Xref: utzoo comp.ai:6279 rec.music.classical:12323 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!apple!amdahl!kp From: kp@uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting) Newsgroups: comp.ai,rec.music.classical Subject: Langer's theory of Logical Form in Music and Emotions (LONG) Summary: Musical forms resemble Emotional structures Keywords: Husserl, Susanne Langer, phenomenology, emotion Message-ID: <7bnM02KL92Qo01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> Date: 15 Mar 90 22:37:07 GMT References: <12143@venera.isi.edu> <14431@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Reply-To: kp@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting) Followup-To: rec.music.classical Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA Lines: 122 (Now that the subject of music has come up in comp.ai, I'm not really sure what to do with it! So I'm cross-posting and suggesting followups to rec.music.classical. I hope this is the right thing to do...) In article <14431@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman) writes: >In article kp@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting) writes: > >;. . . Husserl's >;distinction between "hyletic" ... and "transcendental" phenomenology >; seems to be absent {from Handel's description of variations of sound} > >Maybe not, because Handel is consistent in noting that the signal enables >perception without forcing it, . . . This is a good point, and well put. It seems to me that even when we consider the listener as embodied, and causally impinged upon by signals, it is *still* the case that the signal does no more than enable perception - assuming that perception involves such events as recognition or individuation. The mind actively applies itself to these processes, in my view. >;Husserl must avoid any claims to be discussing matter, so that his method >;of description can avoid empiricist criticism. I think he is right to >;attempt this, and I think he achieves some success. But I think that >;both AI and aesthetics will lose valuable tools if Husserl is followed >;to closely. By no means would I advocate a "stimulus-response" theory... > >. . . the problem here has to do ... with the fact that physical signals >are perceptually articulated in ways that gives evidence of a proliferation >of temporal representations. Not uniquely or invariably represented in such >and such a way, especially at the level of "music appreciation." Since I failed miserably to distinguish successfully between acoustic and psychoacoustic vocabulary before, let me try to make the point I had in mind again now. The acoustic waveform reaching the ear from an instrument is certainly quite complex and richly structured, even when described strictly within a physical vocabulary of frequency, amplitude, and superposition. One topic to consider is the variety and structure of the experience of listening. Another topic to consider is the relation of the various possible experiences of listening to the signals which enable them. A third topic is the nature of the material processes of signals, listening, and experience. Work on AI (if it intends to illuminate or reproduce the experience of music) must attend to all three of these topics. The first topic is clearly within Husserl's area of interest, and the second topic is perhaps on the border between "transcendental" and "existential" phenomenology. The non-uniqueness of representations may be the most interesting part of hyletic and existential phenomenology. Langer's approach to symbols and representation interests me precisely because it may be able to avoid the specificity of semantic theories of meaning. >;But I would suggest that the concept of time cannot be analyzed without >;reference to the physics of time. > >But without a phemomenology of time no physical analysis is possible. I'm not sure I understand this. Certainly the physicists have produced a very interesting analysis of time, which seems to me to be adequate for the description of natural processes. If you mean that physics is more dependent on phenomenology than most physicists often admit, then I would probably agree. However, the inscribed graduations on most measuring devices suggest to me that natural science is more dependent on *texts* than on perceptions. >;> . . Unfortunately, most people who "do" music theory have little to say >;>about these dynamic processes . . . >; >;... Susanne Langer...from "Feeling and Form" (1952): >; >; "The tonal structures we call "music" bear a close logical >; similarity to the forms of human feeling ... forms of growth >; and of attenuation ... speed, arrest ... vitally felt. ... >; the pattern, or logical form, of sentience; ... the pattern of >; music is that same form worked out in pure, measured sound and >; silence. > >As I've observed elsewhere, making statements of this sort presupposes >a capacity to evaluate pure abstract forms of emotion or whatever without >reference to personal experience -- something of a feat, I would say. This is confusing to me also. Langer is very serious about the "vitally felt" in this passage. She does not fall into the trap of supposing that emotions are "presented" to the mind or to experience. Emotions (and thoughts) are part of experience - not representations, and not represented. This is a subtle and controversial point, but very important. (I would request that we defer further discussion of representation until some agreement on abstraction is acheived) I brought Langer into the discussion partly to establish that there are music theorists who address dynamic processes outside the tradition of Husserl, and (mostly) to show how an idea which originated in music theory can be instructively applied to a difficult problem in computation - the relation of algorithms to hardware. >. . . Langer >follows Wagner in thinking that music is a "logical" (ie, cognitively >idealized) form of emotion, a translation of idealized experience into >sound. The musician (ie, Wagner) is priviledged with access to these >idealizations so that they can be translated into music. . . . This is not an accurate characterization of Langer's view. She does not say that music is a form of emotion, but rather that music and emotion have the same form. Neither music nor emotion are idealized - both are quite concrete. (I am not really competent to discuss music theory, so I can't promise to maintain whatever coherence I have on the topic much further. I've segregated some material which is closer to AI concerns in a separate article) > >--eliot handelman >princeton u., music Thank you, Eliot, for your comments and corrections. Ken Presting