What does it mean to say of a piece of instrumental music that it has certain emotional qualities - Essay Example

number Introduction A distinction is sometimes drawn between music that possesses an emotional quality and music that is expressive of that emotion. The distinction between piece of music that possesses emotional quality and an instrument of music that, in virtue of its possession of emotional qualities and various of its other features can properly be said to be a musical expression of emotion. A musical instrument being an expression of emotion in a persona or number of characters, the listener is right to imagine, in accordance with the nature and development of the music, a persona undergoing an emotion or series of emotions, or a number of characters doing so. Hence, it can be said that the idea that the emotional qualities of music are such that they are liable to induce an emotional response in the listener. This liability in a musical instrument need not be thought of as a disposition of the emotional quality of a piece of music to arouse a corresponding emotion in listeners who perceive the quality. When it comes to the use of musical instruments, a very great deal depends on the correct conception of the emotions. A common view is the so-called cognitive theory of the emotions, which is adhered to by the principal of philosophical sceptic about music’s ability to arouse emotions of the garden variety. The cognitive theory exists in many forms, which differ in both the number and nature of the elements of which emotions are said to be composed. What is definitive of the theory is that it represents each type of emotion as being defined by a particular kind of proposition or thought plus some combinations of bodily sensations, hedonic tones, and feelings. Therefore, when the emotion is experienced, prompted by something perceived, imagined, or thought about, it will have a real or imaginary object upon which it is directed, the emotion being about this intentional object (Lippman, 46). Scepticism about pure instrumental music’s ability to stimulate extra-musical emotions in a listener in an artistically relevant manner arises at once from the fact that music is a non-representational form of art, presenting no scenes or actions that the listener might respond to emotionally as the viewer of a film or the reader of a novel might. Although instrumental music is extremely limited in its imitative capacity, it may nevertheless produce all the effects of imitation. Instrumental music can excite different dispositions, but it cannot imitate them. Furthermore, instrumental music has certain instrumental intrinsic qualities of an emotional nature and that these qualities excite corresponding feelings in the listener. Instrumental music, it is claimed, operates at the emotional level by some systems of resemblances. Such psychological manifestations of emotional state are an extremely important stimulus in interpersonal interaction; sensitivity to them and interpretation of them are essential social skills. However, to explain emotional response to instrumental music as occurring solely in terms of iconic resemblances between features of the music and physical expressions of emotion, is under-representing the complexity of the response to this aspect of the music. Therefore, whatever the philosophical or semantic concerns, the implication of the much preceding evidence remains that we process emotion in musical sounds, whether vocal or instrumental, in the same way as vocalizations of affective state. The acoustic signals used in the production and perception of emotion in instrumental music appear to be the same as those used in vocal utterances, such as high intensity and harsh timbre for anger, low intensity and tempo and slow vibrato for sadness, whilst variation in timing and intensity typifies fear (Cochrane, Fantini & Scherer, 58) . The processing and production of instrumental music involves important social-emotional capabilities which can be evidenced by studies of performance of music by individuals with Williams syndrome, and autism. A well-known feature of autism is an inability to emotionally relate or to communicate socially with other human beings. People with autism often experience a flattening of emotional response to stimuli in general, and this includes music. Instrumental music may be strongly appreciated in technical terms by autism sufferers, but it also elicits an emotional reaction. This may help to enhance the normal development of the parts of the brain connected with experiencing deep emotional responses in particular the amygdale (Gracyk & Kania, 12). The association between instrumental music and emotion is mainly focused on the direct relationship between the listener and the music. Therefore, stimuli from the listener’s immediate context may feed into the emotional state experienced at the time, and thus come to be associated with the music itself. A contextual cue that can be very important in the personal experience of emotion is the emotion apparently being experienced by others in the immediate environment. Whilst intrinsic emotional properties of instrumental music have to date received less laboratory examination than extrinsic properties, that which has been carried out suggests that there are genuine psychological reactions experienced in response to these stimuli within the structure of the music. Instrumental music is known to have various distinct features such as melodic appoggiaturas, syncopations, and enharmonic changes. These features tend to create, maintain, confirm, or disrupt musical expectations, and can elicit psychological reactions such as changes to breathing rate, heart rate, blood pressure, galvanic skin response, temperature, chills and shivers, and weeping. There are specific properties of instrumental music that evoke particular emotional and psychological responses, regardless of the aesthetic type of the music. The meaning of an instrumental composition can be said to be complete in itself and its subject unlike the subject of a poem or a painting. While it is often said that the complete art of