Ph316A What music is not.

Student: David Moran

Student No: 69662863 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Abstract: This essay shows the relationship between music, maths and speech focusing mainly on music. Firstly, the proposition that music undoubtedly exists will be taken into account. This will be proven by referring to Descartes work Meditations. What it exists as, (insofar as something external that can be perceived by humans) will then be taken into consideration and discussed. From here, we will look at the human perception of music. Then, Platos theory of recollection will be brought forward. The relationship between maths and music is to be stated and it will then be shown that both are pre-instilled intelligences respectively. The Pythagoreans and their mathematical link to music bring forth an argument that some aspects of music do have mathematical foundations and it is also something we will shine light upon. Philip Dorells concept of music is introduced as something that belongs to speech. From here, we will summarise the relationship between music and maths and speech. The law of non-contradiction is then introduced to show that Dorells argument is invalid. Music is then looked at through the eyes of Schopenhaur and a further investigation into Dorells concept of music proves it unviable. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Music is one of lifes ancient mysteries. For thousands of years, great philosophical minds have attempted to come up with some sort of solid definition for it but unfortunately it has always deemed to be too heavy a task to complete. Music is defined in todays dictionary as an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony and color.1What we will attempt to do in the following few paragraphs is to see whether or not this definition (and in particular, Dorells definition) of music is acceptable and we will do so bringing in various philosophical propositions.

www.dictionary.com

One thing I wish to point out from the offset is that I am in no way trying to define what music is. However, what I do intend to do is prove one particular definition wrong. This is a definition put forward by Philip Dorell. He wrote a book called What is Music? and in it, he defines music, basically, as something that exists within speech. However, this violates the law of non-contradiction. The law of non-contradiction states that it is impossible that one thing can be itself and not be itself at the same time2. This, I will soon show is a sheer impossibility because music cannot be looked at as being part of anything other than itself. This will be focused on in much more detail later on but for now, before we go into some of the supposed properties/characteristics of music, it is fair to say that one should first gain absolute certainty that the thing in which one is intending to discuss undoubtedly exists. So we turn to Descartes and his infamous work Meditations (focusing mainly on Meditations I, II & V) Descartes wished to investigate what he was in the most perfect sense/form. He believed that in order to do so, he must start at the very foundation of himself, the very beginning of himself if he was to continue on a path to absolute certainty. To do so, he disbelieves anything he ever has believed including his own existence. I needed just once in my life to demolish everything completely and start again from the foundation. 3 One cannot build a house without foundations. The same proposition could be said to affect everything that exists. An aim at certainty is the key concept in this essay and should be taken into account throughout the piece. Descartes is completely adamant to start his investigation on a firm and immoveable point)4 If one fails to do so, one would be continuing their argumentation from a point that is not necessarily true. We are following the same reasoning here and are also looking for such a solid starting point. So in order to find this unbreakable starting point, Descartes turns to doubt. He doubts himself and everything around him and then comes to a sudden realisation. If he doubts himself, he has the power to doubt. From here, he can safely say he has the power to think because doubting is a process of thought. He continues and asks himself if he is being deceived by some evil God? He realises, however that this much is irrelevant because it follows then that he is someone who can be deceived. Therefore he must exist. So
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James Danaher: The Laws of thought (The Philosopher, Volume LXXXXII No.1) <http://www.thephilosopher.co.uk/lawsofthought.htm> [accessed 09/03/2012] 3 Descartes: Meditations Med.1, P.1 4 Ibid., Med.1 p.4

what does he exist as? This comes then to one of the most notorious philosophical statements known to man. I think therefore I am (Cogito ergo sum.) 5 Now that he knows he exists, he moves on to investigate more about himself and the world around him. So, what has this got to do with the existence of music? For Descartes, thought is the origin of the human being. It is from thought that all things can be taken into account and perceived. Music is perceived through the ears. Senses working either by themselves or in harmony with each other allow the distinguishing of shapes, sizes, sounds, odours etc... Taking this human perception into account, could it not be said that, something that is not music, is automatically recognized as something that is not music? What we are trying to investigate here is how this much is possible. Anyone, at anytime can stop in his/her path and listen to their surroundings. No matter how hard someone listens to their surroundings, music is not there unless it is in fact being heard or as we will go into later on mimicked by someone or some device. A random array of sounds cannot be music. We can distinguish music from non-music through the senses. Random implies something without harmony and harmony is a key ingredient of music. Without harmony, music does not exist. (Again, the characteristics of music will be looked at later on). It is this absolute definite recognition of something that is not music that gives us valid reason to believe that, we (as humans) must therefore have some knowledge of what music is. Descartes would also find this to be the case. The mere fact that I find in my thought an idea of something x, and can vividly and clearly perceive x to have certain property, it follows that x really does have that property. 6 As of now, we can safely say that there is something that exists that we perceive clearly through the senses and we call this thing music. Music is perceived through the senses so it therefore must be an external thing to us (a thing that does not belong in us but around us). Our knowledge of it can be looked at as internal but we will look at this at a later stage. From here, we can go into more detail as to what someone could say about music taking into account our full perception of it. We turn to Dorell and what he believes to be an
5 6

