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“Single musical
tones are not percepts, but pure sensations; they become percepts only when
integrated. Sensations are man’s first contact with reality; when integrated
into percepts, they are given, the self-evident, the not-to-be-doubted.”
Introduction
In 1971, Ayn Rand wrote a book called the The Romantic Manifesto
. After years of writing highly successful works of fiction
such as Anthem, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, she turned to writing
non-fiction in order to further develop the ideas she expounded in her fiction.
In The Romantic Manifesto she discusses her ideas about the fifth branch of
philosophy, which is aesthetics (art or beauty). The Romantic Manifesto
consists of several essays about various topics regarding the creation,
interpretation, and “objective” standards of art. In one of these essays called
“Art and Cognition,” she says many interesting things concerning the subject of
music and indirectly composition.Interestingly, in her most popular works of fiction the subject of music receives some attention, but not as much as in this essay. In The Fountainhead, the protagonist Howard Roark compares music with his work as an architect and in Atlas Shrugged, she gives prominence to the character Richard Halley, a great composer, to show how important music is in her world where the mind is on strike. For those of you familiar with the plot in Atlas Shrugged, you’ll remember how Ayn Rand shares some of her views concerning the nature of composition and the relationship between the composer and his audience, which alone as moral ideas should be of deep interest to all creative people.
So what I’d like to do today is briefly examine what AR’s philosophical analysis of music can teach us about composition, learn how this can illuminate your own approach to composition, and perhaps even change the way you make music.
[Note: AR = Ayn Rand]
The Basic Equation of Musical Expression
‘X’ concrete evokes ‘x’ emotion in the composer and the composer attempts to communicate ‘x’ emotion by transforming the sensations of musical tones into the percepts of a musical composition.
Or
Composition <> world view <> emotional state
Therefore, the composer must attempt to communicate with an audience in music like a mathematician must communicate through numbers and the writer must communicate with words.
Here’s a short video clip from a movie called “A Song to Remember,” a movie AR praised for its basic attitude about the nature and needs of the artist as expressed by the character of George Sand.
A Song to Remember
If you have any problems viewing this video,
click here.
In Western music, we all more or less understand that there are basically 2 flavors of sound: major and minor scales along with their variations. Now in regard to the major and minor modes or scales she observes that a joyous mood sharpens, accelerates, and energizes one’s mind, while sadness tends to blur, burden, and slow it down. Keep this in mind as you write your next piece and ask yourself whether or not you’re prepared to evoke the exact response you’d like to elicit in your listener’s.
AR goes a step further and draws a correlation to the way certain emotions affect a mind’s operation in contrast with the kind of music that will produce emotions which resembles that state of mind. In other words, certain emotions cause the mind to act a specific way. Likewise, certain types of music can also either produce specific emotions or cause the mind to act in a particular way thereby producing corresponding emotions that resemble that state of mind. What this shows is that there are 3 parts to this process of designing a strong musical experience: a) the music, b) the activity of the mind, and c) the corresponding emotions. Each of these 3 parts are entry points for the composer and should considered at some time during the compositional or recording process.
Mind-Emotion Musical Experience
One point AR brings up has to do with the musical experience, which she says has to flow because the mind needs a succession of images from our mental reserve to unify the meaning of the work. In order to clarify this point she tells us that music by its very nature does communicate emotions, but not concretes (or specific existential information, facts) like a sunny day or the location of a city. The reason she says is attributed to these things being too specific to be expressed in music.
Remember AR noticed that our mental reserve is what unifies the meaning of the work and that the unification is almost entirely an emotional experience. So what we know then is that a musical experience is something largely individual and pertaining to the past. It could also pertain to an individual’s future as they dream or imagine it to be, but not usually.
Why does music make us experience emotions? Let’s first understand that what we’re talking about is music and not necessarily songs. So what we’re referring to is a succession of tones placed in an organized structure and not a melodic lyrical structure containing a message in addition to this definition of music. So why does music make us experience emotions? Music connects us to 2 essential aspects of existence and they are the passage of time and the quality or tone of an event or series of events. Music conjures up emotional experiences from our mental reserve by approximating these 2 elements from a specific event or a large quantity of similar events.
The next step AR takes is by examining how music conveys emotion and by what musical means or method. In trying to discover what some of the factors are or would be in the conceptual analysis of music, she concludes that music is different from the other arts because as a field it is lacking in a common vocabulary and an objective criterion of aesthetic judgment. She believes that the key to the discovery of an “objective criterion” lies in the distinction of object from subject in the field of musical perception. This is so important for our understanding of how music works because it precludes analysis. This is because separation of object from subject is the work which must occur before thinkers, intellectuals, and even scientists can begin dissecting music rationally.
For example, the way she shows us how the separation works in relation to musical perception is when a man listens to music it’s not clear what aspects of his experience are inherent in the music and which are contributed by his own consciousness. Her observation is everyone experiences music as an indivisible whole, as if the emotion were there in the music. As anyone who’s ever tried to share a piece of music with an acquaintance has found out, not everyone feels the same thing from the same piece of music, so it’s clear that the emotion doesn’t transfer from the music to the individual, rather the individual brings something to the musical experience which resonates with the music itself.
Another important point AR makes is in regard to the meaning of a composition which lies in the kind of work it requires to integrate by a listener’s ear and brain. Accordingly, a composition may demand more or less activity or alertness of mind so that the listener experiences a sense of understanding, boredom, or frustration with their attempts to mentally integrate the piece into an intelligible whole. Whatever a person’s reaction to any given piece of music, his reaction will be dictated by the type of work his mind feels most at home with. In other words, a person either accepts or rejects music if or if it does not contradict his mind’s way of working.
