Music has often attempted to express mystical states of mind, cosmic harmony, the demonic and the divine. This wide-ranging survey explores how such film music works and uncovers its origins in Pythagorean and Platonic ideas about the divine order of the universe and its essentially numerical/musical nature.

In this essay, I investigate musical silence. I first discuss how to integrate the concept of silence into a general theory or definition of music. I then consider the possibility of an entirely silent musical piece. I begin with John Cage’s 4′33″, since it is the most notorious candidate for a silent piece of music, even though it is not, in fact, silent. I conclude that it is not music either, but I argue that it is a (...) piece of non-musical sound art, rather than simply a piece of theatre, as Stephen Davies has argued. I end with consideration of several other candidates for entirely silent pieces, concluding that two of these are in fact pieces of music consisting entirely of silence. (shrink)

In many countries, life expectancy has increased considerably in past years, and the importance of finding ways to ensure good levels of wellbeing through aging has become more important than ever. Arts based interventions are promising in this respect, and the literature suggests that musical activities can reduce isolation and anxiety and foster feelings of achievement and self-confidence. The present study examined the effects of group music making programs on the health and wellbeing of nursing home residents in Southern (...) Switzerland. A team of professional and student musicians delivered 10 weekly music sessions in four nursing homes, focusing on singing, rhythm-based activities with percussion instruments, and listening to short, live performances. 22 participants (16 women and 6 men, aged 72-95 years, mean 83.6, SD ± 6.9) were recruited to take part in the study and were interviewed after the last music session. The data were analyzed with thematic analysis to investigate how residents experienced group music making and its effects. The findings show that the music programs were beneficial for residents’ wellbeing. Music plays an important role in their lives, both in their pasts and presently, and being involved in musical activities offers engagement and novelty in daily life, providing learning opportunities and facilitating interpersonal relationships. Moreover, these results were due to interactions with the musicians involved. Residents particularly appreciated the opportunity to listen to live performances as part of the sessions. This study suggests that nursing home residents value music and that music based interventions play an important and direct role in enhancing their wellbeing. (shrink)

The processes taking place in modern science tend to integrate various scientific disciplines in studying any scientific phenomenon. This explains the search of methodology based on the techniques of different sciences involved in formation of the subject of research, which in this article is represented by the digital music art. Interpreted as a branch of music art with digital specificity, digital music art incorporates electronic music presented by specific, algorithmic, and electronic music. A signature characteristic (...) of digital music art consists in its interdisciplinarity, which suggests the combined effect of separate parts of the system and leads to self-organization, which corresponds with the scientific tasks of synergetics. This substantiates the relevance for elaboration of interdisciplinary methodology for studying digital music art in the context of research mechanisms developed within synergetics. The scientific lies in the analysis of digital art through the prism of the qualities inherent to synergetics. The disciplines united by digital art (mathematics, set theory, probability theory, information theory, combinatorics, game theory, cybernetics, computer science, acoustics, sociology, communication, and biology) are interdisciplinary, which means that in ensemble with other disciplines they form a complex interdisciplinary knowledge of structure of digital music art. At the same time, the disciplines that comprise scientific framework of digital music art are attributed to different sciences: humanities, natural sciences, mathematics, social sciences, and technical sciences. In this context, the research of digital music art is simultaneously of interdisciplinary and multiscientific nature. The author established a peculiar impact of interdisciplinarity upon digital art, which generates the qualities inherent to synergetics – nonlinearity, disequilibrium, openness, chaotic nature, entropy, indeterminacy, and dissipation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Art of Teaching MusicBetty Anne YounkerEstelle R. Jorgensen, The Art of Teaching Music(Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2008)I have had the pleasure of reading the book manuscript, The Art of Teaching Music, by Estelle Jorgensen. The content explores a variety of ideas that are covered in the myriad of courses experienced by undergraduate students and introduces new ones that are critical to the development of (...) musicians and prospective teachers. Some of these ideas might be alluded to or briefly discussed in methods classes, but not at the level of thoughtful detail as they are entertained and examined in the book. This level of depth would require students and teachers to discuss, dialogue, debate, and reflect over time within and across semesters and courses. I dare to suggest that some of the ideas might not be brought to students’ attention at all throughout the undergraduate experience, which is of a concern and suggests an even greater need for such a book.My overall impression of the book is that the content and the depth of writing would serve the undergraduate students throughout their undergraduate experience and the graduate population for similar and yet different reasons. In terms of the undergraduates, there are parts of the book that would be relevant during their first year in a foundations class, second year in technique classes, third year in methods (for lack of a better word) classes, and student teaching [End Page 109] seminar experiences as they prepare to enter the profession. Utilizing a book across an undergraduate’s experience could generate interesting conversation amongst faculty members as discussions about why, how, what, and when parts of the book would be relevant would need to evolve. Some chapters could be revisited while others visited for the first time at differing places and spaces across the four years. I cannot think of another book that could be utilized in this way and thus serve the undergraduate student throughout her four-year experience and this prospect I find exciting.The book is organized around fourteen chapters, all of which are followed by an afterward. The flow of the chapters invites the reader to examine aspects of becoming and being a music educator at various levels of growth and understanding.The first chapter is titled “Teacher” and requires the reader to think at broader and deeper levels when discussing the notions of role and identity, self-awareness, motivation to enter the profession, and reflective practice. While reading the text, I imagined conversations that would include a comparative analysis of students’ experiences, which could in turn provide larger contexts for the topics. Such a discussion is necessary when examining aspects of being and becoming a teacher in various contexts. The notion of situatedness is highlighted when individual cases are heard and examined and compared across other cases, carefully noting what might or might not be comparable and taking that bit of analysis into consideration. Having such discussions across the four years of undergraduate life allows students to re-visit what was and is, and to speculate about what is to come. Such reflection can be just as fruitful at the graduate level. Students enter graduate school with a variety of teaching experiences and time is needed to reflect on the transition from being a teacher to being a student again. Realization of the continuum on which they travel between learner and teacher becomes apparent in that the place on the continuum shifts regardless of their present position; that is, as a student or teacher. For doctoral students, this reflection is rich as they begin to engage with undergraduate students and forge a new path as budding teachers of teachers and researchers and continue to be musicians.Chapter Two took me to the writings of Dewey1 particularly as I read about a student-centered focus and the experience-based approach. So much of our profession has been driven by content and theories that the student has been removed from the center of the focus and thought of as peripheral. I welcome the idea of placing the students at the center of our thinking and conversations. These ideas have been articulated in... (shrink)

