tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post1910171290862182157..comments2024-03-27T23:06:03.736-05:00Comments on The Music Salon: Friday MiscellaneaBryan Townsendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-65746904586297801292013-12-08T06:16:22.354-06:002013-12-08T06:16:22.354-06:00Welcome back, Joel! And thanks for the very cogent...Welcome back, Joel! And thanks for the very cogent comment. Yes, "not even pseudo-science"!<br /><br />Your critique is quite right: in trying to rein in the foolishness of the attributing garden-variety emotions to music, I may have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. Yes, composers do want to write joyful music that makes people happy. Ironically, they also want to write sad music that also makes people happy, which is where the complication comes in.<br /><br />I want to distinguish emotions inspired by music from garden-variety emotions because I think they are a bit different. The mechanisms are different and the results are also different. It is because of this that we voluntarily listen to "sad" music (the scare quotes are necessary) because it makes us feel good, perhaps similar to the way that "having a good cry" makes us feel good. My impression is that the ecstatic, exultant joy that music can make us feel is different in important ways from the happiness we feel when pleasing things happen in ordinary life: we see our beloved, we get a big check, we find the ring we thought we had lost. Here, the happiness has objects in the world that we are interacting with. We are always happy because of x. But with music, it is a very complex sheaf of moods and mental states that include things that may resemble happiness and sadness, but that are, I'm pretty sure, different.<br /><br />Every Haydn symphony has a couple of quick movements that we could call "happy", but they are so different from one another that if we were to attach specific descriptive words to them, I would want to find unique ones for each unique piece: "that presto with the burbling horns that makes you feel joyful and slightly apprehensive at the same time because of the way the oboes are always sounding those dissonant little ornaments"! Similarly, every Haydn symphony has an adagio or andante that is languorous and "sad" because it inspires those melting or drooping moods that we often all lump together as "sad". But again, it is only by metaphor and each slow movement is different and needs a more specific description.<br /><br />This is all kind of complex. But thank you very much for the push-back. It reminds me that, while I have a few ideas about these things, they fall far short of an actual theory!<br /><br />The only thing I am really sure of is that while I would avoid things in real life that would make me sad or irritated, metaphorically "sad" or "agitated" pieces of music are things I might enjoy.Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-90392691154245880832013-12-07T09:32:11.751-06:002013-12-07T09:32:11.751-06:00Hey, Brian!
It's been awhile since the last ti...Hey, Brian!<br />It's been awhile since the last time I read and commented on your blog. You haven't lost your style, I see... hehehe.<br />I had already seen the personality-musical choices list before. When I first saw it, I thought "Oh my!... if Bryan sees this, his going to have an infarct" Fortunately, you found it hilarious (as I did). That thing seems to be taken from a Cosmopolitan magazine. Hahaha... But don't get confused, that is not science and I would say, that's not even pseudo-science. It seems more like a bunch of people making a poll and having fun with the results. <br />On the other hand, I think the subject of emotions-moods of music, it's more complicated than either what you say or what that study suggest. Actually I could find both aproaches quite similar (maybe what they call "percieved emotion" is a mood, and "felt emotion" is what you call emotion). Once we've entered in this domain of feelings and emotions and all that, concepts tend to be a little unespecific. <br />What worries me is that, reading this post (and comment), you mean that a composer never could have said "I want to make a joyful piece, a piece which make people happy"... because he always would have failed. I mean, the composer could just create a mood, no matter how hard he tried to express the feeling, and people could never say "I feel more happy when I heard this" (even if the listener doesn't have an object to be happy about)... un less they're mentally ill (!). <br />I think that everyone has an idea of what music makes us feel. There will be variance among people's responses and variance among people's words to define it: "mood" "feeling" "emotion"... some people would say that there's no feeling of sadness if there's nothing to be sad about. But could it be that sadness (a felt, real emotion) is just a "mood" originated by a reason... or a piece of music.Joel Lohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09899053147050874817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-40225501888571697562013-12-07T07:46:15.460-06:002013-12-07T07:46:15.460-06:00I didn't come up with this idea, of course. It...I didn't come up with this idea, of course. It comes from the work of philospher Peter Kivy. But it is an important point, I think. Music can be agitated, but it can't be angry because anger is always directed at an object. We are always, if we are mentally healthy, angry ABOUT something. Music can evoke all sorts of mental states and sensations, but they are only metaphorically related to emotions such as anger.<br /><br />Good description of Beethoven's Op. 127!Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-55004795563628707622013-12-06T13:13:57.150-06:002013-12-06T13:13:57.150-06:00You know, I have read that post of yours before - ...You know, I have read that post of yours before - the one which describes the distinction between garden variety emotions which have objects, and more subtle and suggestive emotions that music contains. I admit I read that post but never really understood what you meant, but today I did! I happen to be listening Beethoven's Op. 127, and again, it sounds sensual and seems to paint a (musical) picture of our inner world... says nothing concrete, but expresses a huge lot. Seems to be this is the essence of musical metaphor. Maybe the way you describe the effects of music depend on what music you hear! On listening to three-chord rock music, you will always reach the conclusion that music has very defined, concrete meaning which can be put into words - but we know better...Shantanuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09910091531263531496noreply@blogger.com