This is an interesting topic. But it's all to easy to dip into
armchair psychology, as the first quote here indicates:
quoted 2 lines "Music has become a symbolic language of the unconscious mind whose symbolism> "Music has become a symbolic language of the unconscious mind whose symbolism
> we shall never be able to fathom."
attempts to produce logical symbolism that explain the "meaning" of
music, or other arts, have been fraught with difficulties. mainly
these difficulties stem from the "fact" that we can understand music
without being aware of these complicated symbolisms that
philosophers/musicologists produce, indicating that our understanding
really consists of something else. how can we have a *language* of
the unconscious? how can we express what we are unaware of?
quoted 3 lines "A word does not mean the same thing to one person as to another, only the> "A word does not mean the same thing to one person as to another, only the
> tune says the same thing, awakens the feeling, in both - though that feeling
> may not be expressed in the same words." - mendelssohn
This is an especially interesting quote from mendelssohn. I find it
bizzare that he thinks words do not mean the same thing to each
individual. how then do we communicate? it often seems to me that the
situation is just the opposite, it is music that says different
things to different people, or even different things to the same
person at different times.
Someone else in the thread mentioned about how music highlights
certain aspects of experience - listening to a song suggests a
particular way of looking at a landscape for instance.
But it is interesting why people often associate colours, textures or
images with particular kinds of sounds. i wonder how these
associations are related to past experiences when listening to the
same/or similar pieces of music. i wonder if there is a systematic
way of explaining that?
ho-hum,
Tom
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