Occultism and esotericism flourished in 19th-century France as they did nowhere else. Many philosophers sought the key to the universe, and some claimed to have found it. In the unitive vision that resulted, music invariably played an important part.

This book analyzes the relationships that exist between esotericism and music from Antiquity to the 20th century, investigating ways in which magic, astrology, alchemy, divination, and cabbala interact with music. Ce livre offre un panorama des relations entre l sot risme et la musique de l Antiquit au 20 me si cle et montre comment la magie, l astrologie, l alchimie, la divination et la cabale interagissent avec l art et la science des sons.

Scholars explore from many fresh angles the interweavings of two of the richest strands of human culture-music and esotericism-with examples from the medieval period to the modern age. Music and esotericism are two responses to the intuition that the world holds hidden order, beauty, and power. Those who compose, perform, and listen to music have often noted that music can be a bridge between sensory and transcendent realms. Such renowned writers as Boethius expanded the definition of (...) music to encompass not only sounded music but also the harmonic fabric of human and cosmic life. Those who engage in pursuits called "esoteric," from ancient astrology, magic, and alchemy to recent and more novel forms of spirituality, have also remarked on the relevance of music to their quests. Esotericists have composed music in order to convey esoteric meaning, performed music to create esoteric influences, and listened to music to raise their esoteric awareness. The academic study of esotericism is a young field, and few researchers have probed the rich interface between the musical and esoteric domains. In Explorations in Music and Esotericism, scholars from numerous fields introduce the history of esotericism and current debates about its definition and extent. The book's sixteen chapters present rich instances of connections between music and esotericism, organized with reference to four aspects of esotericism: as a form of thought; as the keeping and revealing of secrets; as an identity; and as a signifier. Edited by Marjorie Roth and Leonard George. Contributors: Elizabeth Abbate, Malachai Komanoff Bandy, Adam Bregman, Charles E. Brewer, Benjamin Dobbs, Anna Gawboy, Pasquale Giaquinto, Adam Knight Gilbert, Joscelyn Godwin, Virginia Christy Lamothe, Andrew Owen, Christopher Scheer, Codee Ann Spinner, Woodrow Steinken, and Daphne Tan. (shrink)

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.

There are many possible approaches to describing the effects and uses of music in a particular society. It would be a mistake to assume that music in the Bible is not the cement of social life and has no liturgical significance. The present study seeks to explore how people in ancient times employed music using the harp and the ram's horn , to cope with roles that were open or never-ending in their demands. In particular, it focuses (...) upon the role played by music in secular life as well as religious rituals, as described in the Bible. The method used was an extensive literature study of the Old and New Testament, textbooks and relevant peer reviewed journals, with a focus on both secular and religious reasons for singing, dancing and playing instruments. It was found that the Bible described the use of the harp and the ram's horn associated with singing and dancing during celebrations, for military use, as well as mourning or lamentation. It was concluded that music using different instruments, including the harp and shofar, helped people to cope with the demands of everyday life and thus played an important role in both secular life and religious rituals in biblical times. (shrink)

Music can be described as sequences of events that are structured in pitch and time. Studying music processing provides insight into how complex event sequences are learned, perceived, and represented by the brain. Given the temporal nature of sound, expectations, structural integration, and cognitive sequencing are central in music perception (i.e., which sounds are most likely to come next and at what moment should they occur?). This paper focuses on similarities in music and language cognition research, (...) showing that music cognition research provides insight into the understanding of not only music processing but also language processing and the processing of other structured stimuli. The hypothesis of shared resources between music and language processing and of domain-general dynamic attention has motivated the development of research to test music as a means to stimulate sensory, cognitive, and motor processes. (shrink)

Originally published in 1987, this book forms a conceptual account of the relationship between music and poetry in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth ...

