How is music a selective recreation of reality?

[Dan Haggerty]

Dan, you're claim that a novel recreates the abstract sense of heroism and triumph is leaving out all of the literal recreations. Of course an emotional effect is the purpose of art, but the debate is whether that emotional effect is achieved by "selectively recreating reality".

Ah, no, I was not trying to say that at all. A novel tells a story and provides the concretes by the author up front - Values, principles, all the way to characters, conflict, resolution, and etc. all in a drive to ultimately invoke an emotional reaction in the reader. Let me rephrase my original post:

Novel = provides specific concretes to invoke emotions in the user

Music = Invokes emotions in user then lets the user fill in their own concretes

[Dglgmut]

Dan, you're claim that a novel recreates the abstract sense of heroism and triumph is leaving out all of the literal recreations. Of course an emotional effect is the purpose of art, but the debate is whether that emotional effect is achieved by "selectively recreating reality".

Ah, no, I was not trying to say that at all. A novel tells a story and provides the concretes by the author up front - Values, principles, all the way to characters, conflict, resolution, and etc. all in a drive to ultimately invoke an emotional reaction in the reader. Let me rephrase my original post:

Novel = provides specific concretes to invoke emotions in the user

Music = Invokes emotions in user then lets the user fill in their own concretes

Oh yeah, that was Rand's argument as well... but again, you could make the same argument for abstract visual art... The shape invokes emotions in the viewer connected to memories of concretes...

[caroljane]

...and when Valli renders "talk Like a Man" while singing like a girl the concretization is...

sweet, sweet irony

[Dan Haggerty]

Dan, you're claim that a novel recreates the abstract sense of heroism and triumph is leaving out all of the literal recreations. Of course an emotional effect is the purpose of art, but the debate is whether that emotional effect is achieved by "selectively recreating reality".

Ah, no, I was not trying to say that at all. A novel tells a story and provides the concretes by the author up front - Values, principles, all the way to characters, conflict, resolution, and etc. all in a drive to ultimately invoke an emotional reaction in the reader. Let me rephrase my original post:

Novel = provides specific concretes to invoke emotions in the user

Music = Invokes emotions in user then lets the user fill in their own concretes

Oh yeah, that was Rand's argument as well... but again, you could make the same argument for abstract visual art... The shape invokes emotions in the viewer connected to memories of concretes...

Interesting. I read the Romantic Manifesto but it was some time mid-90’s, I must have picked it up then from there – I honestly remember being a bit disappointed. Looks like I’m going to have to re-read it again at some point just to familiarize myself with the material.

Probably not a bad idea anyway so I can be informed the next time Jonathan takes someone over on OO to task.

I have no comment on abstract art since I'm honestly not that familiar with it, although I do have several strong "pet-peeves" personally. I can certainly see your point however.

[Jonathan]

I have no comment on abstract art since I'm honestly not that familiar with it, although I do have several strong "pet-peeves" personally. I can certainly see your point however.

What a refreshingly reasonable response!

J

[Xray]

What is the difference between a and an ordinary value judgment?

Good question.

Here is a link to the AR lexicon entry "Metaphysical Value-Judgments": http://aynrandlexico...-judgments.html

It would also interest me what is meant by “Psycho-Epistemology of Art”.

(“The Psycho-Epistemology of Art,” The Romantic Manifesto, 19)

[Brant Gaede]

What is the difference between a metaphysical value judgment and an ordinary value judgment?

Good question.

It's not another kind, begging the question of what it actually is.

--Brant

[Guyau]

Con Molto Sentimento

Marsha Familaro Enright (1995)

Abstract

Why does man make music? How does it cause feelings? What is its biological function and evolutionary origin? What is the relation of music to language? Are there objects to which music refers?

Enright gives an overview of thinking on these questions from the Greeks to nineteenth-century philosophers and Helmholtz. She introduces modern theories of music and brings to bear modern research on music and the brain. She gives considerable attention to the theory of Manfred Clynes and the research of Robert Zatorre.

In her esthetics, Rand offered a hypothesis about how music relates to feeling and cognition. Enright uncovers a conflicting tendency in Rand’s account and proposes different ways in which it might be resolved, consistent with scientific findings.

The Perception of Music: Sources of Significance

Christopher Peacocke (2009) proposes an answer to what it is for music to express emotion or other states. His account is built from a general capability for experiencing-as in metaphor, a non-linguistic cognitive capability for exploiting mappings.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

This is an old thread, but it is interesting to see older arguments against modern discoveries.

Rand said music as art was a selective recreation of reality, and she used a mid-19th century science book as part of her discussion, On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music by Hermann von Helmholtz. 

Rather than try to debunk Rand's approach, I believe it is good to see what common ground exists between her ideas, and music and neuroscience.

 

For an easy layperson's explanation, Andrew Huberman is about the best out there.

Despite the self-help slant of the title of the video below, there is a lot about how the brain processes music and the physical reactions it causes in the body.

 

Just from a skim, it's pretty easy ton see that the brain does not recreate reality with music in order to contemplate a model, which is Rand's approach to art. The brain processes music to literally prompt physical processes in the body.

But there is the art aspect in, say, classical music concerts where there are not many physical processes in the audience allowed to be expressed. It's easy to dismiss Rand's conclusions about music, but I don't want to dismiss her questions. They are excellent.

 

It's been a while since I have delved into the technical side of music. Back in college where I studied trombone and music composition, when I first came across Rand I became determined to create some kind of work around music epistemology.

I'm making this post to retake this idea. I'm not sure I would call it epistemology anymore. Granted, there is a kind of conceptual activity from sensory input that goes on in the brain, but there is a lot of motor neuron activity, neurochemicals, hormones, neural networks and a bunch of other stuff that makes us swoon in delight or boogie all night. We can worry about the proper word for all this later.

I have not finished the Huberman video, but I will as I delve into details, and God knows, I did little more than skim the Helmholtz work back in the day. That thing is so boring, it made me contemplate sticking needles in my eyes.  

So consider this as a new beginning rather than a final argument.

It's a placeholder.

If you want to know what music is all about and you have a Randian worldview, or at least started with one, I think you are going to like what follows.

Michael