Musical Meaning in Between

ABSTRACT

Ineffability of musical meaning is a frequent theme in music philosophy. However, talk about musical meaning persists and seems to be not only inherently enjoyable and socially acceptable, but also functionally useful. Relying on a phenomenological account of musical meaning combined with a naturalist explanatory attitude, we argue for a novel explanation of how ineffability is a feature of musical meaning and experience and we show why it cannot be remedied by perfecting language or musico-philosophical study.

Musical meaning is seen as an experiential phenomenon that consists of layers, some recent, others archaic. As such, musical meaning is strongly characterized by asubjectivity. It is in-between, in a state where the division of subject and object is not yet valid or valid anymore. A naturalistic interplay of experiential layers in music brings about a non-reified dynamics driving for expressions, interpretations, engenderings of (musical) subjects and objects or even for political action. Generally speaking, the in-betweenness of musical meaning can never be universally reified or symbolic nor can it ever be “subjective,” “mine” or present “at the origin.”

In this view, ineffability has two primary reasons. First, the criteria offered for defining musical meaning are often too strict, resulting in untenable pretensions of universality. Second, the processual and relational nature of the in-between keeps meaning in flux; any snapshot creates a new situation and new meanings.

Keywords:

• musical meaning
• ineffability
• experience
• asubjectivity
• atmosphere

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tere Vadén

Tere Vadén is a philosopher currently working as a professor in the Department of Art, Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland. He has published articles on philosophy of mind and language, and books on contemporary art and ethics (Rock the Boat: Localized Ethics, the Situated Self and Particularism in Contemporary Art, Salon, 2003, together with Mika Hannula), the methodology of artistic research (Artistic Research Methodology, with Mika Hannula and Juha Suoranta, Peter Lang, 2014) and the political economy of education (Wikiworld, with Juha Suoranta, Pluto Press, 2011). He is one of the editors of the Finnish philosophical journal niin & näin (http://www.netn.fi). [email protected]

Juha Torvinen

Juha Torvinen, Ph.D., is Academy Research Fellow of the Academy of Finland working at the musicology department in the University of Turku, Finland. His current research project focuses on ecocritical trends in contemporary music. He has published articles and books on phenomenology of music, ecomusicology, and the topic of the North in contemporary music including Music as the Art of Anxiety: Philosophical Study on the Existential-Ontological Meaning of Music (Helsinki, Finnish Musicological Society, 2007 [in Finnish]) and “Introduction to Ecomusicology: the Responsibility of Music Research in the Age of Environmental Crises” (Etnomusikologian vuosikirja 2012 [in Finnish]). [email protected]