Art,” Journal of Aesthetic
Education 15:4 (1981): 31.
11. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,
2006), 253.
Suggestions for Further Readings

Beck, Guy L. Sacred Sound: Experiencing Music in World Religions. Waterloo: Wilfred
Laurier University Press, 2006.
Begbie, Jeremy S., and Steven R. Guthrie, eds. Resonant Witness: Conversations Between
Music and Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011.
Blackwell, Albert L. The Sacred in Music. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press,
1999.
Bohlman, Philip V., Edith L. Blumhofer, and Maria M. Chow, eds. Music in American
Religious Experience. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Friedmann, Jonathan L., comp. Music, Theology and Worship: Selected Writings, 1841–
1896. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011.
_____. The Value of Sacred Music: An Anthology of Essential Writings, 1801–1918. Jeffer-
son, NC: McFarland, 2009.
Leaver, Robin A., and Joyce Ann Zimmerman, eds. Liturgy and Music: Lifetime Learning.
Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1998.
Marini, Stephen. Sacred Song in America: Religion, Music, and Public Culture. Urbana
and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003.
Sullivan, Lawrence E., ed. Enchanting Powers: Music in the World’s Religions. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.
Viladesau, Richard. Theology and the Arts: Encountering God through Music, Art and
Rhetoric. New York: Paulist, 2000.
20
Spirituality
Music has been called the most spiritual of the arts. The basis for this
claim is twofold: music is auditory and thus lacks a physical substance, and
music primarily impacts the ineffable realm of emotions. This chapter elab-
orates on the spiritual component of musical phenomena. It begins with Kurt
Vonnegut’s argument that all music is spiritual. From there, it describes
music’s ability to change moods, inspire epiphanies, bypass the confusion of
words, induce peak experiences, expand consciousness, inspire supernatural
imagery, and transcend the intellect.
Music of Champions
In the preface to Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut describes the

book as a fiftieth-birthday present to himself. It is a gift more therapeutic than
celebratory. He likens the novel to “a sidewalk strewn with junk, trash which I
throw over my shoulders as I travel in time back to November eleventh, nineteen
hundred and twenty-two.”1 The junk consists of childish drawings (of assholes,
flags, underpants, and so on), characters recycled from previous stories, and
absurd science-fiction plots he never intended to develop into books. At the
end of the confessional prelude, Vonnegut assures the reader that while this
garbage must be emptied, he does not want to throw away any “sacred things.”
The sacraments he cites are Armistice Day, Romeo and Juliet, and all music.
The categories these things represent are fairly conventional. Most reli-
gious systems include holidays, stories and music deemed sacred. But Von-
negut’s choices are more personal. He was a humanist without creedal ties.
Armistice Day, which happened to be his birthday, was an important part of
his childhood (he had no similar regard for the Veteran’s Day that would
replace it). He considered Shakespeare the wisest of human beings (though,
he admitted, that wasn’t saying much). He was less selective when it came to
music. In fact, he was not selective at all.
168
20. Spirituality 169
Is there any wisdom in Vonnegut’s view that all music is sacred? Strictly
speaking, sacred music is an established taxonomic classification. It is music
performed or composed for religious use and/or created under religious influ-
ence. It goes by many names: worship music, religious music, liturgical music,
devotional music, ecclesiastical music, etc. But Vonnegut was not referring
to any specialized musical purpose or context. To him, music—generically
and without judgment—is a sacred thing.
To understand this viewpoint, we should look at the word “sanctity,”
which derives from the Latin term sanctum, or “set apart.” Specifically, it
denotes something that is set apart from the profane or ordinary.
Music fits this description in at least seven ways: (1) It is perceived as
distinct from other noises; (2) Words set to music rise above everyday speech;
(3) Our propensity for music-making distinguishes us from other animals;
(4) Musical sounds penetrate otherwise untapped areas of consciousness; (5)
Music has “extra-physical” power over our emotions; (6) Music is suggestive
of a force greater than ourselves; (7) Any music can be set apart as special by
an individual.
As inherently judgmental creatures, we might not agree with Vonnegut’s
uncritical appraisal. We might also be cautious not to take his statement too
seriously, given his track record of sarcasm and his usual penchant for sharp
criticism. However, it is reasonable to accept his words at face value. All music
likely was sacred to him, even as most other things were not (and many things
were merely trash).
Breakfast of Champions was not the only place Vonnegut expressed this
opinion. Elsewhere, he contrasted the brokenness he saw in the world with
the purity he heard in music. This is most clearly written in his collection of
essays, A Man Without a Country: “No matter how corrupt, greedy, and heart-
less our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious and
charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful.” 2
Music Shapes the World

