What is music? When does sound become music? Does music originate in the composer's pen or in the listener's ear? Is music an objective thing or is music only the meaning that is given to it during listening? These are questions that music philosophy concerns itself with, and about which less has been published in Dutch than about other philosophical issues. Questions like these are extensively addressed in two recent books by music philosopher Tomas Serrien.
In Klank. Filosofie van de muzikale ervaring Serrien describes music not as a whole of sounds, but as an experience. Sounds acquire meaning in the listening experience and thereby become meaningful music for some or meaningless noise for others. In doing so, he shows himself to be an adherent of phenomenology, which wants to describe music as experience, in contrast to the ontological approach (what kind of thing is music?).
In Hoor. Of is dat geen muziek?, he continues on that impetus and presents the reader with a universe of genres and types of music. Both books not only encourage us to think about sound, timbre and music. They are also listening books; at each chapter there is a long list of musical pieces and songs to listen to.
Most readers of this site are probably listeners of classical music, have themselves received musical training or are lovers of classical music. Their musical background is largely or at least partly shaped by classical music. In classical music education or for the classical listener, aesthetic and music-philosophical questions therefore tend to focus on classical music. Why is a particular composition great music and another piece not? The question of how today's divide between classical and popular music, and everything in between, came about. The question of how classical music over the past centuries has freed itself from its traditional functions such as theater, dance or religion, how instrumental music and the classical canon became an independent art form, which we listen to in the concert hall without moving or singing along. These are questions that are touched upon tangentially in both books, but they are transcended by much more comprehensive and general questions regarding the experience and meaning of sound and music.
Tonal
In classical music education we learned that pop and rock music are based on simple harmonic, melodic and rhythmic patterns that are too simple to study. It is merely entertainment, not music with profound meaning. Tomas Serrien has avoided this pitfall. In Hoor. Of is dat geen muziek? Serrien lets the reader become acquainted with the most diverse genres, types and forms of music through a mass of listening tips, from Gregorian chant to the wildest experimental music that for the vast majority of listeners will not be music. In that broad spectrum, he describes how different the experience of music can be, without having to make value judgments about it. Our Western music, classical, pop or rock, is largely tonal, based on the tonal system. Serrien gives many examples of how other forms of music, which are atonal, non-Western or experiment with entirely different sound worlds, can also acquire meaning and be experienced as valuable. Incidentally, the majority of the hundreds of listening tips in both books fall outside classical music.
We listen to music not only with our brains; sounds and music have an impact on the whole body. Just as a classically trained listener thinks that pop music is simple entertainment, so a lover of heavy rock can think that a classical symphony is not valuable to him because it seems purely cerebral, because it seems to have no impact on the whole body. It seems to be music to think about, to fathom. Boring, there are no beats, you can't headbang to it. An average pop music listener seeks musical entertainment to have some fun, to feel good with music, to swing and move a bit without having to listen carefully with your mind.
Heavy metal
By viewing sound, timbre and music as broadly as possible, Serrien wants to awaken our sense of wonder and make us doubt our musical standards. In my opinion, he has succeeded well in this. Certain forms of music that are meaningless to us have real meaning for others, however repugnant or disgusting that may be to a classical listener. There are probably not many readers of classical-centered content who would buy a ticket for a heavy metal concert. Yet more tickets are sold for heavy metal than for classical concerts. That someone on stage is screaming or making obscene gestures is for many a valuable experience. Or take the example of so-called "noise music". Noise, seemingly chaotic sounds, for most listeners a mix of meaningless sound. Tomas Serrien lets us know that it exists and that some derive meaning from it.
Is there no hold whatsoever outside the listening experience, no standard by which to measure music for its worth? Serrien testifies to a far-reaching, some will think excessive relativism. Not that he doesn't think a toccata by Bach is great music, but this is irrelevant in his philosophy. A symphony by Beethoven has no value whatsoever outside what the listener attaches to it. Until now there have been very many listeners who, through their musical training or background, attach great value to it and regard it as an autonomous work of art. But according to Serrien, that value lies only in our experience. The famous writer Georges Simenon preferred to hear a dog bark than a Beethoven symphony. So what?
- AUTHOR: Tomas Serrien
- BOOK 1: A Philosophy of Musical Experience, 240 pp., EAN 9789089246103
- PUBLISHER: Houtekiet 2017
- BOOK 2: Or Is That Not Music? 222 pp.,EAN 9789089244789
- PUBLISHER: Houtekiet 2022