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Question posted on April 25, 2013; 1 response
In reply to a recent question about whether aesthetic judgments are reliable Stephen Maitzen wrote http://www.askphilosophers.org/question/5097 "(1) We often seem to make objective aesthetic judgments, such as the judgments concerning Bach and Rihanna that you mentioned in your question; why not take...
Music Show

Question posted on March 21, 2013; 1 response
We often hear people saying about how a certain artist or composer is better than another. Many people, for example, believe Bach and Verdi to be better musicians than, say, Rihanna or Justin Bieber. I share this same belief, but it...
Music Show

Question posted on May 26, 2011; 1 response
Why do mainstream listeners find it difficult to consider extreme metal music (e.g. death metal, black metal, etc) aesthetically pleasing? Some forms of progressive death metal (e.g. bands like Opeth) do an excellent job of balancing truly 'beautiful' and 'sublime'...
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Question posted on March 15, 2011; 1 response
It is said that good art communicates things. Music, though, doesn't appear to communicate anything beyond vague aesthetic-emotional sensations (if we ignore experimental music that communicates about itself by, for example, playing Beethoven's 9th using only objects taken from...
Music Show

Question posted on March 9, 2011; 1 response
I am listening to the theme music of a movie soundtrack. While I enjoy the theme music there is nonetheless something about it that strikes me as inauthentic and hallow. The thing is that I can't point to what it...
Music Show

Question posted on September 2, 2010; 2 responses
What is the difference between music and an aesthetically interesting grouping of sounds? I ask because I was listening to the opening of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds and I while I found the sounds which were made to resemble a...
Music Show

Question posted on August 31, 2010; 1 response
Why is it that, in music, major chords, by themselves, isolated and without any musical context, sound bright and happy, while minor chords are dark and sad? How can arbitrary collections of frequencies elicit distinct emotions from people? ...
Emotion, Music Show

Question posted on August 31, 2010; 1 response
Does philosophy concerning music have any worth or substance? Or is music simply too abstract for there to be any meaningful philosophical insights gleaned from it?...
Music Show

Question posted on June 29, 2010; 1 response
Does music exist without a listener? This is kind of a corollary to the tree falling in the woods question- but it definitely deviates. Does the noise exist without someone to hear it? If music is created by a musician,...
Music Show

Question posted on August 18, 2009; 1 response
Say there is a music band whose members engage in frequent illegal/immoral acts, e.g. drunken driving, drug use, prostitution, rape, assault, etc. I want to buy their latest album, but I know that the money they receive from me will...
Ethics, Music Show

Question posted on April 28, 2009; 1 response
Putting aside the legal aspects and ramifications of illegally downloading music - is doing so morally wrong? Put another way, do we do something morally wrong when we download or otherwise take music that we did not pay for? If we acknowledge...
Ethics, Music Show

Question posted on January 23, 2009; 1 response
How would a person who believes that musical works are universals account for instances of musical works which seem to imply that each performance of the same piece is always different, not only in the sense that all performances are...
Music Show

Question posted on January 11, 2009; 1 response
Is intention enough for one to get an artistic status? Supose, as a composer, I have a piece called "Sonata for non-prepared pianist". I walk into a theater and pick someone from the audience and give to this person, that...
Art, Music Show

Question posted on October 28, 2008; 1 response
Just how 'universal' is music? That seems to be a very broad question, but here's some background to clarify: In the past, there have been many different ways of creating music. The only real standard of pitch is...
Music Show

Question posted on April 16, 2008; 1 response
Recently I've had trouble comprehending the idea of a divide between music and noise. I was wondering, are noise and music one and the same? To compose something with the intention that it be noise music seems paradoxical to me,...
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Question posted on October 6, 2007; 1 response
It is generally accepted that certain intervals in music sound "harmonious", i.e. 3rds, 4ths and 5ths. Why is this so? Why do these certain intervals constitute a pleasant sounding harmony, as opposed to jarring, dissonant intervals like 2nds and 7ths?...
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Question posted on April 5, 2007; 1 response
Vaughan Williams' music has been termed 'nationalistic', or 'spiritual'. Would you construe these terms as metaphorical? They have been used to decribe and categorize his music, have been seen as attributive, and his music has been known for...
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Question posted on March 29, 2007; 1 response
Does music have any intellectual content?...
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Question posted on December 9, 2006; 1 response
Appreciation (as in appreciation of music, poetry or visual arts) concerns a subject that has become central for a certain, large public and a fair amount of books and articles are devoted to the subject. This notwithstanding, appreciation has received...
Art, Music Show

Question posted on December 9, 2006; 1 response
What is music? I can recognise music from cultures other than my own as being music, even if I don't enjoy it; but what makes a series of sounds 'music'? Similarly (I assume), when does human vocalising become...
Music Show




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