As he grew older, Tomas Edison became increasingly fascinated with
the alleged mystical powers of sound and music. Inspired by the spiritualism
and paranormal craze of the decades surrounding the turn of last century,
Edison announced in 1920 that he was developing a machine that could com-
municate with the dead. He reasoned that if a spirit world actually existed,
an extremely sensitive device was needed to converse with it. A little closer
to reality, Edison conducted a series of Mood Change Parties, in which par-
ticipants listened to recordings and filled out charts documenting their
responses. The goal was to link mood changes—worried to carefree, nervous

to composed, etc.—with corresponding musical stimuli.
One of these “parties” took place in a Yale University psychology class.
As a newspaper described it, it aimed “toward alleviating neurotic conditions,
with a view of discovering psychological antidotes for depressed conditions
of mind whether due to fatigue or disappointment.”3 Similar experiments
were conducted at other Ivy League schools, giving an air of legitimacy to
the proceedings despite company documents showing little serious interest
in the project’s scientific merits or lack thereof. Not surprisingly, both the
séance device and the Mood Change Parties were, more than anything, elab-
orate marketing ploys.
Whatever the motives, the machine designed for the deceased and the
parties intended for the living grew from Edison’s awareness that sound could
manipulate the psychological atmosphere. Pseudoscientific claims aside, it is
clear that certain tone patterns used in certain environments can cause us to
feel as if something otherworldly is occurring (hence the effect of science
fiction film scores). Likewise, a group of people with common cultural back-
grounds (such as Yale students in the 1920s) usually have shared reactions to
changes in tone sequences—the differences being only in degree.
In both cases, too, sound-triggered transformations are perceived not
just in the internal realm of emotions, but also in the surrounding environ-
ment. The room itself is felt to shift from heavy to light, tense to relaxed,
sterile to active, etc. But these are really psychological shifts. From a philo-
sophical standpoint, this adds support to the notion that the mind shapes
the world around us. Before we can begin to apply rational thought, subcon-
scious processes organize data coming to us through our senses, and largely
determine what it is we are experiencing. Musical sounds strike us on such
an all-consuming and mind-altering level that the emotions stirred interiorly
tend to influence how we perceive the exterior world.
In Edison’s experiments, this was demonstrated both in the presumed
way that aural changes could create an ambience conducive to communicating
with the dead, and the more realistic idea that the mood of a party—not just
those in attendance—could change in accordance with listening selections.
In this modest sense, music can be said to shape the world around us.
Spirit in Sound
“Wagner is my religion.”4 Thus said an enthusiast when asked by a friend
why he had not been attending church. The response was certainly not a
comment on Wagner the man, whose character and views are even less worthy
of devotion than the average person. Nor was it meant to imply that Wagner’s
music was sufficient to replace the multi-layered and multi-faceted complexity
of religious affiliation. Not coincidentally, the quip hearkened back to words
penned by Wagner himself, namely: “I found true art to be at one with true
religion,” and “[I]f we obliterate or extinguish music, we extinguish the last
light God has left burning within us.”5
What, if anything, should be gleaned from the remarks of Wagner and
the extoller of his musical virtues? Is it not careless to compare works of
music to religious beliefs and practices? How can listening to music possibly
fulfill the duties and obligations placed on the religiously observant? Is
human-made music really comparable to the light of God? Are these state-
ments hyperbolic or intentionally provocative?
These and similar questions appear on their face to be reasonable chal-
lenges. Surely, it is impossible for music to replace the awesomeness of a deity
or the dogma, ritual and pageantry a deity commands. But this line of ques-
tioning does not accurately address the “music as religion” position. It is
better to ask if and how, on an experiential level, music satisfies central aims
and expectations of religious adherence.
A musical experience might involve a series of quasi-religious epipha-
nies. Attaining them depends on a number of conditions, not the least of
which are the listener’s orientation and attributes of the music itself. Just as
religious practices yield varying and circumstantially shaped results,
epiphanic musical moments can sometimes be unobtainable, at times fleeting
and other times long-lasting. Any discussion of the overlap of music and reli-
gion must therefore begin with recognition that we are dealing with ideals.
Potential musical revelations include the following: Penetrating tones
might stimulate deep introspection; Emotional and kinesthetic reactions
might suggest the indwelling presence of a spiritual force; The arrangement
of sonic materials might evoke a sense of cosmic order; The abundance of
sound might suggest a transcendent power; The creativity the music exudes
might inspire renewed faith in humanity; The listener might be motivated
to translate the music into positive action. In these and other ways, musical
and religious engagement can have similar (or even identical) benefits.
R. Heber Newton, a turn-of-the-twentieth-century Episcopalian writer
and priest, supplied a summation of this effect in his treatise, The Mysticism
of Music. In characteristically eloquent language, he compared the feelings
roused at a concert with those derived from religious activities: “Here is the
broad thought known to all who love music intelligently, that it expresses,
outside of the church, the highest principles of religion and morality, as they
influence the sentiments and actions of men. Music vindicates thus the car-
dinal principle of religion, its central article of faith—that human life, as such,
is divine, that the secular is after all sacred.”6
What Heber observed and what has been described above is probably
closer to spirituality than religion proper. Religion is a technical term encom-
passing an intricate network of social, historical, cultural, doctrinal, aesthetic
and ritual elements. Music alone cannot replace such a system. But, again,
this misses the point. Religion and secular music converge in the arena of
outcomes. They might differ in substance and intention, but can be directed
toward like ends.
Spirituality of the Human
Many secular people are averse to the term “spirituality.” To them, it