The reviewed collection, The Emotional Power of Music, presents the multi-dimensional picture of music as an important element of human life. The multi-disciplinary character of the book is visible not only in showing the variety of areas of research studying the emotional aspects of music but also the variety of theories, which attempt to explain the links between music and emotions. It should also be mentioned, that—because of limited technical jargon and adding artists’ comments—the book is (...) not only addressed to people professionally interested in the links between music and emotions, but to a broader audience. Therefore, the editors’ hope that it will be useful to both experts and people searching for an instructive introduction to the discussed issues is justified. (shrink)

The Postlude, written for this edition, looks back at the predictions made more than twenty-five years ago and speculates about what the coming decades may hold ...

In this paper, we explore challenges in conveying the culturally constructed meanings of local Indigenous musics and the worldviews they manifest to students in K-12 school music classes, when foundational aspects of the English language, historical and current discourse, and English language habits function to thwart the transmission of those meanings. We recount how, in settler colonial societies in North America, speakers of the dominant English language have historically misrepresented, discredited, and obscured cultural meanings that inhere in local Indigenous (...) musics. First, we examine three ways in which the use of English has distorted the cultural meanings of those musics. Next, we explain how historical discourses in English have intentionally undervalued or discredited the values intrinsic to those musics, also describing how some current music education discourse in English might work against the embedding of Indigenous meanings in school music education settings. We then consider additional factors distinguishing Indigenous languages from European languages (especially English) to show how a people’s “language habits” influence their perception of and thus their relationship with their natural environment. We conclude by considering the role of music education in revitalizing local Indigenous languages and musics and advancing the cultural values of their originating communities. (shrink)

Performing and listening to music occurs in specific situations, requiring specific media. Empirical research on music listening and appreciation, however, tends to overlook the effects these situations and media may have on the listening experience. This article uses the sociological concept of the frame to develop a theory of an aesthetic experience with music as the result of encountering sound/music in the context of a specific situation. By presenting a transdisciplinary sub-field of empirical (concert) studies, we (...) unfold this theory for one such frame: the classical concert. After sketching out the underlying theoretical framework, a selective literature review is conducted to look for evidence on the general plausibility of the single elements of this emerging theory and to identify desiderata. We refer to common criticisms of the standard classical concert, and how new concert formats try to overcome alleged shortcomings and detrimental effects. Finally, an empirical research program is proposed, in which frames and frame components are experimentally manipulated and compared to establish their respective affordances and effects on the musical experience. Such a research program will provide empirical evidence to tackle a question that is still open to debate, i.e., whether the diversified world of modern-day music listening formats also holds a place for the classical concert – and if so, for what kind of classical concert. (shrink)

Two Greek myths attest to the power of music to blur distinctions between humans and nonhumans: Orpheus made music that inspired human-like attention in animals, trees, and stones, while the Sirens reduced passing sailors to the level of animals incapable of resisting their song. Recast in terms employed by Lacan, these myths portray music as calling forth a response in creatures thought merely able to react and, contrariwise, stripping away the capacity for response in humans, leaving nothing (...) but reaction in its place. Critiquing Lacan’s dogmatic distinction between human and animal behavior, Derrida questioned the “purity and indivisibility” of reaction and response and recommended that critics explore the involvement of both in “the whole differentiated field of experience and of a world of life-forms.” In this essay, I take up Derrida’s challenge with regard to music as it has been understood in the European aesthetic tradition. While music has long been considered capable of provoking highly refined cognitive and emotional responses, it also acts upon the body in a wide variety of ways, many of them involuntary – a fact that has struck music’s advocates as alternately promising and disturbing. Revisiting eighteenth- and nineteenth-century commentaries by the philosophers and critics Johann Georg Sulzer, Johann Gottfried Herder, and Eduard Hanslick, I first illuminate persistent anxieties over the admixture of reaction and response in musical listening. I then turn to recent ethological studies in order to argue against any decisive separation of the human from the nonhuman in the arena of musical aesthetics. (shrink)

