The meaning of musical meaning

[Sid]

I've just been reading a book by musicologist Melanie Lowe called Pleasure and Meaning in the Classical Symphony (full details below). I'm not even halfway through it, but in the opening chapter, she makes some interesting observations on musical meaning, which I thought I would share here for discussion.

Here are some quotes which I found interesting from the first chapter:

What constitutes musical meaning? Musical meaning, for our purpose here, is simply those ideas, constructed in the mind of the listener, or those emotions, generated in the body (and mind) of the listener, upon experiencing a musical entity and performing the mental and physical activity of interpreting that experience. There are as many interpretations as experiences, as many experiences as listeners, and as many meanings constructed as listening subjects capable of performing even the simplest interpretive acts.

Does a piece of music have meaning? If "have" implies some sort of possession, then no. We shall maintain that a piece of music in and of itself does not have meaning. Meaning is constructed by human subjects and therefore resides within us, within human beings, not within inanimate objects, artistic or otherwise. A piece of music may be the most immediate stimulus or the conduit for meaning communicated within human subjects, but the construction of meaning takes place within the mind and body of an individual, animate person...

To be sure, more than one person may arrive at the same, or at least very similar, set of meanings for a particular musical composition, an actuality that suggests the presence within a musical work of certain features we can recognize as a style or code. Listeners who enjoy a certain "stylistic competency," to borrow Hatten's term (1994), may thus construct meanings that would seem to be intersubjective...

Listeners who are able to and choose to hear meanings that are sensitive to the musical, aesthetic, and historical circumstances of a musical work's composition, and perhaps even aligned with the presumed intentions of its composer, belong to the same interpretive community. But...the meanings these listeners hear, however shared or conditioned by the values and beliefs of a particular interpretive community they may be, remain nonetheless the constructions of individual members of that interpretive community. Even seemingly reconstructable meanings are therefore individual, subjective meanings ascribed to the musical work by its present interpreter. They are not reconstructions of meanings that exist within the piece itself.

Who determines musical meaning? The listener, when he actively interprets the music he hears. While a composer may determine specific meanings, maintain these meanings during the activity of composition, believe she is composing these meanings into a piece, and expect a piece of music to transmit her meanings, such intended meanings may or may not be perceived or re-created in the mind and body of a listener. He may interpret that musical work differently. By the same logic, once the compositional activity is completed, the composer herself becomes another listener. Interpretation - the process of constructing meaning - is in this sense no different for a piece's composer than for its listener. The composer simply enjoys a unique listening subjectivity: she knows what was intended and may (or may not) interpret her own work accordingly...

We listeners, however, cannot know what the composer intended. Despite whatever documentary or textual evidence may be out there to discover, a composer's intended meanings are ultimately unknowable to anyone but the composer herself, and therefore irrelevant for our present purpose...To speculate constructively about the meanings listeners, whether historical or contemporary, hear in a composition, we must consider not only the work's intrinsic musical aspects but also its musical, historical, cultural, aesthetic, social, and political situations, for a listening subject cannot divorce a text from its various contexts...

Are some meanings more "meaningful" than others? This question hinges first on whether one type of interpretive activity is more tangible than another. There are, of course, many degrees of interpretation, as well as many degrees of being conscious of performing interpretive acts...The same listener hearing the same piece under the same set of circumstances but at two different times will not necessarily arrive at the same interpretations because the experience is different. The musical text is crucial, of course, but I shall maintain that listening context and listener subjectivity control and ultimately determine musical meaning.

Are some meanings more "correct" than others? If they are the product of the interpretive activity of an individual listener, not matter who, where, or when she is, then no. Interpretations of musical experiences are subjective; they cannot be incorrect. Some interpretations may seem to carry more weight than others because of the authority of the listening subject who performed them - a "professional interpreter," for instance, whose job it is to produce criticism that persuades others of a particular meaning of a particular text. Within the context of this book, the interpretations of someone with, say, considerable musical training or vast historical knowledge are not more correct, in and of themselves, than those of someone who professes to be "tone deaf" or has not dedicated his career to studying musical-historical cultures. Such listeners are simply members of different interpreting communities.

What, then, might "meaning" mean? While musical meaning may be simply those ideas and emotions constructed by a listening subject during the activity of interpreting musical experience, the meaning of those constructed meanings is the result of a subsequent interpretation. If to engage the meaning of meaning, then, is like Zeno's paradox - we spend forever approaching but never arrive - it behooves us to remember Pople's words: "meaning is a journey rather than a destination" (1994, xi).

Lowe, M. (2007). Pleasure and Meaning in the Classical Symphony. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

[petrarch]

Music is not a language. Every piece is like a rugged rock,
with countless grooves and carved with drawings on the surface
and beneath, which people decipher and interpret in a thousand
different ways, none of them being the best nor the truest.