connotes something hopelessly religious, patently unscientific and irrationally
romantic. These objections are not unfounded. The popularization of spiri-
tuality in the twentieth century owed to theologians like Rudolf Otto, religious
enthusiasts like William James, and New Age groups like the Theosophical
Society. We have inherited the term from pious sources, associate it with
mystics and proselytizers, and encounter it in devotional discourse. As a
result, the very idea of “secular spirituality” might seem a careless cooption
of a faith-filled concept or, worse, a laughable oxymoron.
But a growing number of secularists are adopting “spirituality” as a use-
ful designation. They discard the supernaturalism of an immortal soul, divine
entity or astral plane, but recognize opportunities for transcendence in human
qualities such as compassion, love, harmony and contentment. These ideals
exist prior to and independent of religious doctrine. Without relying on oth-
erworldly interpretations or deistic explanations, secular spirituality seeks
inner tranquility, pursues higher virtues and cultivates awareness of some-
thing greater than our physical selves.
While this process takes place in the realm of cognition, the overall
effect is, by definition, beyond the ordinary experiences of mind and matter.
It is thus better to describe it by way of example than to rely upon the limited
resources of language.
There is a church in Albuquerque, New Mexico, that boasts of offering
Sunday services “minus religion.” It is called the Church of Beethoven, a con-
gregation dedicated to presenting “professional live music performances of
the highest quality, together with other artistic expressions from fields includ-
ing poetry … in a manner that transcends the commonplace.”7 The church
gathers each week for a one-hour program, typically consisting of a short

musical selection, a poetry reading, a two-minute “celebration of silence,”
and a substantial work of chamber music. According to its founder, Felix
Wurman, the gathering places music “as the principal element, rather than
as an afterthought.”8
It is no coincidence that music plays a key role in many of the world’s
religions. Melodic expression, it is widely believed, helps prepare us for tran-
scendence. Yet music designed for sacred purposes is generally used in sup-
port of words (“worship music” usually refers to song-settings of poetry and
prayer). Such music is programmatic, guided by textual narratives and meant
to convey specific extra-musical themes. In contrast, most of the music per-
formed at the Church of Beethoven is absolute, or music for its own sake.
For example, a past service consisted of Bach’s Sonata in E-minor, Höller’s
SCAN for Solo Flute, and Mozart’s Quartet for Flute, Violin, Viola and Cello.
The intent behind this music is not religious per se. However, as the church
insists, these performances can foster the ecstasy and communal bonding
one would expect from a religious service—just without the dogma.
Music has the potential to bring us to a higher place. This can occur
within or outside expressly ecclesiastical contexts, and may be achieved with
music made for many purposes. The Church of Beethoven embraces this
realization. It offers an alternative to conventional worship services, which
are cluttered with rules of doctrine and practice. Its gatherings are, in a way,
“pure” activities, unhindered by agenda or ideology. The same applies when
we find spiritual uplift in a child’s joy, the sight of nature and other this-
worldly pleasures. Spirituality belongs to us all.
Musical Peaks
Music is a common element of trance. Musical sounds combine with

other sensual cues—like incense and bright ornate colors—to bring individ-
uals into feelings of euphoria and a perceived connection with a sacred realm.
In the Santería religion of West Africa and the Caribbean, songs with repet-
itive and extended rhythmic patterns are played to call upon deities, known
as orishas. A typical ceremony begins with oro seco, dry drumming without
singing, followed by a salute to Elegúa, the messenger between gods and
humans. Next comes the oro cantado, or sung prayer, during which individual
orishas respond to set rhythms and musical themes, and enter the bodies of
consecrated priests—a sensation called “mounting the horse.” The musicians
and dancers, propelled by polyrhythmic textures and repetitious melodies,
continue performing for many hours. The emotions and physical exertion
escalate as the ceremony carries on. The end goal is spirit possession, in
which orishas are believed to work within the possessed and deliver messages,
advice and healing.
This is just one culturally and religiously specific example of how
rhythm, melody, dance and belief merge to inspire feelings of transcendence.
The type and level of rapture will vary according to factors like physical space,
group makeup, belief system and style and duration of the musical episode.
How and for what reason the trance is induced is situational: it takes different
forms and is interpreted differently depending on whether the context is Has-
sidic, Dervish, Santerian or something else. Moreover, similar feelings can
be aroused at secular venues like a rave or rock concert, and can potentially
be achieved in unplanned and informal dance sessions done in private.
The diversity of perceived causes and meanings indicates two things.
First, human beings seem to be drawn to this kind of experience. We have
an instinctual urge for ecstatic moments and use music and dance to reach
them. Second, it is in the level of interpretation—prior to and afterward —
that we assign meaning to what takes place. The kinds of responses that occur
are essentially identical from person to person and group to group, but the
environments and explanations span a wide spectrum of possibilities. Many
of them involve some form of theological language, as with the notion of
orishas possessing their invokers. But is this a necessary component?
Dance trances, in all their multifarious incarnations, exemplify what
Abraham Maslow called peak experiences. Maslow, a humanist psychologist,
rejected the premise that supernatural forces ignite feelings regarded as spir-
itual. Instead, he saw these “peaks” as perfectly natural moments of self-
actualization: especially exciting events involving sudden feelings of whole-
ness, elation, epiphany and awe. These wondrous instances can be triggered
by an assortment of inducements, including love, works of art, the beauty of
nature and music.
In The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, Maslow cites listeners of clas-
sical music who describe themselves being delivered to “great joy,” “ecstasy,”
“visions of another world” and “another level of living.”9 A few sentences
later, he notes the consciousness-altering effect of music when it “melts over,
fuses over, into dancing or rhythm.” According to Maslow, the potential out-
come of such peak experiences is manifold. They can release creative energy,
affirm the value of existence, renew a sense of purpose and promote oneness
with the universe. And the mark they leave can be permanent, reorienting
the individual for the better.
Again, none of this depends on an external power; it all takes place
within the “farther reaches” of the body and mind. In this sense, there is no
inherent contrast between spiritual/religious experiences and peak/highly
emotional experiences. They are one and the same. The only difference is
whether religious or secular language is used to contextualize and interpret
what has occurred. Regardless of how we choose to frame such experiences,
they demonstrate the human propensity—and need—for extraordinary
moments.
Consciousness, Cognition and Music
An issue of The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion pub-