Evidence suggests that humans might have neurological specializations for music processing, but a compelling adaptationist account of music and dance is lacking. The sexual selection hypothesis cannot easily account for the widespread performance of music and dance in groups (especially synchronized performances), and the social bonding hypothesis has severe theoretical difficulties. Humans are unique among the primates in their ability to form cooperative alliances between groups in the absence of consanguineal ties. We propose that this unique form (...) of social organization is predicated on music and dance. Music and dance may have evolved as a coalition signaling system that could, among other things, credibly communicate coalition quality, thus permitting meaningful cooperative relationships between groups. This capability may have evolved from coordinated territorial defense signals that are common in many social species, including chimpanzees. We present a study in which manipulation of music synchrony significantly altered subjects’ perceptions of music quality, and in which subjects’ perceptions of music quality were correlated with their perceptions of coalition quality, supporting our hypothesis. Our hypothesis also has implications for the evolution of psychological mechanisms underlying cultural production in other domains such as food preparation, clothing and body decoration, storytelling and ritual, and tools and other artifacts. (shrink)

Exposition of theosophist views on science.

In this article, I first address the question of how musical forms come to represent meaning—that is, the semantics of music—and illustrate an important conceptual distinction articulated by Leonard Meyer in Emotion and Meaning in Music between absolute or intramusical meaning and referential or extramusical meaning through a critical analysis of two recent films. Second, building examples of scholarship around a single piece of music frequently used in film—Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings—I follow the example set by (...) Murray Smith in Film, Art, and the Third Culture and discuss the complementary approaches of the humanities, the behavioral sciences, and the natural sciences to understanding music and its use in film. (shrink)

Reconstructing Damon is the first comprehensive study of Damon, the most important theorist of music and poetic meter in ancient Athens, detailing his extensive influence, and providing the first systematic collection, translation, and critical examination of all ancient testimonia for him.

Music education has a profound impact on creativity and emotional development in teaching and learning, and helps to cultivate creativity and promote the development of self-awareness and social skills among primary school students by providing opportunities for creative expression and emotional release. In this study, four schools were selected as research subjects, and music education scale, students' creative self-efficacy scale, and students' creativity cultivation scale were used as measurement tools, respectively, and random sampling was used to conduct surveys. (...) Correlation and regression analyses of music education, students' creative self-efficacy, and creativity were carried out by using the SPSS software. The matching mediation model was constructed to investigate the correlation and regression analysis of music education, students' creative self-efficacy, and creativity cultivation of students. Creative self-efficacy, and creativity development. The results showed that music education, students' creative self-efficacy and students' creativity cultivation are all at the upper average level and still need to be developed. Music education will positively and positively promote college students' creativity as well as increase creative self-efficacy, which positively promotes creativity, and creative self-efficacy has a partial mediating effect in the relationship between classroom teaching strategies and creativity. (shrink)

The current conflict between the recording industry and a portion of its customers who are involved in illicit copying of music files arose from innovations involving the compression and electronic distribution of files over the internet. This paper briefly describes some of the challenges faced by the recording industry, and examines some of the ethical issues that arise in various industry and consumer responses to the opportunities and threats presented by these innovations. The paper concludes by highlighting the risks (...) associated with responses that threaten further innovation, ultimately reducing the chances of finding solutions that hold appeal for all parties. (shrink)

While acknowledging that Pierre Boulez is not a philosopher, and that he is wary of the potential misuse of philosophy with regard to music, this study investigates a series of philosophically charged terms and concepts which he uses in discussion of his music. Campbell examines significant encounters which link Boulez to the work of a number of important philosophers and thinkers, including Adorno, Lévi-Strauss, Eco and Deleuze. Relating Boulez's music and ideas to broader currents of thought, the (...) book illuminates a number of affinities linking music and philosophy, and also literature and visual art. These connections facilitate enhanced understanding of post-war modernist music and Boulez's distinctive approach to composition. Drawing on a wide range of previously unpublished documentary sources and providing musical analysis of a number of key scores, the book traces the changing musical, philosophical and intellectual currents which inform Boulez's work. (shrink)

Following his celebrated book The Aesthetics of Music, Scruton explores the fundamental elements that constitute a great piece of music.

