The essence of music

[Ein Heldenleben]

Nevertheless there are quasi-verbal approximations to be found in music. Going through a performance of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in my head this afternoon, I was struck by how frequently sequences of ideas presented themselves as questions, or at any rate interrogations, and answers, or attempts at such. Call and response seems to be quite a common phenomenon in music - not just were typically cited, as in Renaissance antiphony, Blues or Gospel.

Well those last three genres are setting a spoken or sung language so you would expect an analogous call and response in the music. Beethoven’s Fifth is a good example. Where Leonard Bast in Howard’s End imagines goblins crawling over the face of the earth in the Scherzo I hear a second inversion C minor arpeggio. The music doesn’t communicate any precise idea or meaning in the way words can. The opening motif might be fate and certainly reappears in the Scherzo but what does that mean ? Not even goblins can escape fate? The meaning is just in the notes and in the very varying emotions they invoke in people.
As for universality there are huge swathes of eastern music that , though I find them interesting musically , leave me completely unmoved. Whereas I read quite a bit of literature from around the world (in translation ) and have no problem entering that different world. On that note I would recommend the contemporary Japanese novel Butter. It will change the way you cook rice for ever.

[smittims]

It might be worth mentioning here that A.M. Jones* noted a closer relatonship between music, language and life events (birth, death, marriage) in traditional African music than in 'western art' music, In some cases the names of the notes are not abstract as we know them (e.g. 'C sharp') but the names of things and animals.

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* Studies in African Music, OUP, 1959.

[kernelbogey]

There are no “different “ categories of language .

I think - and indeed also feel! - that a number of your premises are wrong - despite your super-assertive language here.

So how about
I love you
I want something to eat
If you do not sign this paper immediately we will kill you
If we do not restrict global heating to two degrees centigrade much of the world will perish
Your gearbox is broken and must be replaced

All of these are of different categories - wooing, expressing hunger, treat, advocacy, advice, and so forth

The phrase “I want something to eat ” ... is [not] subject to interpretation .

This could be said beggingly, threateningly or seductively to name but three.

There are swathes of the global population to whom... the phrase “I want something to eat “ certainly will . It can even be mimed.

I guess if you said It in English to, oh, a rain forest 'Indian' you might not get a response.

So I'd maintain that music is a language though not transactional as in the above examples.

[Padraig]

I think - and indeed also feel! - that a number of your premises are wrong - despite your super-assertive language here.

So how about
I love you
I want something to eat
If you do not sign this paper immediately we will kill you
If we do not restrict global heating to two degrees centigrade much of the world will perish
Your gearbox is broken and must be replaced



. . . I'd maintain that music is a language though not transactional as in the above examples.

My contribution is to avoid defining 'language', though I find 'the language of music' a useful phrase, and to choose some of the above examples to make a different point. Take 'I want something to eat'. It would not surprise me if Cole Porter found that rhythm inspiring, and out came 'You do something to me.' Or if Beethoven went big time for the rhythm of 'Knock at the door' in the Fifth. Rhythm in language essentially influencing music . . . just musing.

[french frank]

All of these are of different categories - wooing, expressing hunger, treat, advocacy, advice, and so forth


This could be said beggingly, threateningly or seductively to name but three.

I think those might be thought of in the same light as linguistic 'registers' which would be similar to "Push off!" v. "Please would you go away?" or "I would like that very much" v. "Phwaw! That sounds a bit of all right!", rather than different categories of language itself.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I think those might be thought of in the same light as linguistic 'registers' which would be similar to "Push off!" v. "Please would you go away?" or "I would like that very much" v. "Phwaw! That sounds a bit of all right!", rather than different categories of language itself.

Thanks French Frank - you found the exact phrase I was searching for .

The only point I was going to make to KB was that indeed going to parts in of Papua New Guinea about 50 years ago and signing I’m hungry by rubbing one’s tummy and pointing a finger to an open mouth would definitely be a high risk gesture.

[Mandryka]

I think you're right,ff, that music is something other than the sounds . It's something ineffable conveyed by a language of pitch, rhythm, dynamics and timbre. And that's what's so wonderful about it, for me; it's why I prefer so-called 'pure' or 'abstract' music (i.e. music about music, not music with a story or words) .

This is exactly what Morton Feldman would have said about his Vertical Thoughts. And yet some critics at the time of its creation in New York denied that it is music at all -- they said it was a religious experience and not a musical one. Paradoxically, I have never knowingly experienced anything ineffable as far as I recall, but I do listen to music.

[smittims]

Thanks for that Feldman clip. Not very unlike Webern opus 7 !

[richardfinegold]

I've also heard objections to the idea of music being a 'language', and as a linguist I feel that the term 'language' is a bit earthbound. Does 'describing' music and 'defining' music amount to the same thing? Is it no more than what each individual feels/thinks it is? We each know what we get from it, why we value it - but we all experience it differently?

Music is a language, but it’s so much more than that. Earthbound is an excellent way to describe that characterization

[kernelbogey]

Music is a language, but it’s so much more than that. Earthbound is an excellent way to describe that characterization

Yes... and therefore, IMVHO, resorting to either Linguistics theory or etymology simply takes us down one or other rabbit hole, in which like Pooh, we can get stuck.

