Bibliograph

On music, Theodore Gracyk

Type

Label

On music, Theodore Gracyk

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references (pages 141-147) and index

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

On music

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

813540088

Responsibility statement

Theodore Gracyk

Series statement

Thinking in action

Summary

What is music for? Is it the same in a Haydn symphony, the jazz fusion of Jaco Pastorius, a raga by Ravi Shankar, and an improvised song of grief in Papua New Guinea? This extremely concise book offers an opinionated and example-filled survey of some fundamental and longstanding debates about the nature of music. The central arguments and ideas are presented with the goal of making them as accessible as possible to general readers who have no background in philosophy. The emphasis is on instrumental music, but examples are drawn from many cultures as well as from Western classical, jazz, folk, and popular music. The views of historical figures--Plato, Kant, Hanslick, Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein--are compared with the views of leading contemporary philosophers of music--Stephen Davies, Peter Kivy, Kathleen Higgins, Malcolm Budd. Together, the four chapters in On Music show that music is a human universal that is culturally tailored to perform many different communicative functions. Performances of music are physically-embodied manifestations of human agency. Some performances express emotion. Some performances convey the mystical. Some just move our feet for dancing. But in every case, music speaks to us by drawing on both our innate musicality and our cultural traditions [Publisher description]

Table Of Contents

More than meets the ear : music and art -- With and without words : listening with understanding -- Music and emotion -- The siren voice of transcendence

Creator