In Flourish, the positive psychologist Martin Seligman (2011) identifies five commonly recognized factors that are characteristic of human flourishing or wellbeing: (1) “positive emotion,” (2) “relationships,” (3) “engagement,” (4) “achievement,” and (5) “meaning” (p. 24). Although there is no settled set of necessary and sufficient conditions neatly circumscribing the bounds of human flourishing (Seligman, 2011), we would mostly likely consider a person that possessed high levels of these five factors as paradigmatic or prototypical of human flourishing. Accordingly, if we wanted (...) to go about the practical task of actually increasing our level of wellbeing, we ought to do so by focusing on practically increasing the levels of the five factors that are characteristic of wellbeing. If, for instance, an activity such as musical engagement can be shown to positively influence each or all of these five factors, this would be compelling evidence that an activity such as musical engagement can positively contribute to one’s living a flourishing life. I’m of the belief that psychological research can and should be used, not only to identify and diagnose maladaptive psychological states, but identify and promote adaptive psychological states as well. In this article I advance the hypothesis and provide supporting evidence for the claim that musical engagement can positively contribute to one’s living a flourishing life. Since there has not yet been a substantive and up-to-date investigation of the possible role of music in contributing to one’s living a flourishing life, the purpose of this article is to conduct this investigation, thereby bridging the gap and stimulating discussion between the psychology of music and the psychology of wellbeing. (shrink)

Critical writing about music and music history in nineteenth-century Britain was permeated with metaphor and analogy. Music and Metaphor examines how over-arching theories of music history were affected by reference to various figurative linguistic templates adopted from other disciplines such as art, religion, politics and science.

Are works of music types of performance or are they continuants? Types are unchanging entities that could not have been otherwise; continuants can undergo change through time and could have been different. Picking up on this distinction, Guy Rohrbaugh has recently argued that musical works are continuants rather than performance-types. This paper replies to his arguments and, in the course of so doing, elaborates and defends the conception of musical works as types of performance. I end the article by (...) arguing that the conception of musical works as continuants is under-motivated and, ultimately, obscure. (shrink)

This book is born out of two contradictions: first, it explores the making of meaning in a musical form that was made to lose its meaning at the turn of the nineteenth century; secondly, it is a history of a music that claims to have no history - absolute music. The book therefore writes against that notion of absolute music which tends to be the paradigm for most musicological and analytical studies. It is concerned not so much (...) with what music is, but with why and how meaning is constructed in instrumental music and what structures of knowledge need to be in place for such meaning to exist. From the thought of Vincenzo Galilei to that of Theodore Adorno, Daniel Chua suggests that instrumental music has always been a critical and negative force in modernity, even with its nineteenth-century apotheosis as 'absolute music'. (shrink)

What is consciousness? Why and when do we have it? Where does it come from, and how does it relate to the lump of squishy grey matter in our heads, or to our material and social worlds? While neuroscientists, philosophers, psychologists, historians, and cultural theorists offer widely different perspectives on these fundamental questions concerning what it is like to be human, most agree that consciousness represents a 'hard problem'. -/- The emergence of consciousness studies as a multidisciplinary discourse addressing these (...) issues has often been associated with rapid advances in neuroscience-perhaps giving the impression that the arts and humanities have arrived late at the debating table. The longer historical view suggests otherwise, but it is probably true that music has been under-represented in accounts of consciousness. Music and Consciousness aims to redress the balance: its twenty essays offer a timely and multi-faceted contribution to consciousness studies, critically examining some of the existing debates and raising new questions. -/- The collection makes it clear that to understand consciousness we need to do much more than just look at brains: studying music demonstrates that consciousness is as much to do with minds, bodies, culture, and history. Incorporating several chapters that move outside Western philosophical traditions, Music and Consciousness corrects any perception that the study of consciousness is a purely occidental preoccupation. And in addition to what it says about consciousness the volume also presents a distinctive and thought-provoking configuration of new writings about music. (shrink)

