Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Can music be productively studied by science?

There's a mathematical explanation for pretty much everything...we'll find one for music eventually.

I get very irritated, there's an emotion for you, when musicians discuss music and emotions.

I for one cannot measure emotions in music but I can hear tempo change, dynamic change, and so on.

I find it more accurate to discuss music using musical terms ... but that's just me.

I'll take a look at those links but won't post anything more in this thread.

. . .there's . . . a disconnect between the title of the thread and the question. 'Music' isn't the same as 'emotions in music' - so I was misled into expecting a different sort of discussion.

You see a "disconnect!" You should see the "disconnect" I see. I originated this thread by linking to an article on the subject in the Wall Street Journal, as well as to a well considered response to that article. I found these articles to be stimulating, wanted further discussion, and was hoping they would provide the needed grist.

There is no indication, thus far, that even one respondent to my original post has so much as glanced at the first paragraph of either article.

Did I expect too much? Maybe so. Maybe I should have paraphrased each article--rather than the tease of the thread's title about music and science--and then linked to the articles. Maybe that would have been better, and more stimulating of a discussion. But on the other hand, if people wouldn't take the trouble to click on a link, why would they go to the trouble of responding at all. Why not simply ignore the thread. I would have been OK with that. Instead, there are eleven responses, and to me, each one reads like a "disconnect."

Tomasino

I get very irritated, there's an emotion for you, when musicians discuss music and emotions.

I for one cannot measure emotions in music but I can hear tempo change, dynamic change, and so on.

I find it more accurate to discuss music using musical terms ... but that's just me.

I'll take a look at those links but won't post anything more in this thread.

I just cannot imagine that anyone with real artistic integrity would think that emotion cannot come through music. Music isn't math. It isn't science. It deals (sometimes) with human emotion.... keyword being HUMAN. Emotion is such a basic human part of life, how could people argue that it has no place in music? That is just beyond me........ beyond me.

I just cannot imagine that anyone with real artistic integrity would think that emotion cannot come through music. Music isn't math. It isn't science. It deals (sometimes) with human emotion.... keyword being HUMAN. Emotion is such a basic human part of life, how could people argue that it has no place in music? That is just beyond me........ beyond me.

A month ago I played a gig at two schools for kids grades 1-4, mostly 1st graders, with a violinist. We played some Beethoven and Franck. When asked what they pictured during the Franck, those 1st graders, who knew nothing about classical music, these kids - or some of them I should say, maybe 4 or 5 - actually said "wedding". For those of you who don't know, the Franck violin sonata was written as a wedding present to his good friend, violinist Ysaÿe. It caused me to shiver a little bit when they said that. Isn't that cool? When we played the third movement, all of those kids answered that the movement was very sad and reminded them of various sad events which occurred in their lives. One girl even said it sounded like two people breaking up. What do you make of that? Why should we turn music into something snobby when we make it mandatory to deal only with musical terms - tempo, articulation, harmony. What about the real essence of so many of these great works - there is such a huge emotional basis for so many works.

I'll probably regret getting into this, so I'll follow your example and try to not post in here anymore. Just felt I should say the above.