In Response to Jacob's Second Question (Week 9)

In my opinion, I do not believe that it is true that because music lacks any visual or verbal component it cannot represent something. Music is capable of having both a visual and verbal component, although it is not always evident in certain at first glance to many musical works (i.e. arguably, classical music). Music is capable of having a visual component by means of the written music. Written music provides a ways in which a musician is able to glance at the notes written on the page and play the music properly according to the notes he or she has read. Here the musician does not need to have any prior knowledge to the musical work. He or she may have not even heard the piece before but is still perfectly capable of executing the exact notes as intended by interpreting the written work of a musical piece. All music can be transformed into notes on paper so it does not seem plausible that music cannot be visually representative. I also disagree with the notion that music lacks a verbal component. In today’s society a lot of the popularly know music has lyrics which often clearly indicated a specific intended emotion or content from which the listener is able to hear, comprehend, and make inferences off of. Even for music which does not contain a direct verbal component such as lyrics, it is unreasonable to deny the possibility that it does have a verbal component. Interviews conducted with the composer of the music should be considered to satisfy that component because the composer could clearly state the content or emotion that he or she was intended to convey in the creation of the musical piece. How do you think Hanslick would argue his theory that music speaks only through sound from the perspective of written music, music with lyrics, and interviews with composers where content and/or emotion is made clearly evident?

In Response to Jacob's First Question (Week 9)

The Contour Theory as expressed by Kivy is extremely reasonable. From my perspective, it is very sensible and his comparisons which back up the validity of his theory are strong enough to be easily construed to an individual having little prior knowledge to the topic. Kivy argues that a musical piece possess and portrays specific emotions by means of being comparable to the observable characteristics of individuals who are in the state of the specific emotion. For example, Kivy compares the qualities of a sad piece of music to an individual who self-reports him/her self as being sad. The sad musical piece has a slow dragging tempo, while a sad person may walk or speak slowly. Sad music is usually quiet, while individuals who are sad tend to speak quietly. On the contrary, cheery music tends to be fast and loud just as cheery individuals tend to be fast, active, and loud. While the theory is not flawless as Kivy himself chooses to indulge in, his criticisms are subjective and could easily be argued as unimportant to the overall theory. His notion of there being “no better explanation” is not a solid argument as to why skeptics should put faith into his theory, but rather the many examples of when his theory does hold true give the theory a grounded basis for arguments from both those who support and those who criticize his theory. How would Kivy justify music’s ability to possess more complex emotions which are not always clearly observable, or at least vary in their overt characteristics (i.e. jealousy)?