This paper aims to show how philosophical debates about the nature of music as an art can throw light on one of the problems raised by Plato’s Euthryphro—how can human beings serve the gods?—and applies this to the use of music in worship. The paper gives a broad overview of expressivist, representationalist and formalist philosophies of music. Drawing in part on Hanslick, Nietzsche and Schleiermacher, it argues that formalism as a philosophy of sacred music can generate (...) an answer to Plato’s problem. (shrink)

Music and the Idea of a World explores the bond between music and world by reflecting on great musical compositions and works by great thinkers from antiquity to the present. World, here, has several meanings. It is the natural world or cosmos, the inner world of feeling and thought, world history, and the world of tones (the musical universe). The book is intended for philosophic-minded readers who are fascinated by music and music lovers who enjoy thinking (...) about the philosophic questions that music raises. The seven-chapter journey begins with a contrast between the cosmologies of Plato and Schopenhauer (followed by a discussion of Palestrina's music and the world of the Bible). It then proceeds to chapters on music and nature in Victor Zuckerkandl's Sound and Symbol, a love song from Bach's St. Matthew Passion, a love song from Mozart's Magic Flute, Wagner's Tristan and Isolde in relation to Schopenhauer's cosmology of the will, twelve-tone music as the image of totalitarianism in Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus, and the world of the inner life in Francis Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites. (shrink)

The ties between music and philosophy are strong and venerable, as they date back to the very beginnings of the latter. According to the ancient tale, Pythagoras, when passing by a smithy one day, noticed that the hammers make sounds of different pitch and, more importantly, that some of the pitch combinations feel pleasant on the ear while the others sound rather harsh. Intrigued by this phenomenon, the ancient sage began to further investigate it with the so called monochord (...) (being just a plank with a string attached to it which could be shortened at any chosen position to alter the pitch). Thus he discovered that the successions of two sounds that sound pleasant (or, to use a more technical term, consonant) could be achieved if the string is being shortened by 1:2, 2:3 or 3:4. Pythagoras could not be more satisfied with this finding, as it proved his claim that the universe is, on its hidden and true level, based upon an intelligible mathematical structure, and, moreover, that a key to understanding this structure is the Holy Tetractys, a figure representing the first four natural numbers in the form of a regular triangle. (shrink)

Music the art of combining sounds, maintains a sequence of time with harmony, melody and rhythm, generates changes in cognitive processes, improves concentration, memory, influences mood, produces changes in emotions, helps control anxiety, increases motivation, and decreases cortisol levels, the stress hormone, activates the hormone of happiness and rest, serotonin and melatonin. The objective was to analyze the influence of music in the purchase process and decision. The approach was qualitative-quantitative, exploratory level, descriptive statistics was applied to identify (...) the main trends and musical genres. The survey was carried out online, in the "La Condamine" market (November-December 2022). The sample 354 customers. The results of the investigation determined that customers enjoy listening to instrumental sounds in the food court, and in the vegetable, fruit and vegetable section; and the musical genre pop and/or reggaeton in the clothing section. The survey data was corroborated with the results of the biometric eyes tracking equipment in eight participants, attention, meditation and blinking were analyzed, with two sounds, sound 1: folk music and sound 2: pop; the average of the evaluations determined the level of acceptance of the participants for the musical genre, confirming the traditional survey with the results of the biometric equipment. Hearing goes beyond what can be perceived with sight and smell; there are sounds and melodies that connect us with emotions (laugh, cry, enjoy) and memories. It is concluded, (i) consider the musical genre according to the segment, (ii) the hours of greatest influx of customers, (iii) areas or sections of the market with greater or lesser product sales, (iv) slow music in places with more expensive products to extend their stay in the establishment. (shrink)