lished over a decade ago includes two conflicting articles on the nature of
spiritual awareness. The first, by Robert A. Emmons, argues for what he terms
“spiritual intelligence.”10 The second, by John D. Mayer, challenges Emmons’s
formulation, replacing it with “spiritual consciousness.” More than a semantic
squabble, their contrasting approaches address whether or not spirituality
should be viewed as a form of cognitive activity or as an enigmatic element
of consciousness.
Emmons offers a five-part definition of spiritual intelligence: (1) the
capacity for transcendence; (2) the ability to enter into heightened states; (3)
the ability to find sacredness in relationships and everyday actions; (4) the
ability to use spiritual resources to solve problems; (5) the capacity for vir-
tuous behavior. The problem with this list, in Mayer’s view, is its reliance on
“ability” and “capacity”—language ordinarily reserved for discussions of men-
tal aptitude and high-level reasoning. In classical discourse, abstract thought
is the first hallmark and foremost attribute of intelligence. It involves execut-
ing various kinds of mental transformations, such as identifying patterns,
generalizing information, registering similarities, contrasting dissimilarities
and performing other regulated cognitive functions. From Mayer’s perspec-
tive, forcing spirituality into this limiting arena of cognition is more indicative
of a desire to raise the prestige of spirituality than an accurate representation
of what it entails.
As a corrective, Mayer modifies Emmons’s intelligence model to convey
what psychologists call “structuring” or “developing” consciousness. He
removes spirituality from the realm of reasoning and places it in the myste-
rious territory of consciousness, where it resides as a phenomenon distinct
from rational systems of thought and an activity grounded in mechanisms
of an intuitive, rather than cerebral, kind. He rephrases Emmons’s charac-
teristics thus: (1) attending to the unity of the world and transcending one’s
existence; (2) consciously entering into heightened states; (3) attending to the
sacred in relationships and everyday actions; (4) structuring consciousness
so that life problems are seen in light of ultimate concerns; (5) desiring to act
in a virtuous way (italics from the original). These are processes (as opposed
to mental exercises) and give preference to sensations—attending, altering,
entering, desiring, etc.—over logic and reasoning.
To be sure, cognition can and usually does play a supporting role in
spirituality. Religious stories, mythologies, doctrines, customs and interpre-
tations provide language with which to frame the experience. These concep-
tions may be rehearsed beforehand, recalled during the act, or reflected upon
afterward. But such discernment is ultimately separate from the experience
itself. Indeed, the main reason spiritual pursuits elicit feelings of transcen-
dence is because they are, at root, non-rational or supra-rational. They exist
apart from ordinary mental states. Thus, argues Mayer, spiritual conscious-
ness should not be confused with intelligence, where abstract thought reigns
supreme, and should instead be embraced as a distinct way of knowing, where
sensations are processed as meaning-giving and life-changing currents.
Such extra-mental awareness is commonly instigated and sustained
through music. The naturalness with which music lends itself to this under-
taking has made it a staple of spiritual practices worldwide. To paraphrase
English theater critic Jeremy Collier, exposure to musical sounds activates
passions that destroy reason. Stated more positively, if we allow ourselves to
succumb to and be absorbed in musical stimuli, we can reach a level and cat-
egory of consciousness discrete from the usual modes of cognition.
This does not mean that all music or all musical contexts are equally
conducive to spirituality or will promote that end with equal effect. Nor is it
always possible to keep the brain’s interpretive functions and critical faculties
sufficiently in abeyance to be fully exposed to musical inducements. But the
extent to which music is used in public devotion, private meditation and
other spiritual praxes proves its potency as a vehicle for transcendence. More
importantly, it demonstrates an inherent distinction between mental pro-
cessing and spiritual consciousness, without depreciating the latter. Spiritu-
ality may not be intelligence, but it is indispensable just the same.
Inventing the Supernatural
The conjuring of supernatural explanations for natural phenomena is a

