AAmerican Music

What is Music?

[1] What is music? During the course of the history of Western music, many have tried to formulate an answer to the question of the ontology of music. In order to distinguish between music and non-music, repeated attempts have been made to compile a list of essential properties of music along with the necessary and sufficient conditions. It is not my intention to represent any or all of the expressed views on this matter in a systematic or all-encompassing order. Rather, I prefer to paint a brief and approximate picture of some of the problems that these attempts to define, determine, or discern music have encountered.

[Music is a science and an art that produces dexterous and pleasant sounds, in order to combine them properly and present them charmingly so that their euphony may further God's honor and all virtues]', says composer and music theoretician Johann Mattheson. Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau describes music as an 'art de combiner les sons d'une manière agréable à l'oreille [the art of combining sounds in a way that is pleasing to the ear]'. Organist and composer Johann Gottfried Walther thinks of music as 'die Ton-Kunst, d.i. die Wissenschaft wohl zu singen, zu spielen und zu componiren [the art of sound, i.e., the ability to sing, to play, and to compose well]'.

Three 18th century definitions of music. They all share a normative quality that plays an essential role. 'Geschickt'. 'Angenehm'. ' Klüglich'. 'Lieblich'. 'Agréable'. 'Wohl'. Terms that we would hesitate nowadays to include in a definition or description of a phenomenon (of music). Although speaking about music in such terms has not been completely banned (cf. Nattiez, p.42. cf. Durant, p.58), they are too indistinct and ambiguous to arrive at a clear and uniform definition.

In contemporary attempts to distinguish music from non-music, more phenomenological, structuralistic or formalistic descriptions are preferred. Music is harmony, melody, rhythm, meter, tone, instruments or voice. Music is organized sound. Music is giving form to noise (cf. Attali, p.10). Incidentally, here too, ambivalent or polyvalent qualifications turn up: what is 'organized'? What is 'giving form to'? And how normative are these formalistic qualifications? Can there be music without or outside these parameters (cf. some of Dieter Schnebel's compositions in No (-) Music).

The American analytical philosopher, Jerrold Levinson, defines music as sounds that are man-made or arranged for the purpose of enriching experience via active engagement (e.g., through performing, listening, dancing) where sounds are primarily attended to for their sonic qualities (cf. Levinson, p.273). On one hand, he stays true to formalism. The sounds in music are intended for 'listening to primarily as sounds, and not primarily as symbols of discursive thought' (Levinson, p.272). On the other hand, Levinson expressly insists on including the intention, aim or purpose in his definition: music is 'humanly organized sound for the purpose of aesthetic appreciation' (Levinson, p.271, my italics). Levinson points out that he conceives of music primarily as an artistic activity and not as a sonic phenomenon to which intention would be irrelevant. Much remains unanswered in Levinson's definition. For example: what exactly is 'man-made'? According to Levinson, a birdsong or the rhythmic gurgling of a stream cannot be considered music. However, what is it if a composer incorporates them into a music piece? What if the entire composition consists of a birdsong or the rhythmic gurgling of a stream? Does the composer's intention alone suffice to categorize something as music? And is it possible to reconsider that view?

[3] Convinced of the difficulties that are involved in adequately defining music, music sociologists John Shepherd and Peter Wicke conclude that music itself is a discursively constituted category. That is, this term in itself can give rise to multiple, incommensurable and contested categories. 'The term 'music' is highly polysemous' (Shepherd and Wicke, p.208). (Musicologist Carl Dahlhaus no longer speaks of music (singular), but of 'musics'.)

Moreover, it only becomes more difficult to distinguish between music and non-music when the context reaches beyond the western world. 'More and more frequently, ethnomusicological literature stresses that other cultures do not in general have a term for music as a global phenomenon', musicologist Jean-Jacques Nattiez concludes (Nattiez, p.54). This epistemological category lies outside the cultural landscapes of such cultures and is not relevant to them: 'We [the Western world, MC] recognize the worldwide existence of music, but all of those things that we acknowledge as musical facts are not necessarily thus categorized by everybody' (Nattiez, p.61). Nattiez, Shepherd and Wicke seem to agree: there is no unambiguous and intercultural universal concept that defines music.

[4] Another problem needs to be addressed. Judging by John Cage's composition, 4'33'' (Play music), (among others) Levinson concludes: 'It should be apparent that there are no longer any intrinsic properties of sound that are required for something possibly to be music' (Levinson, p.271). According to Levinson, there are conditions essential to a piece being music that are not even directly audible. These observations, which are based on developments in musical language, can lead to a new definition of music inspired by the findings of the American philosopher, Arthur Danto. In his essay from 1964, 'The Artistic Enfranchisement of Real Objects: the Artworld', Danto acknowledges that the works of Marcel Duchamp and various Pop Art artists have made it impossible to separate art from non-art on the basis of formal qualities. Danto asks what will ultimately determine the difference between a Brillo box and a work of art consisting of a Brillo box? Danto's question amounts to the following: when one of two identical objects is considered art while the other is not, a certain context is assumed within which these two formally indistinguishable objects still enjoy their respective status. Danto calls this context the artworld: 'To see something as art requires something the eye cannot decry - an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art: an artworld' (Danto in Dickie & Sclafani, p.29). In 1974, George Dickie adds a sociological and pragmatic definition of a work of art to this notion of artworld: a work of art is a series of aspects (not every aspect of a work of art makes it a work of art) to which one or more individuals who

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