"Representation in Music" by Roger Scruton and "Sound and Semblance" by Peter Kivy
Can music represent? Does it matter if it can? Roger Scruton and Peter Kivy tackle these two questions in two articles concerning music’s representational powers: Representation in Music (Scruton) and Sound and Semblance (Kivy). Scruton takes a two-pronged approach to the question of musical representation arguing that 1) music cannot represent things and 2) even if it could, such representation is irrelevant to the appreciation of the music. Kivy attempts to rebut both these charges. In this paper I will outline both Scruton’s and Kivy’s positions and argue that Kivy is correct in thinking that music can represent and that in certain cases, such representation is crucial to understanding the music. Finally, I will offer some arguments against Scruton that are not directly addressed by Kivy.
In answering the question, "Can music represent?" Scruton outlines five conditions that "describe the aesthetic significance of representation."11 Three of these are relevant to his discussion concerning music:
1. To be a representational work, a proper understanding of the work demands that the observer gain, "some awareness" of what is being represented. While the observer might not completely understand what is represented, she must still have an "adequate" appreciation of what the work represents.
2. Following from 1), the observer must be able to distinguish the medium of representation (e.g. paint) from the subject of representation (e.g. a man). If the medium and the subject are mixed up (such that one mistakes a two-dimensional painting of a man with a painting of a two-dimensional man), then the conditions for an adequate underst...
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6 Ibid., 236
7 Ibid., 238
8 Ibid., 241
9 Ibid., 241
10 Ibid., 241
11 Ibid., 241
12 Ibid., 241
13 Ibid., 237
14 Ibid., 238
15 Roger Scruton, "Representation in Music", in Aesthetics: A Reader in the Philosophy
of the Arts. David Goldblatt, Lee B. Brown (Eds.), (Prentice Hall, New Jersey: 1997),
242
16 Ibid., 241
17 Ibid., 242
18 Ibid., 243
19 Ibid., 243
20 Ibid., 243
21 Ibid., 246
22 Ibid., 246
23 Ibid., 242
24 Ibid., 242
25 Ibid., 243
References
Peter Kivy, "Sound and Semblance", in Aesthetics: A Reader in the Philosophy of the Arts. David Goldblatt, Lee B. Brown (Eds.), (Prentice Hall, New Jersey: 1997)
Roger Scruton, "Representation in Music", in Aesthetics: A Reader in the Philosophy of the Arts. David Goldblatt, Lee B. Brown (Eds.), (Prentice Hall, New Jersey: 1997)
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“The minute our train leaves the Hong Kong border and enters Shenzhen, China, I feel different. I can feel the skin on my forehead tingling, my blood rushing through a new course, my bones aching with a familiar old pain. And I think, my mother was right. I am becoming Chinese. (179). In the story A Pair of Tickets by Amy Tan, the protagonist character, Jing-mei, finds herself in several difficult situations due to how her social and cultural upbringing has shaped her. She finds herself pulled between her Chinese DNA and her American background. While she was raised being told that she was Chinese and “it’s in her blood”, she does not identify as such, because she grew up in America and only sees herself as an American. After her mother’s passing,
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June-May fulfills her mother’s name and life goal, her long-cherished wish. She finally meets her twin sisters and in an essence fulfills and reunites her mother with her daughter through her. For when they are all together they are one; they are their mother. It is here that June-May fulfills the family portion of her Chinese culture of family. In addition, she fully embraces herself as Chinese. She realizes that family is made out of love and that family is the key to being Chinese. “And now I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood.” (Tan 159). Finally, her mother’s life burden is lifted and June-May’s doubts of being Chinese are set aside or as she says “After all these years, it can finally be let go,” (Tan 159).
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The proliferation of graphic scores emerging in Europe and America from the mid-1950s has had a profound impact on musical thought, broadening links between performers and composers, audiences and art forms. Exploration of notational methods based on graphics flourished rapidly and diversely during the fifties and sixties, primarily as a trend amongst young radicals. So many composers producing scores of this kind used a personal vocabulary of symbols – often creating different notation systems for each work – that the effectiveness of their approaches in realising a sonic concept can be assessed only on a case-by-case basis. But the significance of early graphic scores does not depend entirely on how they sound; rather it lies in their capacity to accommodate or even to generate new forms, techniques and mediums, and to challenge notions of what constitutes a musical composition. In addition, these works demonstrate that notation can extend beyond instructional functionality to allow for prominent interpretive and aleatoric elements, and can harbour an intrinsic aesthetic value of its own, apparent before a single note is sounded.
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Music is far more than the sum of its parts. It can be thought of in a highly mathematical sense, which leaves one in awe of the seemingly endless combinations of rhythm, tone and intervals that a good musician can produce. Admiring music in this way is a lot like admiring an intricate snowflake, or shapes in the clouds; it's beautiful, but at the same time very scientific, based on patterns. All of the aforementioned qualities of music have one thing in common: they can be defined with numeric, specific values. However, the greatest aspect of music lies elsewhere, and cannot be specifically defined with words. It is the reaction that each individual has when they are confronted with their favorite (or least favorite) kind of music.
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