Discussions surrounding music and ethical responsibility bring to mind arguments about legal ownership and purchase. Yet the many ways in which we experience music with others are usually overlooked. Musical experience and practice always involve relationships with other people, which can place limitations on how we listen to and act upon music. In Music and Ethical Responsibility, Jeff Warren challenges current approaches to music and ethics, drawing upon philosopher Emmanuel Levinas's theory that ethics is the (...) responsibilities that arise from our encounters with other people. Warren examines ethical responsibilities in musical experiences including performing other people's music, noise, negotiating musical meaning, and improvisation. Revealing the diverse roles that music plays in the experience of encountering others, Warren argues that musicians, researchers, and listeners should place ethical responsibility at the heart of musical practices. (shrink)

Music and affects share a long history. In recent times, 4E cognitive sciences (embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended), situated affectivity, and related ecological theoretical frameworks have been conceptualizing music as a case of a tool for feeling. Drawing on this debate, I propose to further theorize the role of music in situating our affectivity by analyzing how the very affective affordances of music are technologically situated. In other words, I propose to shift the attention from (...) class='Hi'>music as a tool for feeling to the tools for feeling music. I argue that the experience of music as a tool for feeling may be altered, enhanced, or lessened depending on the tools for feeling music. I investigate the extent to which AI might be a case of a tool for feeling music and examine the influence it could exert over musical affectivity. I conclude that AI can be considered a tool for feeling music of curatorial type and that the limitations and/or biases of AI as a method risk lessening the power of musical affective affordances. (shrink)

Robert Sharpe examines the humanist conception of music as a language--as expressive and intelligible--which has been a dominant theory in Western culture. He argues against the view that music is expressive by causing certain states in us. Rather, he contends that our beliefs about music are integral to our appreciation of it. Differences in musical taste are then not just irresolvable differences in sensitivity, but the result of variations in circumstance and upbringing, of associations and ideology.

Melopoetics, the study of the multifarious relations between music and literature, has emerged in recent years as an increasingly popular field of interdisciplinary inquiry. In this volume, noted musicologists and literary critics explore diverse topics of shared concern such as literary theory as a model for musical criticism, genre theories in literature and music, the criticism and analysis of texted music, and the role of aesthetic, historical, and cultural understanding in concepts of text/music convergence. These fourteen (...) essays - united here not by a common ideology but by common subject matter - demonstrate how musical and literary scholarship can combine forces effectively on the common ground of contemporary critical theory and interpretive practice. The concluding essay by interdisciplinary historian Hayden White locates this ambitious enterprise of contemplating 'music and text' in the larger context of intellectual history. (shrink)

The essays in this volume look at various kinds of music from a number of perspectives, including the socio-political, the aesthetic and the psychological. The music under discussion here is diverse but fits loosely into the categories rock-pop, new music, rap, metal and music video, with the caveat that much of the music discussed here is historically layered and engages self-consciously in the deconstruction of music genres. If there is an interpretative theme that links (...) these essays, it is that of the cultural embeddedness of music. At the same time, and this is perhaps the single most important challenge taken up in these essays, this variable cultural studies approach embraces fully the aesthetic dimension of music, construing it as that which resists and articulates the signifying function of symbolic systems of meaning. Music is seen here as the kind of social critique that traces out its own phenomenological and structural pathways in such a way that, in the end, it is critical hermeneutic theory itself that comes under scrutiny. By way of reference (and perhaps indebtedness), the non-signifying property of music discussed variably in this volume is the same as that which was brought into relief in the terminologically contradictory title of Theodor Adornos masterwork, Aesthetic Theory. (shrink)

Savage et al. propose that music filled a hypothetical “bonding gap” in human sociality by Baldwinian gene-culture coevolution (or protracted cognitive niche construction). Both these stepping stones to an evolutionary account of the function and origin of music are problematic. They are scrutinized in this commentary, and an alternative is proposed.

