The Heart of Classical Work-Performance

In this critical study of Julian Dodd’s Being True to Works of Music (2020), I argue that the three-tier normative profile of the work-performance tradition in classical music that Dodd defends should be rejected in favour of a two-tier version. I also argue that the theory of work-performance defended in the book fits much more naturally with a contextualist ontology of musical works than with the Platonist ontology Dodd defends in Works of Music (2007), despite his arguments to the contrary in the afterword of the new book. Finally, I argue that the reasons he gives for preferring a ‘tradition-based’ over a ‘historicized’ theory of the understanding of classical scores are not convincing

Hanslick, Legal Processes and Scientific Methodologies: How Not to Construct an Ontology of Music

Hanslick's treatise On the Beautiful in Music (1854) is often taken to be a paradigm of 'scientific' and 'formalist' explanations of music. This article demonstrates that many of his key ideas came from Hanslick's legal training with its 'laws' based on 'rulings' rather than universal principles. That training also caused him to organise his treatise as if conducting a courtroom defence, with its emphasis on negative rebuttal and a verdict of 'not guilty as charged'. Finally, arising from his observations on musical performance, a new theory of the ontology of music is adumbrated

Automatic Semantic Annotation of Music with Harmonic Structure

This paper presents an annotation model for harmonic structure of a piece of music, and a rule system that supports the automatic generation of harmonic annotations. Musical structure has so far received relatively little attention in the context of musical metadata and annotation, although it is highly relevant for musicians, musicologists and indirectly for music listeners. Activities in semantic annotation of music have so far mostly concentrated on features derived from audio data and file-level metadata. We have implemented a model and rule system for harmonic annotation as a starting point for semantic annotation of musical structure. Our model is for the musical style of Jazz, but the approach is not restricted to this style. The rule system describes a grammar that allows the fully automatic creation of an harmonic analysis as tree-structured annotations. We present a prototype ontology that defines the layers of harmonic analysis from chords symbols to the level of a complete piece. The annotation can be made on music in various formats, provided there is a way of addressing either chords or time points within the music. We argue that this approach, in connection with manual annotation, can support a number of application scenarios in music production, education, and retrieval and in musicology

Music and Vague Existence

I explain a tension between musical creationism and the view that there is no vague existence. I then suggest ways to reconcile these views. My central conclusion is that, although some versions of musical creationism imply vague existence, others do not. I discuss versions of musical creationism held by Jerrold Levinson, Simon Evnine, and Kit Fine. I also present two new versions. I close by considering whether the tension is merely an instance of a general problem raised by artifacts, both abstract and concrete. I argue that on at least one defensible account of music the tension is especially problematic for abstracta. I focus on musical works, but much of the paper straightforwardly applies to other kinds of abstract artifacts

On Whitehead and Deleuze: The Process of Materiality

In his long career, Whitehead was, variously, a mathematician, speculative physicist, historian of science, philosopher of science, and philosopher in his own right. As such, he occupies a perhaps unique place within recent western thought. Not only did he advance scientific thought, he also developed a novel, systematic philosophical understanding of science based on a deep historical appreciation of both its theoretical premises and its practical procedures. Whitehead did not dismiss science, he did not see it as divorced from philosophy, nor did he accept the premises which, he maintained, still inform much of modern science. One of Whitehead’s great achievements, which will be taken up later in this paper, is his insistence that science, philosophy, the humanities, and social theory all require a renewed conception of nature (in the broadest sense of the word), one which goes beyond strict scientific limitations, beyond any form of biological essentialism or reliance upon some notion of the ultimate laws of physics or nature. Through his philosophy of organism, Whitehead aims to develop a concept of nature that is able to incorporate all existence, thereby bringing together the empirical, the material, the social, the aesthetic, and thinking beings

Why can’t I change Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony?

Musical works change. Bruckner revised his Eighth Symphony. Ella Fitzgerald and many other artists have made it acceptable to sing the jazz standard “All the Things You Are” without its original verse. If we accept that musical works genuinely change in these ways, a puzzle arises: why can’t I change Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony? More generally, why are some individuals in a privileged position when it comes to changing musical works and other artifacts, such as novels, films, and games? I give a view of musical works that helps to answer these questions. Musical works, on this view, are created abstract objects with no parts. The paradigmatic changes that musical works undergo are socially determined normative changes in how they should be performed. Due to contingent social practices, Bruckner, but not I, can change how his symphony should be performed. Were social practices radically different, I would be able to change his symphony. This view extends to abstract artifacts beyond music, including novels, films, words, games, and corporations

The Nihilistic Image of the World

In The Gay Science (1882), Nietzsche heralded the problem of nihilism with his famous declaration “God is dead,” which signalled the collapse of a transcendent basis for the underpinning morality of European civilization. He associated this collapse with the rise of the natural sciences whose methods and pervasive outlook he was concerned would progressively shape “an essentially mechanistic [and hence meaningless] world.” The Russian novelist Turgenev had also associated a scientific outlook with nihilism through the scientism of Yevgeny Bazarov, a character in Fathers and Sons. A century or so later, can we correlate relevant scientific results and the nihilistic consequences that worried these and other nineteenth-century authors? The aversion of empirical disciplines to such non-empirical concepts as personhood and agency, and their methodological exclusion of the very idea of value would make this a difficult task. Recent neuroscientific (MRI) investigations into free will might provide a useful starting point for anyone interested in this sociological question, as might the research results of experimental or evolutionary psychologists studying what they take human beings to be. In this paper, I turn instead to a more basic issue of science. I will question the universality of a principle of identity assumed by a scientific understanding of what it means for anything to exist. I will argue that the essential features of human existence present an exception to this principle of identity and thereby fall outside the grasp of scientific inquiry. The basis of this argument will be an explanation of why it is nonetheless rational for us to affirm personhood, agency, moral values, and many more concepts that disappear under the scrutiny of the sciences

MeLinDa: an interlinking framework for the web of data

The web of data consists of data published on the web in such a way that they can be interpreted and connected together. It is thus critical to establish links between these data, both for the web of data and for the semantic web that it contributes to feed. We consider here the various techniques developed for that purpose and analyze their commonalities and differences. We propose a general framework and show how the diverse techniques fit in the framework. From this framework we consider the relation between data interlinking and ontology matching. Although, they can be considered similar at a certain level (they both relate formal entities), they serve different purposes, but would find a mutual benefit at collaborating. We thus present a scheme under which it is possible for data linking tools to take advantage of ontology alignments.Comment: N° RR-7691 (2011