Abstract
Starting from Alfred Schutz’s definition of music as a meaningful context, the paper discusses the social formation of musical meaning by implementing an ideal typification of composer, musician, and listener. The reflection of their interrelation discloses the significant difference between the reconstruction of musical meaning and its initial constitution, thereby hinting at the general border between sociological and philosophical analysis. Against this background the paper tries to complement Schutz’s thoughts on music as a social phenomenon by consulting the work of the German philosopher Helmuth Plessner.
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Notes
- 1.
This seemingly self-evident containment may not be forgotten, as for example in Blaukopf’s definition of musical action: “action aiming at the production of sonic incidents and containing a meaning which is oriented towards the behavior of others.” (in German: “das auf die Erzeugung von Schallereignissen gerichtete Handeln mit einem auf das Verhalten anderer intendierten Sinn” (Blaukopf 1996, p. 3). This characterization is also true of speech and therefore unspecific.
- 2.
I.e., transcendencies of time and space (cf. Schutz and Luckmann 1989, pp. 106ff.).
- 3.
I.e., transcendencies of intersubjective communication (cf. Schutz and Luckmann 1989, pp. 109ff.).
- 4.
I.e., transcendencies of different spheres of reality (cf. Schutz and Luckmann 1989, pp. 117ff.).
- 5.
To be sure, there are sounds sometimes said to have symbolic meaning, such as, for instance, the singing of the blackbird. Yet, I would treat such modes of speaking as semantic derivations which, in the end, point back to music as the original phenomenon.
- 6.
In German: “Musik wird oft nicht schön gefunden, weil sie stets mit Geräusch verbunden.” (see Wilhelm Busch: Der Maulwurf).
- 7.
To do so is not always under the listener’s command. Cultural knowledge, normative aesthetic reflections, and even physical condition are all also involved. We know, for example, that in the US-Prison at Guantanamo Bay, popular music, which a lot of people enjoy and pay for, was used to torture the captives.
- 8.
There are, however, widespread remarks concerning the composer in Schutz’s texts.
- 9.
In the case of a live performance the acts of performing and listening may take place (almost) synchronically, thus the argument is logical rather than temporal.
- 10.
N.B, this statement refers to the ideal type. The listener who communicates his interpretation of the piece of music after listening to it (e.g. as a critic) or even while listening to it (e.g. as a dancer), surely takes part in the construction of musical meaning; this, however, is outside the scope of this analysis.
- 11.
A similar (I would say: ideal-type) exclusion is made by Schutz in “Making Music Together” when he assumes “that our piano player is equally proficient as a technician and sight reader and that consequently no mechanical or other external obstacle will hinder the flux of his performance” (see Schutz 1964, p. 167). It seems quite clear that especially the latter presupposition only holds true for a small minority of musicians and musical events.
- 12.
Taking the listener into consideration as well, the relationship in question might be enhanced to a threefold correlation. In this context, the musician acts as a mediator between composer and listener (cf. Schutz 1964, p. 174).
- 13.
This is typical of much of the music relegated to the so-called classical music genre, be it from the Baroque period, Viennese Classicism, or Romantic period. In modern, especially popular music, things seem to be different as song writing credits are often given to several composers or even whole bands. However, when viewed more closely, the incidence of people composing as a team is smaller than the practice of credit-giving suggests. We know for example that the “congenital” writing team Lennon/McCartney wrote fewer songs in cooperation than has been supposed for a long time.
- 14.
Monty Pythons Flying Circus, Episode 21.
- 15.
“I have found it!”.
- 16.
The description is directed against a conceptualization of composing as a mere following of rules. Of course there are musical structures, patterns, and forms, which, in a certain sense, determine the act of composing; once a composer has decided how to start a piece of music, many of the following decisions are already anticipated. For example, the symphony’s form constricts the composer in how he can handle his musical theme. But in order to find such a theme, musical patterns, forms, and structures cannot help. They certainly aid in bringing the musical ideas together into an aesthetic whole, that is, in the act of composing in the literal sense. Yet there is no musical rule that says: “after G-G-G-bE, F-F-F-D has to follow.” This parallels linguistic syntax since syntax prescribes how to build sentences out of words, but not how to find new words.
- 17.
In German: “Das Geheimnis des Schöpfertums, des Einfalls besteht in dem glücklichen Griff, in der Begegnung zwischen dem Menschen und den Dingen. Nicht das Suchen nach etwas Bestimmtem ist das Prius der eigentlichen Erfindung, denn wer nach etwas sucht, hat in Wahrheit schon gefunden. Er steht unter dem Gesetz des Seienden, nach welchem der Fund die bloße Erfüllung eines garantiert erfüllbaren Strebens ist. Das Prius von Suchen und Finden dagegen ist die Korrelativität von Mensch und Welt, die auf die Identität seiner exzentrischen Positionsform und der Struktur dinglicher Realität … zurückweist.”
- 18.
In German: “gebrochener Weltbezug.”
- 19.
In German: “Gesetz der vermittelten Unmittelbarkeit.”
- 20.
This notion of an artwork “being there” even before it is created is expressed quite clearly by a famous dictum (allegedly) by Michelangelo that says that the secret of statuary consists in removing those parts of the stone that are superfluous.
- 21.
In German: “Was also in die Sphäre der Kultur eingeht, zeigt Gebundenheit an das menschliche Urhebertum und zugleich (und zwar in demselben Ausmaß) Unabhängigkeit von ihm. Der Mensch kann nur erfinden, soweit er entdeckt.”
- 22.
See his statement about Brahms’s First Symphony above (Schutz 1996, pp. 267f.).
- 23.
In German: “Der schöpferische Griff ist eine Ausdrucksleistung.”
- 24.
It may be worth mentioning that this distinction does not collide with the one given by the editors in the introduction. Their definition focuses on the difference of methodological approaches, whereas here emphasis is given to the difference of subject matters.
- 25.
Nota bene: This statement refers to Husserlian phenomenology in the way it was performed by himself, that is, as a founding of the factual sciences (this is also Luckmann’s understanding of Husserl; see below). Indeed, Husserl also mentions the idea of an empirical phenomenology that follows the eidetic one (Husserl 1962, p. 298).
- 26.
Besides the incongruity of subject matters hinted at above, sociology is concerned with social phenomena, whereas phenomenology is concerned with all kinds of human phenomena. But since there is an overlap, this reflection does not offer a selective criterion.
- 27.
Granted, sociology uses typification, but as a means of perception, not as its purpose.
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Goettlich, A. (2014). Music, Meaning, and Sociality: From the Standpoint of a Social Phenomenologist. In: Barber, M., Dreher, J. (eds) The Interrelation of Phenomenology, Social Sciences and the Arts. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 69. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01390-9_17
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