Music and Philosophy 4: Music as Experience

Today I want to talk about music as an experience. This has been touched on many times in the book as well as in class. Being the Empiricist that I am, I thought it would be fun to do an entry following that philosophy. Do not get me wrong, I am also a Rationalist, I just believe that experience is paramount in life. Really, I am an Aristotelian—claiming reason is important but one needs the experiences first. The only thing I do disagree with Aristotle on is his pedophilic tendencies. But enough about that.

Music is meant to be experienced, whether it is a performance, clear HD on a laptop, or on vintage vinyl, that gives one an old fashioned and nostalgic feeling. See? Even then, I used experiential language: feeling. That is how we always talk about music: “the Van Halen performance was an experience”; “you had to be at Woodstock to really get the full experience”, “listening to Glenn Miller on record is a fuller way to truly appreciate and experience his genius.” Music is synonymous with our senses and our experiences. Quite often people will say one should listen to a particular song while high on various substances to get the full experience and understanding of the song. We feel and hear the music. We talked about this earlier in the semester about how music invokes feelings in us that are fundamentally human. Music makes us want to dance in the streets, burst out singing while at the library or on the tread mill, music can make us cry, get angry, feel scared, and cause self-reflection.

Whole sub-cultures are created out of types of music: Goths, punks, metal-heads, hippies, etc. Music can lift up a generation, inspire young artists, stop a war, and end an empire. People are assassinated for the music they make. All this data, all these facts lead to one conclusion: music is engrained in our souls and our DNA. It affects us on fundamental levels and therefore is one of the most important experiences one must have in one’s life. And of course one will have this experience to some degree no matter what the circumstances. As we mentioned in class today, music comes out of our evolution, even people trapped for their whole lives in the darkness of a cave will begin to create rhythm and make songs in their heads. A person cannot escape music. It is all around us. We even have music about music: Rock n’ Roll is Here to Stay, Music by Madonna,

I further believe that music should be experienced in all its various forms. I know we all have our tastes but to truly appreciate our tastes and understand music more fully, we must listen to the music we do not like. I am a big believer in Yin-Yang theory: if we have nothing bad, we cannot know what is good. This applies to all forms of art, not just music. Also, by expanding your palate to all music’s you may come to find out you like other things and that you may even like things you thought were examples of bad music. I admit I am not a big fan of pop but Lady Gaga does have a few songs that are moving and have hidden meaning if one knows where to look.