Thread: Music: is it object or subject?

Some recent activity on this board has made me suspect (hope?) that TC will be a good place to chat about this question, what I have increasingly come to see as the fundamental question, about all the arts.

Why, it's the unified field theory of aesthetics!

If music is either object or subject, how can a discussion then be fruitful ? Your "or" must of course necessarily be provocative.

The main effect of the subject-object discussion marring a lot of recent aesthetics and theoretical debate often seems to be simply the mystifying of the work of art, trying to reach beyond our language, and trying to escape any specific social or historical relevance of the work of art.

If you look at music as object, you get a result.

If you look at music as subject, you get a very different result.

But mostly, we don't think about it at all. We assume music is an object, and we make our various pronouncements on things on that basis. What happens if we stop assuming and think about how we think? What if we try consciously to look at music as subject?

In any event, thinking about how we think or react or feel will lead us into more places (and help us understand where we are) than just thinking (about the objects) or reacting or feeling. That's what I was thinking, anyway.

Originally Posted by some guy

Some recent activity on this board has made me suspect (hope?) that TC will be a good place to chat about this question, what I have increasingly come to see as the fundamental question, about all the arts.

With joen_cph, I agree it's both. Music and all art is similar to a language in that it is an attempt to share the experience of artist and viewer. There are certain universals of human experience, common to all, which we can share in the expression of; traditions, and agreed-upon meanings.

Usually, a subjective emphasis is put forward to discount a work, whenever that music does not agree with our idea of what it should be, or upsets our paradigm.

"mystifying the work of art": "We know what art is. Why is this guy trying to mystify it, to make us look dumb? There is no mystery, crap is crap."

"trying to reach beyond our language": "We all know and understand language. The language is just fine the way it is. Why do we need to reach beyond it? You're marring my aesthetic."

"trying to escape any specific social or historical relevance of the work of art": Why does art have to be all things to all people? What's wrong with nationalism? This is my experience you're talking about, and it belongs right here, in this time, in this place. And all my friends agree."

It's a constant negotiation between the two. Without looking for a middle ground, we get into "Madonna is just as good as Beethoven, prove me wrong" territory.

Music is an object - the notes are there on the score (or whatever notational device is being used, or the sounds are being produced by whatever device is producing the sounds)

Our reaction to it is subjective.

But since there is an object there, our reactions are not totally random, as it is the relationship between us as human beings (presumably) with all our experiences etc. to the music of whatever medium with its fixed parameters. There is a tendency to forget one or the other of these in order to emphasize the other one.

I agree with Ramako. In a sense it is similar to the nature vs nurture debate. Our "nature" (usually viewed as our DNA) is real and important as is the objective aspect of music (the score or sounds). But that DNA interacts critically with our environment during development to produce the product - us. A different environment could produce a different person from the same DNA (and does with identical twins). The DNA - environmental interaction is analogous to the music ("objective") - human mind ("subjective") interaction that ultimately produces a reaction to the music. Both aspects are important to the final result (i.e. our response to the music).

It can be both. The great JS Bach wrote his church cantatas, and was expected to do so by his employment superiors and his God, to celebrate/glorify their religion during church services. The audience would have expected the same for these pieces premiered inside churches during church services. Nothwithstanding the fact that some folks reading this might be non-religious, the fact is these pieces clearly had objectives in mind by composer and audience, and it would even have been considered highly inappropriate, if not totally so, to have these pieces premiered for their intended objectives outside of these contexts, and even literally so - outside of a church! At the same time, these can also be subjective. I have a lovely looking large box-set of The Complete Sacred Cantatas BWV1-200 performed by Harnoncourt and Leonhardt, and collecting other series, for example Suzuki's excellent series with the Bach Collegium Japan (which I think surpasses the Harnoncourt/Leonhardt set so far). As a non-believer, I can approach the music and enjoy every minute of each and not within any of the intended objectives of the composer.

This I speak from my "qualified experience" of having listened to BWV1 to BWV200 by Harnoncourt/Leonhardt and most of the Suzuki set currently available.

Originally Posted by regressivetransphobe

It's a constant negotiation between the two. Without looking for a middle ground, we get into "Madonna is just as good as Beethoven, prove me wrong" territory.

What I'm suggesting, however, is that a comment such as "Madonna is just as good as Beethoven" is coming from the perspective of considering music as object.

And that's why I used the words object and subject.

I did not intend this to be yet another objective/subjective wrangle!

Of course music is both object and subject. But whichever of those is the quality one approaches listening with--and talking about music with--will return very different results. Viewing music as subject would never lead one to say either "Madonna is as good as Beethoven" or "Beethoven is the best composer ever." Both of those statements, however much in opposition they are, are coming from the same perspective of viewing music as object.

Originally Posted by some guy

... Both of those statements, however much in opposition they are, are coming from the same perspective of viewing music as object.

Referring to my Bach church cantatas example again, it is possible to have both concurrently if the listener today is a believer of God, and at the same time wants to enjoy the music. And why not?

Why, it's both, of course. There can be no subject in the first place without the object, after all. We typically leap off from common ground. Whichever is preferred depends on what the listener wants from the music.

Originally Posted by millionrainbows

With joen_cph, I agree it's both. Music and all art is similar to a language in that it is an attempt to share the experience of artist and viewer. There are certain universals of human experience, common to all, which we can share in the expression of; traditions, and agreed-upon meanings.