painting, the complete merit of a picture is composed of drawing, of colouring, and of expression, it cannot be said that the complete art of an instrumental musician, the complete merit of a piece of music is composed or made up of melody, of melody, and of expression, for expression is simply the immediate and necessary effect of melody and harmony. Alongside the remarkable and perhaps unprecedented understanding of the nature of instrumental music that is revealed in this paper, there are also more traditional 18th century views. In this case, social feelings of a positive nature have a peculiar and inherent suitability to instrumental music and periodic regularity of melody in their natural expression. In spite of the expansiveness of the musical expressiveness in the latter part of the century, certain gallant characteristics persist just as they do in the music of Mozart (Mavrick, 18). In the nineteenth century, the significance of pure instrumental music was found variously to reside in the cosmic power of the tone itself, in the peculiar emotional quality of music, valued either for its vagueness, and finally in the special structural beauty that was peculiar to the art. It appears from this that the compatibility of musical and dramatic ideals in aesthetics entails a limited notion of the nature of instrumental music. The process of describing instrumental music in expressive terms exemplifies a broad tendency to talk about works of art as if they were sentient entities which are described as having organic unity and vitality. However, most people do not believe that instrumental music elicits some kind of emotions. So, given that instrumental music is at one level just a sequence of sounds, just as painting is nothing but a pigmented canvas, the fundamental expression of art, brought out mostly by instrumental music, is the following: how is it possible for a work of art to express emotion? The obvious would seem to be that musical works have expressive qualities because they serve, as the expression of art says, as vehicles for expressing the emotions of the composer. However, this cannot be considered to be an answer because even if the theory of art is accepted, nothing in it explains how it is possible for a composer to use patterns of sound to express emotions. This theory merely takes that fact for granted. If it does not help to express the emotion expressed by music as located in the mind of the composer, it is equally mistaken to attempt to locate it in the mind of the listener. In listening to instrumental music, the emotion which is expressed seems to be located somewhere in the music, but not in oneself. The heart of the problem lies in understanding how emotion can be identified in this fashion, and how it can ascribed neither to the composer nor to the listener, but rather somehow hovers, and suspended between them. In addition, being moved by instrumental music consists, typically not in simply recognizing or sharing the emotion expressed by instrumental music, but in reacting to it, in the way that a person may respond to the emotional condition of another. For instrumental music to express emotion there ought to be an intrinsic relation between the composer and the listener. Nevertheless, there are other quarters that argue that this is impossible instrumental music to elicit emotions on the grounds that emotions are intentional such that they have objects and involve thoughts and concepts whereas instrumental music lacks objects and does not involve thoughts or concepts. Although instrumental music does not speak or behave, an analogy between the recognition of emotion in music and in people can be suggested. Perhaps, instrumental music derives its expressive power from its resemblance to emotionally expressive features of human bodily behaviour, speech and physiognomy. That would explain the phenomenological similarity between hearing emotion in music; and perceiving emotion in the body or voice of another person. In both cases, mental life seems to have been made sensuously palpable. This theory aims to deflect the objection that instrumental music lacks the conceptual components necessary for an intrinsic connection with emotion. However, philosophers accounts of instrumental music and emotion, while it helpfully clarifies how instrumental music might crystallize emotion in particular ways, lacks attention to some important features of musical flourishing. Since the product of emotion cannot be known before the process is complete, expression cannot consist in exercising a technique. As a result, it must take whatever particular shape is commanded by the particular which the artist’s mind is impelled to clarify. Because expression is not undertaken with any further end in view, artistic creation contrasts with instrumental music, in which means and ends are distinct (Bunnin & Tsui-James, 87). In conclusion, it is evident that instrumental music is no copy of nature. Nonetheless, not only are emotions and passions that are also themes of poetry and oratory subject to instrumental music, but also a thousand other feelings that cannot be named and described precisely because they are not themes of eloquence. Thus, instrumental music is subject to two different values; the wonderful and the expressions of the passions. This essay is particularly valuable for its scope as well as its insight, for it reveals the close connection between instrumental music and arousal of emotions. Works cited Bunnin, N. & Tsui-James, E. The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons, 2008. Cochrane, T., Fantini, B. & Scherer, K. R. The Emotional Power of Music: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Musical Arousal, Expression, and Social Control. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2013. Gracyk. T. & Kania, A. The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Music. California: Taylor & Francis, 2011. Mavrick, L. W. Waking the Face that No One is: A Study in the Musical Context of Symbolist Poetics. USA: Rodopi, 2004. Lippman, E. A. A History of Western Musical Aesthetics. New York: U of Nebraska Press, 1992. Read More