                                                                --Iannis Xenakis

[jowcol]

Give Xenakis points for brevity.  Great quote!

[jochanaan]

Aaron Copland is even briefer:

This whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, "Is there a meaning to music?" My answer to that would be, "Yes." And "Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?"  My answer to that would be "No."

[Scarpia]

Ok, that seems to cover it.  Shall we lock it up now?

[karlhenning]

No, no, I think there is something to be won even from the long version . . . .

[Cato]

Stravinsky as I recall, was also of the opinion that Music lacked any specific meaning: perhaps this was why he hated "interpretations" so much, since it implied that the conductor's ideas trumped the composer's, i.e. the conductor had found a "meaning" for which the composer had been merely a conduit.

Many thanks for showing us Professor Lowe's writings here! 

[Henk]

I very much like that Copland quote.

[Henk]

Stravinsky as I recall, was also of the opinion that Music lacked any specific meaning: perhaps this was why he hated "interpretations" so much, since it implied that the conductor's ideas trumped the composer's, i.e. the conductor had found a "meaning" for which the composer had been merely a conduit.

Many thanks for showing us Professor Lowe's writings here!

Stravinsky said "music shouldn't express anything except itself". It's the same as Copland's but more radical maybe and more intellectual stated.

[Sid]

The quotes from composers that people have posted are interesting. I think that they crystallise what Lowe is trying to say in a bit of a more complex way (I have only included simpler bits, some of the post modern stuff is a bit more convoluted). But I especially like her discussions of "intersubjectivity" which is about how many people might arrive at the same conclusion or interpretation about a piece of music via different avenues. As the last sentence says, music is about enjoying the journey & not necessarily worrying about the destination (where it takes you). This is what I find with my favourite pieces of classical music, whether they are considered "masterpieces" in academic circles or not...

[starrynight]

The original quotes are a bit convoluted sounding but I soldiered through them.  Funny she should refer to a composer as a she when normally people refer to one as a he.

Anyway I think she is a little bit too relativistic in her opinions. 

"Even seemingly reconstructable meanings are therefore individual, subjective meanings ascribed to the musical work by its present interpreter. They are not reconstructions of meanings that exist within the piece itself."

This sounds like it's just trying to be a bit too clever here.  Don't discount the tradition handed down in how to perform a piece too, classical music has a very strong tradition behind it.

"Who determines musical meaning? The listener, when he actively interprets the music he hears. While a composer may determine specific meanings, maintain these meanings during the activity of composition, believe she is composing these meanings into a piece, and expect a piece of music to transmit her meanings, such intended meanings may or may not be perceived or re-created in the mind and body of a listener."

But surely a composer determines a GENERAL meaning of a piece and not normally a specific meaning.

"The musical text is crucial, of course, but I shall maintain that listening context and listener subjectivity control and ultimately determine musical meaning."

They control specifics but not normally the general meaning.  Most people listening to the last movement of Brahms 4th symphony will consider it to sound tragic, sad, defiant.  Few people will consider it to be a humorous joke.  So there are limits to how most people would interpret a piece, though they may differ in specifics.

"Within the context of this book, the interpretations of someone with, say, considerable musical training or vast historical knowledge are not more correct, in and of themselves, than those of someone who professes to be "tone deaf" or has not dedicated his career to studying musical-historical cultures. Such listeners are simply members of different interpreting communities."

I think this is going a bit far.  Someone who isn't used to classical music may find for instance some classical period pieces sounding too formal or inflated, but that is often because they just aren't used to the style.  They may hear some later 20th century modernist sounding piece and think it just sounds alien and weird, but again that might just be because they aren't tuned into the style.

[Superhorn]

   Stravinsky was wrong.Music does not exist in a vacuum; you cannot divorce it completely from the extra-musical. 
  Ironically, some of Stravinsky's music is graphically descriptive,as in The Firebird,Petrushka and Le Sacre.  And there'sabsolutely nothing wrong with that.
   For example,in the fair scene in Petrushka, the tuba portrays a dancing bear,and by golly,it sounds like a dancing bear !

[CRCulver]

For example,in the fair scene in Petrushka, the tuba portrays a dancing bear,and by golly,it sounds like a dancing bear !

Only because you knew beforehand that it was meant to sound like a dancing bear. I've been listening to Petrushka for a couple of years now, but I never knew there was a "fair scene" nor a "dancing bear", and would have never thought so just from the music.

[starrynight]

There can be insinuations within people's minds of sounds they might have heard in other contexts outside of music.  So to claim music as being completely abstract and separate from anything else sounds like a bit of an artistic conceit.