This article details the motives, processes, and historical context behind an improvised performance of a commedia dell'arte-style pantomime originally devised by Mozart and his friends during the Viennese Carnival season of 1783. The performers' efforts to reconstruct and interpret the fragmentary musical and literary materials that survive are framed by a consideration of the marginal position that musical improvisation occupies in the history of eighteenth-century music, and alternative historiographical and ethnographical methods are explored for the insights they can offer (...) into praxes of extemporized music making. Improvisatory traditions in the realms of jazz and the commedia dell'arte offer models for reconceiving Mozart's music as a dialogical and collaborative medium; they also suggest ways in which present-day performers can gain historical, phenomenological, and hermeneutical insights into eighteenth-century texts and performances by engaging with them as improvisers. (shrink)

The fact that we can hear a particular passage of music as expressing a “tranquil gratitude” is a central aspect of the phenomenology of musical experience; without it we would be hard pressed to explain how purely instrumental music could move us in the way that it does. The trouble, here as so often elsewhere in philosophy, is that what seems necessary also seems impossible: for how could a mere series of nonlinguistic sounds, however lovely, express a state (...) of mind? One of the central tasks of the philosophy of music is to remove this mystery.... (shrink)

Surprising artistic interventions in the landscape of the public everyday are psychologically, socially, and politically beneficial to individuals as well as their communities. Such interventions enable their audiences to access moments of surprising inspiration, self-reflection, and revitalization. These spontaneous moments may offer access to the experience of distance from the rational “self,” allowing the irrational and purely emotive that resides within all of us to assert itself. It is this sensual instinct that all we too frequently push aside, particularly in (...) the public realm, for the sake of our responsibilities. Urban communities in particular are persistently accosted by visual and aural advertisements and consumerist lures, that further discourage individuals from accessing their non-rational selves. Yet, I argue that it would improve the health and vibrancy of our communal lives if we encountered among others in public, even for a moment, the strong feelings of sudden elation or confusion that we generally consider to be private. I also argue that an addition could be made to the already diverse oeuvre of artistic approaches that comprise the realm of “sound art” and that it may be termed “musical intervention art” – or, simply put, music played in a circumscribed area in the form of an outdoor installation, that is designed to accost, surprise, overwhelm, and through this, actively engage. This article will describe an imaginary example of musical installation art. (shrink)

Published under the auspices of The World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning, 19 essays document the April 1998 international congress held at Harvard University. They ponder on such topics as the phenomenology of the experience of enchantment, Leonardo's enchantress, the ambiguous meaning of musical enchantment in Kant's Third Critique, art and the reenchantment of sensuous human activity, the creative voice, the allure of the Naza, Henri Matisse's early critical reception in New York, Zizek's sublimicist aesthetic of enchanted fantasy, (...) and enchantment in Baroque festive court performance in France. There is no subject index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR. (shrink)

Philosophy is the soul of art, and art is great because of philosophy. All kinds of philosophical thoughts seep into artists' minds like water flooding the beach, affecting their world outlook and outlook on life, and providing theoretical guidance for their artistic creation from aesthetic thoughts to creative methods. Beethoven used musical language to express the deepest worries in the hearts of the advanced people of his time. This paper attempts to explore the internal development law of art philosophy from (...) the perspectives of the orientation of art philosophy, the aesthetic construction of "meaningful form" and "poetic dwelling" of art philosophy, the thinking of the final conclusion of art philosophy, the development destination of art philosophy, and the integration and development. In the long history of art development, the form and function of art are constantly changing. Philosophy provides a continuous source of creative ideas for art and works of art often show profound philosophical views. Kant's lofty aesthetic concept affects the infinite emotional capacity in Beethoven's music. However, the expression of the ubiquitous contradictions and conflicts in Beethoven's music is also deeply influenced by Kant's view of nature. In Beethoven's view, the development of the universe is similar to a person's mental journey, and its essence is also a large symphony or sonata. (shrink)