Honors
HNRS 326-01: Emotion and Meaning in Music
This course is designed to introduce students to some
current theories of emotion and meaning in music. Rather than present a
chronological history of musical aesthetics, this course aims to present and
evaluate a number of ideas that have been put forth in the twentieth
century.This is a highly inter-disciplinary
topic, and the kinds of issues and questions regarding emotion and meaning in
music cross over into at least the following disciplines:
Philosophy - recent writers on musical aesthetics have come to grips with questions such as "does music actually induce emotions in the listener or does it just represent them?" or "why do we get pleasure (happiness) from sad music?" or "how can music represent things which make no sound, such as a sunrise, or joy?" or "what does it mean to "understand" a piece of music?"
Psychology - theories of cognition (particularly Gestalt psychology) can tell us much about the way music can have meaning and can affect us emotionally.
Mathematics - some theorists have applied mathematical models from cryptography and information theory (Markov chains) to music, thereby uncovering mechanisms by which meaning is generated on a syntactic level.
Semiotics - the theories of semiotician Charles Peirce have been successfully applied to musical signification, particularly the concepts of index, icon and symbol, all of which can be seen to be at work in pieces of music.
Linguistics - since music is a product of the human mind, it has a grammar which can be compared to that of language, and recent theorists have had great success applying principles of Chomskian linguistics to music.
The course will require regular readings, leading to class discussion, carefully guided by the instructor, who will also introduce examples of recorded music relevant to each week's discussion. Much of the material in this course is intellectually challenging, and students will be encouraged to hone their critical thinking skills in engaging with these ideas.One of the goals of this class is to instill in students the ability to combine and inter-relate concepts and ideas from across various disciplines:by the end of the semester, they should be able to engage with a work of music on many different levels and be able to discuss different (and often conflicting) ways in which emotion and meaning can be said to be present in it. We will not be limited to Western classical music in this class, but will include jazz, popular music, and music from non-Western cultures.
Spring Term: 2008
Credits: 4
Fulfills: GE Requirement in Fine Arts (A)
Meeting times: 9:30-11:20 TR
Instructor: Nicolas del Grazia
Open to: Jrs/Srs Only
Prerequisites: MUS-104 (Music Theory I) recommended but NOT required