hallmark of religious thought. Ancient civilizations freely invented extra-
physical explanations for the sun’s apparent rise and fall, the occurrence of
earthquakes and droughts, the origins of plants and animals, and the collapse
of kingdoms. In the spirit-filled world of the ancients, fortunes, failures, ail-
ments, recoveries, victories, tragedies and all manner of circumstances were
attributed to divine intervention. The characteristics of the deities and the
ways in which they were worshiped varied from place to place, as each group
drew upon its own surroundings and experiences. Similar cultural variations
persist in religious systems of our day. And despite the great extent to which
physical and social sciences have explained things once thought mysterious,
the devout continue to frame material existence in supernatural language
and imagery.
The concoction of religious ideas to comprehend nature is apparent
throughout the history and diversity of religion. Less often considered is how
religious notions were devised to account for events of our minds, or inner
nature. Dreams, for instance, were (and sometimes still are) believed to be a
mechanism of prophecy, revelation or divine inspiration, rather than an invol-
untary succession of images, sensations and scenarios that occur during cer-
tain stages of sleep. Likewise, psychiatric and mood disorders were (and
sometimes still are) attributed to demons or divine punishment, rather than
genetic, circumstantial or chemical causes.
The ubiquitous association of music and religion can be grouped with
the supernatural explications for human nature. Music’s often-overwhelming
and usually unavoidable hold on our emotions has long been a source of the-
ological discourse. The interaction of this abstract art with our inner being
is felt as evidence of a spiritual force. There is no shortage of literature describ-
ing how music is a portal to human-divine communion, a conduit for the
divine presence, a pathway to the heavenly plane.
The intersection of music and theology is so widely asserted that some
commentators refer to worship music as “sung theology” or “theology sung.”
Contrary to what might be assumed, this is not because worship songs typ-
ically involve prayerful words set to music—and thus expose practitioners to
theological themes—but rather because our encounter with music transcends
the ordinary and hints at something beyond ourselves.
As with other areas of consciousness, religious reasons for music’s impact
can only resonate with the theologically or spiritually oriented. The philo-
sophical materialists among us require a material explanation. However, as
much success as researchers have had deciphering sources of dreams, mental
disorders and other arenas of the mind, music remains largely inexplicable.
Despite many reasonable theories and promising discoveries, we cannot yet
state precisely why we respond to music the way we do.
Of course, the absence of scientific consensus does not make supernat-
ural claims any more valid. Explaining a mystery with a fantasy is a fruitless
endeavor. Instead, music demonstrates that we need not fully understand
what is happening outside or inside of us to appreciate our experience of it.
Experiencing Music
Music is often referred to as an ineffable art form. The immediacy and

intensity with which it manipulates our mind and mood exceeds the ability
of words to describe. Yet despite—or perhaps because of—music’s mysterious
influence, the religiously devout regularly rush to identify its effect as a divine
energy or spiritual force. On the opposite end of the worldview spectrum,
scientists have reduced the thrill and charm of music to a surge of dopamine
and a decrease in the body’s post-stress responses. While some explanations
have greater veracity than others, they all run counter to claims of ineffability.
Indeed, for something allegedly beyond description, there is an enormous
amount of attempted elucidations.
An additional irony arises when religious adherents criticize scientists
for stripping musical experience of its mystery. In their view, attributing
rushes of emotion to chemical reactions obscures and cheapens what is really
happening: human-divine contact. But heaping religious terminology on feel-
ings induced by music equally diminishes its enigmatic nature. Labeling it
the spirit of God, a holy encounter, or another mystic formulation does not
expand our conception. It reduces it.
From an experiential standpoint, it matters little whether our interaction
with music is spiritual, material or something in between. Any interpreta-
tion—realistic or not—is ultimately separate from the experience itself. This
is so regardless if our response is conditioned—as with a religious person
hearing religious music in a religious setting—or reflective—as with the
researcher who analyzes a musical episode after it has taken place. For an
experientialist, who considers experience a valid source of knowledge, it is
not the explication that is important, but the occurrence itself. Our musical
reactions have intrinsic truth and inherent value prior to and apart from our
efforts to explain them.
As intuitive as this might appear, our species is ever consumed with
curiosity and a stubborn need for answers. These impulses are intensified
when our emotions are strong and circumstances seem out of our control.
Such is our relationship with music. However, if we wish to honor and uphold
music’s inexpressible essence, we must be willing to subdue our urge to
describe it. Again, most of us enter the musical experience in a state of wonder
and susceptibility. But preserving these pre-cognitive sensations is a challenge,

particularly after the sounds have passed and we are left to decipher what
has occurred.
This does not mean that every proposed reason for why and how we
respond to music should be dismissed out of hand. But there is beauty and
virtue in allowing music to be an activity apart. The emotional abandon it
promotes and mystery it inspires is particularly beneficial for the rationalist,
who is normally engaged in critical evaluation of “life, the universe and every-
thing” (to use Douglas Adams’ phrase). We all need a healthy release from
our hyperactive brains now and again. Even if music’s impact could be fully
explained, it is probably best to just surrender to its power and enjoy the
ride.
Notes
1. Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions: A Novel (New York: Random House,
1973), 5.
2. Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country (New York: Seven Stories, 2005), 66.
3. “Note Changes in Mood Caused by Hearing Music,” New Haven Sunday Register,
May 22, 1921.
4. R. Heber Newton, The Mysticism of Music [1915], in The Value of Sacred Music:
An Anthology of Essential Writings, 1801–1918, comp. Jonathan L. Friedmann (Jefferson,
NC: McFarland, 2009), 73.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid., 74.
7. Jonathan L. Friedmann, Synagogue Song: An Introduction to Concepts, Theories
and Customs (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2012), 89.
8. Felix Wurman, quoted in Ibid.
9. Abraham H. Maslow, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature (Chapel Hill, NC:
Maurice Bassett, 1973), 176.
10. John D. Mayer, “Spiritual Intelligence or Spiritual Consciousness?” International
Journal for the Psychology of Religion 10:1 (2000): 47–56; Robert A. Emmons, “Spirituality
and Intelligence: Problems and Prospects,” International Journal for the Psychology of
Religion 10:1 (2000): 57–64.