Ibid., Med 1 Ibid., Med.V p.24

important starting point into the path of discovering what music is. He turns to what he refers to as the detailed mechanics of music and compares it to the mechanics of a car. By analogy, a good answer to the question What is Music? will say something about the detailed mechanics of music: instruments, notes, scales, rhythm, tempo, chords, harmony, etc...7 As Dorell points out, there are multiple things to be taken into account, all of which belong to music. Musical instruments, for example allow notes to be played in which, if played correctly results in some sort of song. The notes themselves could be looked at as the parts of that particular song and are needed if the song is to be played (mimicked) vocally or instrumentally. These can be read through symbols that identify each one depending on what they look like and what scale they are on etc... Rhythm is also found in music. It is what distinguishes randomness from solidness in a song. It gives the song a set tempo. The tempo can also be looked at as the speed of a song. Chords are various notes played together on an instrument. One after another, they can create rhythm to a song if played harmoniously. And if all of the above are co-existent with one another (as well as other various musical properties) the result is a song. What one could take into account now, is that all of the things mentioned, may not necessarily be properties of music to an extent, but more so properties of a song. And unless one is to define music as a song, one cannot use this definition as a conclusive definition for music. Furthermore, there are millions of songs available at any one time to any one person to experience through various outlets etc... This much, however is irrelevant because what we are attempting to find out is what music is not, and due to the fact that there cannot be millions of definitions for any one thing in its most pure form, it can be concluded that music is not merely a song of any type. The opposite is true. A song is a mimicked form of something more pure, something that we call music. It follows here that any song we know of, or ever will know of is merely a re-creation (or representation) of something that has already existed (like an equation is to mathematics).

P Dorell: What Is Music?: Solving A Scientific Mystery (2005) http://whatismusic.info/ Date Accessed:

20/02/2012 27/04/2012 Ch. 2, 2.1

Dorell focuses on musicality, the rules of music (or what makes a song musical), or what he later refers to as what makes a song good. In response to this statement, I wish to put forward the proposition that song or what makes a song musical is irrelevant when attempting to discover what music is. All one is capable of by discussing musicality is to distinguish that a certain song is in fact a song because it is musical. In the same way one can define an equation as mathematical because it has harmony (It can be solved). A song is something that can be created (mimicked) by us because somehow, we know what music is. Each and every persons perception of musicality is different. How they perceive it is the same but what they perceive it as is not (Hence, all of the different genres of music available today, throughout the world). Musicality allows us to distinguish one good song from another not so good song depending on our opinion of what we believe a good song to be. When it comes to music, or maths, or speech, our opinions of what we believe to be the best or most enjoyable of each type is completely irrelevant. Taste is irrelevant. Some of the most mathematically minded people in the world may have contrasting tastes in what forms of mathematics they prefer. Be it geometry or discrete structures. Music is similar in this way. There are literally hundreds of genres of music, each one as different as the last. Musical taste just distinguishes what you like and dislike and this can vary due to ones culture, friends, geographical location, upbringing and so on. Again, the discussion of such a broad and almost infinite topic would be pointless to even attempt to begin so musical taste should also be left aside. Dorell turns to the emotive responses of humans upon our experience/interaction with music. He uses this as the foundation of his argument and turns to biology in order to attempt to define what music is. Music is something that people create and something that people respond to. People are living organisms, and biology is the study of living organisms. 8 As mentioned before, we are certain that music exists because we perceive it so vividly and clearly. It is also fair to say that upon hearing music, we instantly recognize it as music and not as anything else. But music cannot be part of us as humans. This much is impossible. Dorells logic here is improbable. Yes it is true that people are the ones that create music and indeed respond to it. But his proposition is false. If his argumentation was deemed correct,

