#4 - "Referential Meaning in Music" (1 of 4)

This reading provides us with an introduction and overview of referential meaning in music - what it is, what it perhaps should be, and its origin primarily in Suzanne K. Langer's works which include Philosophy in a New Key.

Mainly through Langer's viewpoint, Ferrara provides background and insight into the major issue between "scientists," those who seek to view and categorize the world quantitatively, and other philosophers and thinkers: the idea that music is non-rational. Because you cannot translate and transcribe one music "language" to another as you can in linear, discursive human languages, music is not logical and therefore outside the realm of verifyable knowledge.

The claim is that "without discursivity, music cannot properly be called a language." But Langer doesn't see this as inhibiting, rather transcending ordinary language, just as man transcends nature through his very ability to understand and interpret symbol systems: "It is not that words cannot literally express insights into human feelings. Rather, for Langer, music appears to do it so much better in part because it functions at a more abstract level, a level that is analogous to the concept of feelings, not the feelings themselves" (Ferrara 16). Langer argues that music IS rational when thought of as a symbol system, not a logical or mathematical one.

But, oddly perhaps, she never put her theories into practice. After so eloquently forming and defending this theory, she never provided examples of how music might be "translated" in a non-discursive fashion and therefore interpreted. While this can be considered one of her great strengths - it speaks to the quality of her mind that she can formulate and support this kind of theory without direct evidence and concrete example - this fact also appears to be Langer's tragic flaw: it is this same lack of example and evidence that is the major drawback of her theory.

I thought this reading was absolutely fascinating. It didn't take me as long to get through, but I think that may be because this time I knew the style of book I would be reading. Sort of like how when you eat something you thought was something else, it will taste bad to you. Not because you don't like it, just because it wasn't what you had thought it was. Oh, how the mind plays tricks on us!

The discussion on language, and the whole passage on page 15 about permanence and change making up these central rhythms of life, shaping the very influence for music....I think that page was absolutely beautiful. What she says makes a lot of sense, and to me even seems obvious! In a way it makes me reflect on the evolution of the human mind itself. To think that at different times in the course of our history, people had to argue over things that, without any formal training in the subject whatsoever, someone like me would (nearly sixty years later) take for granted?