Usually, a subjective emphasis is put forward to discount a work, whenever that music does not agree with our idea of what it should be, or upsets our paradigm.

"mystifying the work of art": "We know what art is. Why is this guy trying to mystify it, to make us look dumb? There is no mystery, crap is crap."

"trying to reach beyond our language": "We all know and understand language. The language is just fine the way it is. Why do we need to reach beyond it? You're marring my aesthetic."

"trying to escape any specific social or historical relevance of the work of art": Why does art have to be all things to all people? What's wrong with nationalism? This is my experience you're talking about, and it belongs right here, in this time, in this place. And all my friends agree."

And isn't that the modern trend, one of escaping definition. If the postmodernists have their way, I'm sure nothing will be anything any more. Everything will be equivocated, condoned, encouraged, defended. No more wrong answers. Why can't there be wrong answers? Because people can't stand to hear that there are right and wrong answers to questions. And the old scholastic order must be abolished, because it is an arrogant beast, one that makes distinctions and instructs. I kid you not, this is an actual trend in academia today, amongst philosophers. According to them, it's an illusion that language expresses anything, that one action is commendable and another isn't, that two similar things aren't the same, or that one answer to the issue of religion is better. All issues thus become irrelevant. And how do they get this across? By sounding like Zen thinkers with their poorly hashed together paradoxes, which merely appear to be paradoxes because they have not defined the two values properly when stating the paradox between them.

For example: They say that an example of language being void is the paradox between simple and complex. Little do they understand that simple and complex are contingent upon one another. Simple is the single pixel or small group of pixels. Complex is the network of the pixels. So, the complex is, when you reduce it down to it's essentials, simple. But postmodernists don't respond to arguments from contingency, because all they do is hash up another poorly defined paradox without defending the previous one.

And amongst average people, postmodernism is gaining traction. It has become a big barrier today to those who work in Apologetics. Why become a Christian when the issue is purely relative and irrelevant, right? The average know-it-all just wants to enjoy him/her self. Postmodernism is so convenient. The ideal of Platonic dialogue may be in it's death throes.

Originally Posted by millionrainbows

Usually, a subjective emphasis is put forward to discount a work, whenever that music does not agree with our idea of what it should be, or upsets our paradigm.

Wow, evidently you have not dropped in on a bunch of pros discussing music much... the subjective is present to avoid all the emotional associative 'Rorschach blot' individual reactions which may be real and valid, but have little to do with anything pertinent about the thing when the piece is on the dissection table.

OF COURSE to the 'normal' listener, those Rorschach blot emotional reactions are all, everything and 'all about their personal experience.' But 'your personal experience' has little to do, really, with the piece, the 'value' of it, or its strong or weak points -- other than to you.

"All about me," when in discussion with others, just doesn't stay interesting for more than a moment or two.

ED / ADD: A musical piece is an object, which once being discussed becomes 'the subject.'
Past that, I smell a petty academic rut of hairsplitting over the semantics of a very plain case... which is no real 'issue' at all.

Originally Posted by PetrB

Wow, evidently you have not dropped in on a bunch of pros discussing music much... the subjective is present to avoid all the emotional associative 'Rorschach blot' individual reactions which may be real and valid, but have little to do with anything pertinent about the thing when the piece is on the dissection table.

OF COURSE to the 'normal' listener, those Rorschach blot emotional reactions are all, everything and 'all about their personal experience.' But 'your personal experience' has little to do, really, with the piece, the 'value' of it, or its strong or weak points -- other than to you.

"All about me" just doesn't stay interesting for more than a moment or two when in discussion with others.

This makes me think how that the objective and subjective frames of reference can be thought of as two lines of questions: the "how do I respond to this", and the "how do we respond to this".

And what I've been trying to get across (I do believe I made a mistake thinking I could do it, too!) is that both "how do I respond to this" and "how do we respond to this" both come from viewing music as object (this).

As does this, "the piece, the 'value' of it, or its strong or weak points."

As for post modernism, in my experience it has seemed more like a whipping boy or a scapegoat than a culprit. But then I don't think society is going to hell in a handbasket, either, though some bits of it always are. And I certainly don't think that contemporary classical is a force for evil.

I cannot speak for million, whom Luke was addressing in the post modernism post, but I can say that my goal in this thread is to see if we can reassess how we approach the arts, to sharpen definitions not eliminate them, to use the appropriate words to describe whatever it is we're describing.

The biggest category error I see in discussions of music is assigning statements of value the status of fact, using them as if they described the features and characteristics of pieces. ("Beethoven's symphony no. 9 is around 65 minutes long" and "Beethoven's symphony no. 9 is the greatest symphony ever" taken as being the same kind of statement, a statement about the piece itself.) And that comes, I think, from viewing music as object. Viewing music as subject means statements of value are never taken as anything else than what they are, statements of value. Different from statements of fact. More valuable.

Originally Posted by Lukecash12

If the postmodernists have their way, I'm sure nothing will be anything any more. Everything will be equivocated, condoned, encouraged, defended. No more wrong answers.

Indeed. Demanding a logical justification for any value judgment will always invalidate that judgment. In the long run, the demand destroys the myths on which any civilization depends. The Greeks knew that, which is why they (wisely) executed Socrates.