We
say that works of art have organic form, or that they have a life of
their own. But what about music? Can we really ascribe emotions -
sad, happy, triumphant or mysterious, to a piece of music?
The
philosopher, Susanne Langer, says that music, and the presentational symbols in music, should not be
described as a language. In
her essay "Philosophy in a New Key" in Theories
of Art and Beauty,
Langer describes two kinds of symbol. The first is discursive, for
example, verbal language, which has vocabulary and syntax and can be
sequentially ordered. Secondly, there is, the presentational symbol.
Further, there is also the aspect of experience which is not fixed,
and "cannot be spoken of, it is ineffable."
Susanne
Langer describes music as "the imposition of form on experience
by the mind" and of presentational symbols, she says, "Their
very functioning as symbols depends on the fact that they are
involved in a simultaneous, integral presentation." By "form"
or "common logical form" Susanne Langer is referring to
structure. She is saying that the emotional content of the work
reaches beyond the verbal, and has a significance that she describes
as "import."
Music
as Self-Expression
Langer
challenges the idea that music is a form of self-expression. She
supports her argument by pointing out how music has developed
historically from "the wailing, primitive dirge",
eventually becoming "denotative and connotative" rather
than emotional. She states that much self-expression cannot be
regarded as musical, for example, "a lynching party howling
round the gallows tree." From this and similar examples,
she concludes: "Sheer self-expression requires no artistic
form."
I
would say this is inadequate as an argument. It could be said that
music is a form of self-expression that evokes an aesthetic
experience in the listeners through an arrangement of sounds. It may
not be "sheer self-expression" but could still be regarded
as a sophisticated form of self-expression, as described by Deryck
Cooke in "The Language of Music" in Theories
of Art and Beauty: "The
expressive basis of the musical language of Western Europe consists
of the intricate system of tensional relationships between notes."
Langer
concedes that in playing music, "...we seek and often find
self-expression." However, it would be naive to make an
assumption about the composer/author's intentions based upon this,
since different players give different interpretations of the same
piece, "sad, angry, elated or impatient." Therefore,
although we use music in this way, it is not its primary function.
Music
as Semantics
According
to Langer, music is semantic, in other words, it has meaning but does
not stimulate or evoke emotions. Its semantic import is in its
symbolism, which conveys the logical expression of feeling. She
derides the literality of sound-painting in music. To describe "music
as stimulus and music as emotive symptom" is not a sufficient
condition, for this does not explain the importance we attach to
feelings. "It is not self-expression, but an exposition of
feelings" and "it expresses primarily the composer's
knowledge of human feelings."
Robert
Wilkinson, in his essay, "Art, Emotion and Expression"
in Philosophical
Aesthetics says
that both Langer's attempt to explain the relation between music and
emotion and Cooke's attempt to establish a language of emotion, are
unsuccessful. This is because they believe, in their different ways,
that the aesthetic value of music is to be explained by "something
outside the music, ie. emotion." I find Robert Wilkinson's
statement inadequate too, because an aesthetic response to a
beautiful expression of feeling evoked by an arrangement of sounds
must be important to human beings, even though we find it difficult
to explain.
The
Imprecise Nature and Subjectivity of Music
In
describing presentational symbolism as "unconsummated"
Susanne Langer tries to explain the imprecise nature of music as "a
significant form without conventional significance." She uses
the word "expressiveness" in preference to "expression."
The former has a feeling of freedom and continuity, while the latter
gives a sense of fixedness and completeness. In order to justify the
ambivalence of her argument, she makes a distinction between the
precision of logical "affects" and our tendency to refer to
them indirectly by describing their "effects", ie. the
moods that we subjectively project onto the music: "...a
medieval realm, a fairy world, a heroic setting." This is
because it is difficult for us to have a "precise logical
picture of "affects" at all."
A
need to fall back on our own fantasies when we cannot make subjective
sense of the musical is regarded by Langer as a program, and "a
program is simply a crutch." This inadequacy is in the
listener, who does not understand what he is hearing. She agrees this
might be a helpful device for people of limited musical intellect,
but "...it becomes pernicious when teachers or critics or even
composers initiate it, for then they make a virtue out of walking
with a crutch." This seems to be a similar argument to that used
by Kant, who accused those who disagreed with the prescribed concepts
of beauty as deficient in taste. It denies the opposing argument a
voice.
Emotional
and Intellectual Satisfaction
What
is important is that music gives us emotional and intellectual
satisfaction and that we understand it. "Thus music has
fulfilled its mission whenever our hearts are satisfied." It is
natural that we mistake the effects of music for feelings since
"...one looks at music as an implicit symbolism... the confusion
appears as something to be expected."
This
is unsatisfactory. If music gives us emotional satisfaction, we must
play some part in the transaction. By simply responding, our feelings
are surely being stimulated or evoked and our personal, learned
experience of past feelings will have an effect upon our reactions.
Whether our interpretation of the composer/author's intention is
accurate is another matter, and in this Langer is justified in
stating: "It is a peculiar fact that some musical forms seem to
bear a sad and happy interpretation equally well." This is
because "...what music can actually reflect is only the
morphology of feeling."
Pitch,
Time and Volume
This
indicates a continuous process dependent on time. Since music and
feelings are both continuous processes encompassing change through
time, and since we can only hold one thought or one note or
simultaneous combination of notes in our heads at one time, Deryck
Cooke's view, which attempts to "decipher its language"
cannot be disregarded. Cooke's view takes into account pitch, time
and volume, which are all effects of change, or of morphology. He
describes the positive emotions evoked by the major scales, such as
joy, serenity and triumph, and the negative emotions expressed by the
minor scales, sorrow, hate, etc. Cooke further asserts that music
cannot express concepts, but can only express feelings. He continues
by describing the quality of tonal tensions which "convey the
basic emotional moods which are brought to life in various ways by
the vitalizing agents of pitch, time and volume." The aspects of
major and minor can be further complicated by slow and fast tempo.
Cooke gives many strong examples.
For
example, the well-known tune of "Roll Out the Barrel" could
hardly be interpreted as anything but a simple, jolly tune for people
in company, although we may have to guess whether it is specifically
about drinking. This is not to deny that certain, complex pieces of
music might suggest either sorrow or joy, as pointed out by Langer.
Final
Comments
I
would conclude that Susanne Langer's theory is not definitive and
that she fails to explain, satisfactorily, how "a work of art
gives form to a previously inconceivable element of experience"
while accepting that artists often know what they are trying to do.
Wilkinson
points out that if emotions have logical forms isolable from their
contents, and that these logical forms are not peculiar to emotions,
there is no logical justification for the assertion that music is a
symbol specifically of emotion. It's relevant, maybe, to consider the
view of philosophers such as Hume and Santayana, who include
perception as a vital part of the aesthetic experience. At the same
time, music is naturally taken by us to be about emotion, rather than
about the many natural phenomena which it might, coincidentally,
resemble in logical form.
In
the end, we cannot deny the importance of perceiving and experiencing
a work of art and, most vitally, its actual expressiveness.
Sources:
-
Cooke, Deryck, "The Language of Music," Theories of Art and Beauty, The Open University, 1991.
-
Langer, Susanne K. "Philosophy in a New Key," Theories of Art and Beauty, The Open University, 1991.
-
Wilkinson, Robert, "Art Emotion and Expression," Philsophical Aesthetics, Blackwell Publishers in association with the Open University, 1992.
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