Dorell: What is Music Ch.2, 2.2

one could put forward the idea that maths is something that people recognize instantly and interact with. People are living organisms, and biology is the study of living organisms. From here, would it be fair to say that biology is maths or that maths is biology? This is where the law of non contradiction comes into play. One thing cannot be and not be at the same time. Stating that music is music but also biology at the same time is contradictory and thus invalid. He starts his argument, the very foundation of his work claiming that music can be defined through the study of biology. This would lead one to look at music as biological. Something that is biological means it is a part of us or any other living thing but as we have mentioned before, music is external to us. It is not a part of us, in the same way mathematics is not part of us. We are able to perceive what it is when we experience it and in the case of music, we are even able to be effected emotionally by it, but this does not mean that it is in any way part of our existence. Turning back to Descartes (on external bodies): They have their own true and immutable natures, which are not under my control, I did not invent them. 9 The same perhaps, could be said for music. It is its own thing, a thing that is not so much created by us but merely mimicked by us through the process of song. If music was in fact a part of us, would it not be fair to say that we would be something we could control completely? And from this, would it not be fair to say, that if music was a part of us as humans, we would all be musically developed to a level that would allow us to understand music? These are all questions whose answers lead us to belief the opposite is true. One can mimic music but cannot create it because something can not be created if it already exists. Humans can only re-create from our idea of music. In this sense, music in its purest form can only have been here since the beginning of our time. Our instant knowledge of it backs this very point up. It is certain that we know what music is when we perceive it. Turning back to the Platonic dialogue Meno, we can investigate how we know music as such, further. In Platos work Meno, Socrates is trying to find out what justice is and through a long discussion with some of his colleagues, they come to what is known now as The theory of Recollection. The theory can be summarised as follows:
9

Descartes: Meditations M.5, P.23.

One cannot come to something that one does not already know. We ourselves have the answers to such questions within our souls and we retrieve answers, therefore recognizing them instantly upon our experience with them. 10 To prove his point he turns to a slave boy and leads him to gain knowledge of a geometrical theorem (A square whose area is twice that of a given square is the square on the diagonal on the given square.) Without necessarily showing the boy this pattern, he merely guides him in the right direction. The slave boy had never experienced maths before. Socrates explained the theorem to an extent and from here, the slave could realise other patterns in mathematics. He just had to be reminded that he had such knowledge within him. Descartes, again touching on this point also. Size, shape, position and so on are well known and transparent to me as general types of phenomenon, but there are also particular facts involving them that I perceive when I attend to them, it feels less like learning something new than remembering something I had known before.
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This is the idea that mathematics (in Socrates case) is innate. It does not necessarily belong to us as humans. It is external to us, but our recognition of it is not so much external due to the idea that we have some form of pre-instilled intelligence within our cognitive faculty that upon our experience with mathematics, we have the capability of knowing that what we have just come across is in fact mathematics. Could it be said that in this way, mathematics and music have more in common than one would necessarily believe. Both are instantly recognizable through what we can now take as a pre instilled intelligence within us. They are both mimicked by humans in various ways. Maths, more so to solve problems and music more so to gain emotive responses from other humans (in a way, communicate). According to a certain ancient class of thinkers, maths and music share many similarities. The Pythagoreans were known to have been the first to connect mathematics with music. They looked at harmony as that which connected the two together. The true source of wisdom about things is the tetractys, i.e. the first four natural numbers conceived of as connected in various relations and from these four numbers

10 11

Plato: Meno 80.D-E Descartes: Meditations M.5, P. 23.

one can construct the harmonic ratios, of the fourth, the fifth and the octave (the acusm of beauty).12 For the Pythagoreans, the number 10 was the perfect number because it had perfect harmony. (1+2+3+4=10). Harmony brings perfection both in mathematics and music. Without harmony both would not exist as what they are. Harmony or harmonia has a cosmic significance to them. The Pythagoreans looked at mathematics and music as higher sciences. Plato in his republic also regards music as a science in itself and also brings in the Pythagoreans. It transpires, I said that the eyes are made for astronomy, so the ears are made for harmony, and these are sister sciences as the Pythagoreans say and we Glaucon agree.13 When it comes to Dorell, he also brings certain connections between mathematics and music into account. He brings in the solidness of a number and a numbers universal objectivity. There is no possibility of disagreeing what numbers are. One persons experience of a number is undoubtedly the same as the next. It is independent of the person who is reading the number. 14 A question that could be asked here is why cant the same be said about music? Is it not safe to say that every single person who has the sensible capacity to perceive music will instantly recognize it as exactly what it is? Musicality is opinionated, therefore different than the next perception of it but music as music is unchangeable, therefore objective. Maths is objective in the same way. One cannot reject musics existence unless one rejects everything else around him/her. Then, upon further investigation, like that of Descartes, one would soon come to the conclusion that music does undoubtedly exist. When it comes to the situation where one is unfortunately mentally incapable of hearing music, it can be said that the disability is irrelevant when discussing music universally. If one were to reject music, because some people cannot hear it, one would also have to reject mathematics because some people dont have the mental capacity to comprehend mathematics fully.