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Index
absolute music 96–97, 173 “Bohemian Rhapsody” 104

Academy for Jewish Religion, California 3 Bolinger, Dwight L. 126–127
Acheulean hand axes 83 The Bonobo and the Atheist 46
Adams, Douglas 179 Boston Herald 50
Adorno, Theodor 150 Bradbury, Ray 110
African Religions 156 Brahms, Johannes 18, 71, 115
“American Pie” 104 Breakfast of Champions 168–169
amusia 19, 38 Britten, Benjamin 114
Andersen, Hans Christian 72 Bronowski, Jacob 12–13
Animal Man 65 Brownell, John 61
Anna Karenina 133 Byrne, David 57, 122–123
Ansdell, Gary 136
anthrophony 81 Cage, John 20
Appalachia 42 Cale, John 20
appearance emotionalism 53 Carlebach, Shlomo 155
Arbuckle, Nathan L. 30 Carlyle, Thomas 90, 92
Aristotle 77, 153 Cassiodorus 54
Armistice Day 168 Changizi, Mark 78
Armstrong, Louis 89 choral music 29–30
The Art Instinct 94 Chorus America 29
The Art of the Musician 43 Church of Beethoven 172–173
The Art of War 117–118 Churchland, Patricia S. 79
Augustine of Hippo 73 Cicero 151
Austen, Jane 114 Civil War 2, 38–39
Clapton, Eric 148
Bach, J.S. 5, 35, 84, 166, 173 Cohen, Leonard 36
Ball, Philip 49 Coleman, Ornette 21
Bartók, Béla 119 Collier, Jeremy 176
battle trance 29 computers 35–36
Beethoven, Ludwig van 11, 35, 60, 71, 91, congregational singing 161–163
95, 114, 130, 172–173 The Conquest of Happiness 103
Berkeley, George 80 Cook, Nicholas 97
Berlin Philharmonic 148 Copland, Aaron 14, 36–37
Berlioz, Hector 119 Cornell University 84
Berman, Morris 12 Craig, Wallace 83
Bernstein, Elmer 134 criticism 133–138, 141–143
bias 147–152
Bierce, Ambrose 17–18 Darwin, Charles 4, 26–27, 30–31, 53–54,
Billboard 36 109
biophony 79, 81 Davidson, Jane W. 44–45
birdsong 28, 78, 79, 80, 81–83, 84 Davies, Stephen 52, 53
Bizet, Georges 119 Dawkins, Richard 166
Bloch, Ernest 10 Delius, Frederick 119
193
194 Index
Descartes, René 140 Frith, Simon 142

The Descent of Man 26–27, 30 Fry, Ron 152–153
Desert Island Discs 166 Fuller, Thomas 40
The Devil’s Dictionary 17 functional music 99–100, 141–143
de Waal, Frans 46 Funktionslust 82–83
Diamond, Jared 113
Dickens, Charles 114 Gaffurius, Franchinus 76–77
A Dictionary of Musical Quotations 11 Gallese, Vittorio 46
Discourse on Method 140 Genesis 103
Dissanayake, Ellen 87 geophony 81
Dolphy, Eric 21 gifted listener 14
Dunbar, Robin 31 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 14, 71
Durkheim, Émile 162 Goldsmith, Oliver 147–149
Dutton, Denis 83, 94 Gordon, Adoniram Judson 155–156
Dylan, Bob 36, 126 Gospel of Matthew 166
Grant, Ulysses S. 38–39
Eagleton, Terry 149–150 The Great Animal Orchestra 78, 80–81
Eco, Umberto 128–129 Great Awakenings 155
The Economist 31 Greeks 57, 71, 151
Edison, Thomas 57–58, 169–170 Guarneri violin 54–55
Edmondson, Nelson 165 Guns, Germs, and Steel 113
Edwards, Jonathan 158 Guns N’ Roses 104
Egyptians 57 Guthrie, Woody 20
Einstein, Alfred 24–25
Elgar, Edward 11 Haeckel, Ernst 26
Eliade, Mircea 65 Hanchett, Henry Granger 43
Emmons, Robert A. 175–176 Harnessed 78
Emotion and Meaning in Music 106 Hassidism 161, 174
emotional coherence 158–159 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 21
emotional contagion 159–160 Heine, Heinrich 71
emotions 42, 71–73, 156–158, 163–165 Hendrix, Jimi 148
empathy 45–46 Heraclitus of Ephesus 106
Encyclopædia Britannica 16 Herzog, George 19
endorphins 30 Hitler, Adolf 150
Enigma Variations 11 Hoffer, Eric 114
Eno, Brian 20 Hoffmann, E.T.A. 71
Ericsson, K. Anders 110 Höller, York 173
eternal return 65–66 Homo Aestheticus 87
ethnomusicology 18–19, 86, 88, 98 Hooker, John Lee 84
ethology 81–82 Horn, Stacy 29
Everything2 118 How the Mind Works 31
evolution 25–32, 49, 78–79, 82–83, 89, 94, Hoy, Ronald R. 84
100, 111, 120, 166 Hugo, Victor 72
existentialism 63–64 Huron, David 50
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Huxley, Aldous 69–70
Animals 53
The Identity of Man 12
The Farther Reaches of Human Nature 174 ideology 149–150
Finch, Atticus 9–10 L’Imaginaire 59
Folk Music: A Very Short Introduction 90 improvisation 35, 61, 82, 98, 104, 111, 112,
Fowler, Thomas 151 113
free jazz 17 The International Journal for the Psychology
Freedberg, David 46 of Religion 175
Freud, Sigmund 114 The International Silver String Submarine
Friedman, Daniel 121–122 Band 45
Friedmann, Elvia 3 Isidore of Seville 54
Index 195
James, William 64, 172 Miller, Geoffrey 31