How is music implicated in the politics of belonging? Provocatively fusing recent European philosophy with music theory, Music and Belonging explores the instrumental music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, reveals connections between listening and constructions of community, and testifies to Classical music's enduring political significance in an age of neoliberal exclusion.

A broad sociocultural perspective defines trauma as the result of an event, a series of events, or a set of circumstances that is experienced as physically or emotionally harmful or life threatening, with lasting impacts on an individual’s physical, social, emotional, or spiritual wellbeing. Contexts and practices that aim to be “trauma-informed” strive to attend to the complex impacts of trauma, integrating knowledge into policies and practices, and providing a sanctuary from harm. However, there is a body of critical and (...) decolonial scholarship that challenges the ways in which “trauma-informed” practice prioritizes individualized interventions, reinscribes colonial power relations through its conceptualizations of safety, and obscures the role of systemic injustices. Within music therapy trauma scholarship, research has thus far pointed to the affordances of music in ameliorating symptoms of trauma, bypassing unavailable cognitive processes, and working from a strengths-based orientation. In critiquing the tendency of the dominant trauma paradigm to assign vulnerability and reinforce the individual’s responsibility to develop resilience through adversity, this conceptual analysis outlines potential alternatives within music therapy. Drawing on a case example from a research project with young people in school, I elucidate the ways in which music therapy can respond to power relations as they occur within and beyond “trauma-informed” spaces. I highlight two overarching potentials for music therapy within a shifting trauma paradigm: (1) as a site in which to reframe perceived risk by fostering young people’s resistance and building their political agency and (2) in challenging the assumption of “safe spaces” and instead moving toward practices of “structuring safety.”. (shrink)

This chapter reconstructs Adorno's practices of listening to music through the prism of two categories: exact listening and inconsistent listening. Exact listening depends upon a distinct kind of intellectual confidence about the capacity for an intellectual to listen to and comprehend the forms of a given work. This practice entails his well‐known writings on the resistant powers of fractured forms in late Beethoven and the Second Viennese School; as well as his critiques of Wagner, Stravinsky, jazz, popular music, (...) and the culture industry. By contrast, inconsistent listening, found particularly in Adorno's writings on Mahler and Berg, acknowledges a significant measure of uncertainty as to what forms constitute a locus of social resistance. In these writings, Adorno shows readers more explicitly what it means to grapple with music's ineffability through his use of parataxis, extra‐musical hallucinations, and contradictory or paradoxical assertions. The chapter frames its reconstruction of Adorno's dual listening practices by delineating the philosophical importance of music's ineffability for Adorno's negative conception of utopian truth‐content. (shrink)

Contemporary or traditional? Blended or seeker? Pop or "classical"? Chorus or hymn? Combo or organ? Questions concerning music in worship abound these days. Is there a practical way to deal with these issues? In Music and Ministry: A Biblical Counterpoint, Calvin Johansson looks to God's Word for principles foundational to music ministry. Weaving together great scriptural truths, he establishes the need for a "directional balance" between pastoral contextualization and prophetic purity. In a time of facile musical accommodation (...) of the gospel to culture, Dr. Johansson suggests that a heightened concern for musical style and quality is in order-not for the sake of music, but for the sake of the gospel. (shrink)

In A Million Years of Music, Gary Tomlinson develops an extensive evolutionary narrative that emphasises several important components of human musicality and proposes a theory of the coalescence of these components. In this essay I tie some of Tomlinson’s ideas to five constraints on theories of music’s evolution. This provides the framework for organising my reconstruction of his model. Thereafter I focus on Tomlinson’s description of ‘entraining’ Acheulean toolmakers and offer several criticisms. I close with some tentative proposals (...) for further theorising. (shrink)