12 13

Kirk, Raven & Schofield: The Pre-Socratic Philosophers P.233. (known as one of Pythagorass discoveries) Plato: The Republic 530d. 14 Philip Dorell: What is Music? Ch.2.4.1

But what is important to bring to attention from Dorells line of thought is that he is stating music as not objective, and that maths is the most certain way of knowing anything. He attempts to further his point by bringing in a thought experiment called the The Martian Scientist. This is a theory that corresponds to a situation where you have to explain music or anything else to someone who has never had any experience with that certain thing. An interesting way to come to a conclusion but where he could lose people on his trail of thought is when he claims: It seems reasonable to assume that we could discuss mathematics with intelligent aliens 15 If one were to take this proposition into account, one would be agreeing that it would be simple to explain mathematics to an intelligent alien. Firstly, what one could do before taking this claim on board is ask what an intelligent alien actually is? I find it hard to believe that this question could actually be answered and if it was, I can imagine there being discrepancies. How can one just assume that if an alien did so happen to land on earth that it would be in any way like a human? It could have different perceptions. It may have 50 senses. It may have none. Assuming such a thing is absurd. Just because we seem to find maths the most simple to understand, does not mean a so called intelligent alien would have any clue about what we were trying to help them understand. Mathematics solves problems. Music does not. That does not mean it is no truer a science than mathematics. It may just mean that they are meant for two different things. What there meant for doesnt necessarily matter either. The fact that they are meant for separate things is what is relevant. They are distinguishable and belong to nothing other than themselves. Dorell moves on his argument claiming that music cannot be solved mathematically, which one could most likely agree on. So he decided to take a different approach. What is the thing that is most like music that is not music? 16 He then goes back to the certain aspects of musicality and discuses them in relation to them also belonging to another human trait (in this case speech). He claims that speech shares various aspects with music. He summarises it to three characteristics in which he believes are most evident in speech. The three he chooses are melody, rhythm and harmony. Melody is needed in speech (especially in Asian languages) in
15 16

Philip Dorell: What is Music? Ch.2.4.3 Ibid., Ch.8.2

order for a sentence to be viable. Rhythm is also a key element to speech being perceived correctly as is harmony. So, for Dorell because one thing shares characteristics with another thing, it must be related in some way. Going back to the theory of non-contradiction mentioned earlier, this would prove to be an invalid statement. Music is its own science. Maths is its own science. Speech is its own science. Even the various aspects that are similar to each science like melody and harmony are their own thing. They belong to themselves and nothing else. They are definite. They are solid. In its purest form, music is unchangeable. Maths is unchangeable. Speech is unchangeable. It is from each of these sciences that various representations occur from. In the case of music, there is song. For maths, there is sum and for speech, there is language and/or the spoken word. In this way, it is therefore invalid to state that any of these sciences are part of the other. Dorell sums up his discussion claiming: Music is a super stimulus for the perception of musicality and musicality is a perceived attribute of speech.
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He goes into a lot of detail explaining what exactly he means by a super stimulus for the perception of musicality. Music, to Dorell belongs to speech and can be looked at as something biological. However, as we have mentioned on numerous occasions, this is simply an impossibility. Dorell has mentioned, and went into great depths in explaining how music has elements of mathematics and speech within it. From here he continues claiming, (in the case of speech) that because of these shared elements, music is a super stimulus for the perception of musicality. But, as we have discussed before, shared characteristics between any one thing does not/ cannot show that, one thing is the same as the other in its most perfect form. Dorell defends his views on musicality claiming it extremely important to take into account. If an author ignores or denies musicality (what makes music good or not so good) he/she can completely ignore any comparison that can or should be made between good music and other music which is still recognizable as music, but not quite as good. 18