Janes, E. 42 Milton, John 114, 143
Jankélévitch, Vladimir 9–10 minimalism 107
jazz 17, 20, 31, 35, 49, 61, 62, 63, 82, 91, 97, mirror neurons 46–47
104, 111, 118 Mitchell, Joni 148
Jenner, Gustav 115 Mithen, Steven 26
Joplin, Janis 36 Mood Change Parties 169–170
Jordania, Joseph 28 Morrison, Grant 65
Journal of Experimental Psychology 115 Morton, John 3
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Moses und Aron 50
29 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 18, 91, 121–122,
Jubilus 73 137, 173
Mozart Effect 6
Kant, Immanuel 114 Murch, Walter 57–58
Kierkegaard, Søren 64 Music: A Book of Quotations 11
Kodály, Zoltán 88–89 Music and the Ineffable 9–10
Kolb, David 152–153 Music as an Asset to Spirituality 119
Kolb Cycle 152–153 Music at Night 69
Konecni, Vladimir 53 music theory 12–13, 43
Krause, Bernie 78, 80–81 musical gravity 76–77
Krugman, Paul 149–150 Musical Times 50
The Mysticism of Music 171–172
Langer, Susanne K. 60
Langlois, Judith H. 51 Nagyvary, Joseph 54–55
The Language Instinct 94 Native American songs 161
Lao Tzu 70 Nattiez, Jean-Jacques 83–84
Law, William 70 Neanderthals 26
Lee, Harper 9–10 Neo-Hassidism 155
Leonardo da Vinci 76 New England Conservatory 91
A Letter Concerning Toleration 162 New York Times 89
Lévi-Strauss, Claude 78 New Yorker 95
Levitin, Daniel J. 145 Newton, R. Heber 171–172
Lewis, Bernard 66 Niebuhr, Reinhold 149
Little Rascals 45 Nietzsche, Friedrich 114
Living Links Center 46 Nineteenth Century Club 143
Locke, John 162 Ninth Symphony (Beethoven) 60, 95
Loersch, Chris 30 Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Centre
logogenic music 160 136
Lohengrin 18 notism 61–62
London, Frank 91–92 “November Rain” 104
London Symphony Orchestra 148
love songs 26–28 ontological time 21–22
lyrics 73–74 Oppezzo, Marily 115
Orishas 173–174
“Mache dich mein Herze rein” 166 oro cantado 173
A Man Without a Country 169 Oscar Weil: Letters and Papers 2
Maslow, Abraham 174–175 Otto, Rudolf 172
Masson, Jeffrey Moussaieff 82 Oxford University 31
Mattick, Paul, Jr. 94 oxytocin 30
Mayer, John D. 175
McDonald’s 138 Paradise Lost 143
McLean, Don 104 Parker, Charlie 20–21, 61, 92
melogenic music 160 Parry, Hubert 11
Metaphysics 153 Passover 65
Meyer, Leonard B. 106–107 pathogenic music 160–161
Michigan State University 165 Peerce, Jan 148
196 Index
The Perennial Philosophy 69–70 Schubert, Franz 71