Rather sweetly, not long after dabbling in this thread, I heard Andrew McGregor's 'guest' Alexandra Wilson. on the recording of Puccini's Manon Lescaut, recorded in 2014, refer to 'Puccini's musical language'. I think we would all know, would we not, what she meant by that? His language is completely different from Mozart's operatic music, and, to those familiar with 19th century Italian opera, from that of Verdi et al.

The language of the music, in the particular rather special realm of opera, will convey character, plot, intersubjective attitudes of the characters, and so on and so forth in addition to whatever is happening in (say) LvB III - for which I am atm lost for words to describe.

[french frank]

Yes... and therefore, IMVHO, resorting to either Linguistics theory or etymology simply takes us down one or other rabbit hole, in which like Pooh, we can get stuck.

Resorting to technical terms has the advantage of using words which have a precise meaning. The OED does indeed indicate that the word 'language' can be used 'figuratively' e.g. the language of birds, 'the consenting language of the heart'). In each context it can have a slightly different meaning, so 'music' can become whatever you want it to mean in a particular context - the music of birds, the consenting music of the heart). Generalised terms are part and parcel of everyday speech but are less useful when discussing specifics.

The language of the music, in the particular rather special realm of opera, will convey character, plot, intersubjective attitudes of the characters, and so on and so forth in addition to whatever is happening in (say) LvB III - for which I am atm lost for words to describe.

I think you illustrate my point quite well. Context is all: narrow it down to opera and the word 'language' can be made to illustrate particular points which relate to opera. But a Beethoven symphony - that is 'music', but what is music? You become lost for words.

[vinteuil]

Rather sweetly, not long after dabbling in this thread, I heard Andrew McGregor's 'guest' Alexandra Wilson. on the recording of Puccini's Manon Lescaut, recorded in 2014, refer to 'Puccini's musical language'. I think we would all know, would we not, what she meant by that?
His language is completely different from Mozart's operatic music, and, to those familiar with 19th century Italian opera, from that of Verdi et al.
The language of the music, in the particular rather special realm of opera, will convey character, plot, intersubjective attitudes of the characters, and so on and so forth in addition to whatever is happening in (say) LvB III - for which I am atm lost for words to describe.

.

I think you illustrate my point quite well. Context is all: narrow it down to opera and the word 'language' can be made to illustrate particular points which relate to opera. But a Beethoven symphony - that is 'music', but what is music? You become lost for words.

... French Frank - kernelbogey mentioned opera - but it doesn't need to be 'narrowed down' as you put it.

He says, "

[Puccini's] language is completely different from Mozart's operatic music, and, to those familiar with 19th century Italian opera, from that of Verdi et al.

but equally I could say - "Debussy and Satie were born within four years of one another - but the musical language of the one is as distinct from that of the other as equatorial jungles are from arctic wastes"


.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Resorting to technical terms has the advantage of using words which have a precise meaning. The OED does indeed indicate that the word 'language' can be used 'figuratively' e.g. the language of birds, 'the consenting language of the heart'). In each context it can have a slightly different meaning, so 'music' can become whatever you want it to mean in a particular context - the music of birds, the consenting music of the heart). Generalised terms are part and parcel of everyday speech but are less useful when discussing specifics.



I think you illustrate my point quite well. Context is all: narrow it down to opera and the word 'language' can be made to illustrate particular points which relate to opera. But a Beethoven symphony - that is 'music', but what is music? You become lost for words.

Exactly . A welcome introduction of academic rigour. We employ metaphor and simile all the time . Sometimes they offer a useful insight , sometimes an unhelpful ambiguity. It’s fine to talk about the “language of music” but a philosopher would ask you to define terms and ask how useful and or accurate that term is in describing the essence and impact of music. I don’t even like the idea of the “music “ of poetry . Poetry might have a rhythm but it is not music. Equally Goethe’s “Music is liquid architecture, architecture is frozen music “ does over a valuable insight if only for discussion.

[kernelbogey]

Resorting to technical terms has the advantage of using words which have a precise meaning.

Yes of course. (Though, re Pooh, I recall Rabbit may have made a similar point to him. )

I think you illustrate my point quite well. Context is all: narrow it down to opera and the word 'language' can be made to illustrate particular points which relate to opera. But a Beethoven symphony - that is 'music', but what is music? You become lost for words.

I am indeed lost for words just now! I was trying also to imply that (in the case of opera) as well as the dramatic & character-describing things going on in the music*, the same 'abstract' processes as in the Eroica are also going on simultaneously.

(* How often have we read or heard in commentary the elaboration, in relation to an operatic scene, Such and such is now going on, but the orchestra tells us what is really happening'?)

[Sir Velo]

(* How often have we read or heard in commentary the elaboration, in relation to an operatic scene, Such and such is now going on, but the orchestra tells us what is really happening'?)

So if I played you an orchestral extract from, say, The Makropulos Affair could you tell me precisely what action was taking place?