17 18

Philip Dorell: What is Music? Ch.8.1 Ibid., Ch. 2.4.1

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The impression Dorell gives when he describes exactly what musicality is, is that musicality is what makes music, music. In other words, it is fair to say that another way of putting it would be to say that musicality is to do with our perception of music. Perhaps, this could be looked at similarly in the case of maths. If musicality is what is needed for us to distinguish music, it could then be said that logic or reason is needed to perceive and understand mathematics. But what has this got to do with each of the sciences in the most perfect form? This concept looks at the human perception of music and not what music exists as in its own right. Our perception of anything does not affect its existence in any way. Our perception is irrelevant. Looking at his most previous statement, he places what makes music good or not so good in brackets. This would suggest to the reader that this is what he believes musicality to be. When looking for a definitive answer on what music is, one should not focus so much on what makes a certain song good or not so good. Firstly, because a song is only music in a mimicked form and secondly because each individual person has a slightly different perception of what makes music good or not so good. For example, as Dorell states himself, he likes pop music. I completely despise this type of music. I find pop music to be the worst genre of music available to us and when it comes on, I react negatively towards it but neither my opinion nor his opinion matters. To consider musical taste, to repeat what was discussed before, is an entirely unrealistic way of trying to discover what music is as itself. If one was to ask any two hundred people at random to describe what they believe good music to be, there would more than likely be two hundred different answers. So we have stated music most certainly exists. From here, we have looked at how we have knowledge of it because of our instant recognition of it upon experiencing it through the senses. This instant recognition has lead the discussion to take a path towards looking at music as something that is external to us but our knowledge of it being a pre instilled form of intelligence that is internal, and through which we can recollect various things likes maths and music. We have seen the various shared aspects of music, mathematics and speech. We have also seen how music has mathematical properties and there are certain areas in music that can actually be solved through mathematical equations. When it comes to speech we have looked at it as something, as Dorell puts it as the closest thing to music but not music. From here, we have agreed that there is no point trying to state one thing (speech) is
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another thing (music) because it defies the law of non contradiction. Musics universality was looked at as vital. Without it, one would not be defining music. Various aspects of music like taste, our perception of it and its emotive responses were also taken into consideration and considered irrelevant. All that we are left with is the proposition: Music is music. As Schopenhaur so elegantly puts it, What music says is what it does 19 No one knows where the first song stemmed from but what we do know is that music most certainly exists. Our instant recognition of it suggests that it is built within our knowledge to perceive it or as Plato would suggest our souls. It could not be looked at something that shares similar aspects with anything else therefore Dorells input is unfortunately invalid. Music is music and it belongs only to itself. The journey into discovering music is not a journey that should involve the study of song (or a series of songs) because song is merely a mimic, or representation of music as previously discussed. A song stems from music almost like leaves from a tree. In order to define what a tree is, one would not look into investigating a leaf because the two are entirely different entities, even though the existence of one depends on the other. Music is the roots from which any song is grown. The definition of a song cannot be the same as the definition of music. Upon a humans experience or interaction with a song, an emotive response is evident within humans. However, the particular emotion felt and the fact that there is an emotional response, is not necessary to take into consideration. These are just direct results of a humans experience with song, each one differing from the last depending on each individuals opinion on musicality (which as shown above refers to how good a particular song is). Human response to music is also irrelevant and does not tell us any more about music in its purest form so it should also be avoided when tackling the definition of music. What we have hopefully established here is that there are certain things music cannot be. To define something, one must look for the most universal definition. The path to truth is a long one and as Descartes showed us, one must go from one certainty to another. It is the firm immoveable point put forth by Archimides that must be established when defining any one thing. The aim of this essay was not to define music. It was to dismantle various concepts of music that exists proving them unviable accounts due to their lack of substance. Hopefully, in doing so, one can come closer to concluding music as something else, something more and
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V: Distaso & Others On the common origin of music and philosophy http://www.springerlink.com/content/2rj8561235r52022/ Date Accessed: 05/03/2012 p.138

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something certain. Descartes thought us that to demolish anything that can in anyway be doubted eliminates the possibility of uncertainty. It is these various uncertainties that we must focus on attempting to unfold and toss to the side as irrelevant. To define what music is not may just be at this point in time the most diligent way in attempting to define what music actually is.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY: - G.S Kirk, J.E. raven, M. Schofield: The Pre-Socratic Philosophers. - J. Danaher: The Laws of thought: http://www.the-philosopher.co.uk/lawsofthought.htm Date accessed: 09/03/2012 - L. V. Distaso: On the Common origin of Music and Philosophy: Plato, Nietzsche, and Benjamin.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/2rj8561235r52022/ Date Accessed: 05/03/2012

-P. Dorell: What is Music? (2005) p 18-43, p137-150

http://whatismusic.info/ http://whatismusic.info/chapters/whatismusic-2-what-is-music.pdf http://whatismusic.info/chapters/whatismusic-8-perception-of-musicality.pdf Date Accessed: 20/02/2012 27/04/2012

-Plato: Meno - Plato: The Republic - R. Descartes: Meditation M I,II,V,VI

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