Perlman, Itzhak 55 Schuller, Gunter 61
Peruvian flute 92 Schumann, Robert 71, 114
Philosophy in a New Key 60 Schwartz, Daniel L. 115
Picander (Christian Friedrich Henrici) 166 Seeger, Anthony 109
Pinker, Steven 31–32, 93–94 Seneca 151
Piss Christ 18 serialism 17, 50
Plato 54 Serrano, Andres 18
Polynesian music 3 Shakespeare, William 168
Porter, Cole 113 Sharlin, William 3, 62, 120–121
Posidonius 151 A Short History of Music 24
Practica musicae 77 Shostakovich, Dimitri 150
The Problems of Philosophy 153–154 silence 69–70
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sci- Simone, Nina 118, 148
ences 27 The Singing Neanderthals 26
Prokofiev, Sergei 150 Slobin, Mark 90
psychological time 21–22 Society for Humanistic Judaism 121
Puccini, Giacomo 13 Sonic Youth 20
Pulley, Emily 55 Spinoza, Baruch 141–143
Putterman, Daniel Campos 3 spiritual intelligence 175–176
Stalin, Joseph 150
qawwali 107 Stanford University 115
Queen 104 “The Star-Spangled Banner” 100
Quotations on Jewish Sacred Music 11 Stevens, Wallace 40
Stewart, Rod 36
Rash, Ron 41–42 Stewart, Stan 3
Ravel, Maurice 34–35 Stone, Jon R. 2
Ray, Benjamin 156–157 Stradivarius violin 55
recording 57–58, 65–66 Stravinsky, Igor 18, 104
repetition 48–49 Sufism 107, 174
Ricci, Ruggiero 18 Sun Tzu 117
Richards, Laura J. 119 A Survivor from Warsaw 50
Robert, Daniel 27 Suyá 108–109
Roggman, Lori A. 51 The Symbolism of Music 126
The Role of the Reader 128
Rollins, Sonny 61 Talbot, Michael 98
Romeo and Juliet 168 Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich 114
Rorem, Ned 72 Thagard, Paul 158
Rosaldo, Michelle 163–164 Theosophical Society 172
Ross, Alex 95 Thinking on Music 1
Rossini, Gioachino 18 three-minute rule 102, 103–104, 111
Rothenberg, David 82–83 Tieck, Ludwig 71
Rowell, Lewis 16 To Kill a Mockingbird 9–10
Russell, Bertrand 103, 153 Tolstoy, Leo 133–134
Tucker, Richard 148
Sacred Service (Avodath Kodesh) 10 Turing, Alan 35
St. Matthew Passion 166 Twain, Mark 19, 20–21, 143–144
Saminsky, Lazare 10
Santería 173–174 University of Liverpool 98
Sartre, Jean-Paul 59, 63, 125–126 University of Reading 26
Schenker, Heinrich 112 University of Western Australia 44
Schlegel, Karl Wilhelm Friedrich 71 University of York 28
Schlösser, Louis 11
Schoenberg, Arnold 49–50, 84, 102 The Varieties of Religious Experience 64
Schoenewolf, Gerald 160 Vaughan Williams, Ralph 119, 166
Schopenhauer, Arthur 21 Verdi, Giuseppe 119
Index 197
Veteran’s Day 168 Wurman, Felix 173

Villa-Lobos, Heitor 18 Wuthering Heights 166
Vines, Bradley W. 45
visual cues 44–45 Xingu River 108
Vivaldi, Antonio 128
Vonnegut, Kurt 74, 168–169 Yale University 170
“Yankee Doodle” 37, 42
Wagner, Richard 13–14, 18, 96, 170–171 Yerkes Primate Center 46
Waits, Tom 36 Yoruba 126
Weil, Oscar 2
Wendte, Charles William 72 Zappa, Frank 20
West Point 37 Zentner, Marcel 28
When Elephants Weep 82 zero-energy hypothesis 60
Why Birds Sing 82 zoomusicology 84
Why Do People Sing? 29 Zuckerkandl, Victor 37
Why Suyá Sing 109

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Music in Our Lives

ALSO BY JONATHAN L. FRIEDMANN

Music in the Hebrew Bible: Understanding

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers

BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE

© 2015 Jonathan L. Friedmann. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

Cover image © iStock/Thinkstock

Printed in the United States of America

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers

1. Writing on Music 9 11. Art Music 93

8. Language 69 18. Prejudice and Tolerance 147

This book is composed of “morning musings.” Written in the pre-dawn

reﬂection see value in the divergent opinions. As excursions in an ongoing

Literature on music comes in many types. There are technical studies

Writing on music is no easy task. First and foremost, music is meant to

Theory and Practice

Suggestions for Further Reading

Conceptions about music are ﬂuid and variable. Music is viewed as an

(Not) Deﬁning Music

A universally applicable deﬁnition of music will never be constructed.

is discarded in favor of relativism: an awareness that ideas about music

for imaginative excursions and inspired divergences. This is especially true

The Universal Non-Universal Language

standards or expectations. No single conception of what constitutes music is

of it for all the purposes of examination. In my contacts with the species I

Everything we accept as mainstream had a beginning somewhere in the

The Chronologic Art

by a slew of factors, including but not limited to physical surroundings, inner

Suggestions for Further Readings

Where Does Music Come From?

The observation that we are a musical species is hardly controversial. Con-

The Rudiments of Music

Alfred Einstein, one of the twentieth century’s most respected musicol-

distinct from song—is speculated to have preceded structured language. Part

crowded restaurant. Even when music is incessantly played at a super market

The Rhythm of Survival

While the study records an innate proclivity for rhythmic incitement,

The Social Basis of Singing

According to Chorus America, a national research and advocacy organ-

that demystiﬁes that experience. The “tranquilizer” effect is partly attributed

Literature on the origins of music is dominated by two theories. The

West, where professionalization and music as entertainment have done much

Suggestions for Further Reading

Human beings are almost universally equipped with an innate ability to

The Music Instinct

In 1933, ﬁfty-eight-year-old composer Maurice Ravel suffered a stroke

instruments, including guitar, piano, accordion, harmonica and bagpipes—

Computers cannot, by themselves, generate the musical in music. They

Pots and Pans

Suggestions for Further Reading

Musical literature tends to focus on sound. This makes perfect sense, as

Sound and Feeling

The raw materials of music include pitch, rhythm, durations, dynamics,

Musical expectations are formed at an early age. Infants begin matching

stomping ground of Appalachia, he responded, “Landscape is destiny.”3 Like

Music is experienced on a macro level. The listener is enveloped in waves

differences in combination (harmony), rhythmic patterns and basic form,

connective tissues or skeletal systems—let alone the invisible activity occur-