Some people will seek out music that is complex or challenging and be excited about making it intelligible even if in their own minds. Others might seek simplicity in musical structures and harmony, if their cognitive habits are limited by mental lethargy. This partly explains why the same piece of music evokes different reactions in a variety of people. For a man whose mind is conditioned to perform complex calculations a simple piece of music will annoy and bore him, while a person whose mentally lazy will strain to grasp the musical structures and melodic configurations of a complex Classical symphony. According to AR, the difference in reaction is not solely a matter of taste, but primarily of world views.
Here are many more music quotes provided for you from the on-line version of the Ayn Rand Lexicon, courtesy of the Ayn Rand Institute. To begin reading more about music from the essay “Art and Cognition” in The Romantic Manifesto, click here.
Or click here to purchase your own copy of The Romantic Manifesto.
In Western music, we all more or less understand that there are basically 2 flavors of sound: major and minor scales along with their variations. Now in regard to the major and minor modes or scales she observes that a joyous mood sharpens, accelerates, and energizes one’s mind, while sadness tends to blur, burden, and slow it down. Keep this in mind as you write your next piece and ask yourself whether or not you’re prepared to evoke the exact response you’d like to elicit in your listener’s.
AR goes a step further and draws a correlation to the way certain emotions affect a mind’s operation in contrast with the kind of music that will produce emotions which resembles that state of mind. In other words, certain emotions cause the mind to act a specific way. Likewise, certain types of music can also either produce specific emotions or cause the mind to act in a particular way thereby producing corresponding emotions that resemble that state of mind. What this shows is that there are 3 parts to this process of designing a strong musical experience: a) the music, b) the activity of the mind, and c) the corresponding emotions. Each of these 3 parts are entry points for the composer and should considered at some time during the compositional or recording process.
Mind-Emotion Musical Experience
One point AR brings up has to do with the musical experience, which she says has to flow because the mind needs a succession of images from our mental reserve to unify the meaning of the work. In order to clarify this point she tells us that music by its very nature does communicate emotions, but not concretes (or specific existential information, facts) like a sunny day or the location of a city. The reason she says is attributed to these things being too specific to be expressed in music.
Remember AR noticed that our mental reserve is what unifies the meaning of the work and that the unification is almost entirely an emotional experience. So what we know then is that a musical experience is something largely individual and pertaining to the past. It could also pertain to an individual’s future as they dream or imagine it to be, but not usually.
Why does music make us experience emotions? Let’s first understand that what we’re talking about is music and not necessarily songs. So what we’re referring to is a succession of tones placed in an organized structure and not a melodic lyrical structure containing a message in addition to this definition of music. So why does music make us experience emotions? Music connects us to 2 essential aspects of existence and they are the passage of time and the quality or tone of an event or series of events. Music conjures up emotional experiences from our mental reserve by approximating these 2 elements from a specific event or a large quantity of similar events.
The next step AR takes is by examining how music conveys emotion and by what musical means or method. In trying to discover what some of the factors are or would be in the conceptual analysis of music, she concludes that music is different from the other arts because as a field it is lacking in a common vocabulary and an objective criterion of aesthetic judgment. She believes that the key to the discovery of an “objective criterion” lies in the distinction of object from subject in the field of musical perception. This is so important for our understanding of how music works because it precludes analysis. This is because separation of object from subject is the work which must occur before thinkers, intellectuals, and even scientists can begin dissecting music rationally.
For example, the way she shows us how the separation works in relation to musical perception is when a man listens to music it’s not clear what aspects of his experience are inherent in the music and which are contributed by his own consciousness. Her observation is everyone experiences music as an indivisible whole, as if the emotion were there in the music. As anyone who’s ever tried to share a piece of music with an acquaintance has found out, not everyone feels the same thing from the same piece of music, so it’s clear that the emotion doesn’t transfer from the music to the individual, rather the individual brings something to the musical experience which resonates with the music itself.
Another important point AR makes is in regard to the meaning of a composition which lies in the kind of work it requires to integrate by a listener’s ear and brain. Accordingly, a composition may demand more or less activity or alertness of mind so that the listener experiences a sense of understanding, boredom, or frustration with their attempts to mentally integrate the piece into an intelligible whole. Whatever a person’s reaction to any given piece of music, his reaction will be dictated by the type of work his mind feels most at home with. In other words, a person either accepts or rejects music if or if it does not contradict his mind’s way of working.
Some people will seek out music that is complex or challenging and be excited about making it intelligible even if in their own minds. Others might seek simplicity in musical structures and harmony, if their cognitive habits are limited by mental lethargy. This partly explains why the same piece of music evokes different reactions in a variety of people. For a man whose mind is conditioned to perform complex calculations a simple piece of music will annoy and bore him, while a person whose mentally lazy will strain to grasp the musical structures and melodic configurations of a complex Classical symphony. According to AR, the difference in reaction is not solely a matter of taste, but primarily of world views.
Here are many more music quotes provided for you from the on-line version of the Ayn Rand Lexicon, courtesy of the Ayn Rand Institute. To begin reading more about music from the essay “Art and Cognition” in The Romantic Manifesto, click here.
Or click here to purchase your own copy of The Romantic Manifesto
.
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Related Music:
Geoforms
The Possibility of Joy
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Related Articles:
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Marc
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