Comments on the idea that music might be a process of communication between composer and listener

Carpenter, T. L.

Josephson, Brian

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Musical MindsNew Scientist 1762, 30 March 1991https://www.newscientist.com/letter/mg13017650-700-letter-music-test/From BRIAN JOSEPHSON and T. L. CARPENTERJohn Davies appears to dislike the idea that music might be a processof communication between composer and listener (‘The musical mind’, 19 January).This concept originated not from scientists’ ideas of ‘instinct’ as suggested,but from the experiences of musicians. Many composers have described how,in the act of composition, they have gone through a process perceived assearching for musical forms that will effectively express the musical ideathat has formed itself in their minds.One of the performer’s tasks could then be said to be to identify, onthe basis of the information provided by the composer’s score, what thatidea is, and then to perform the music in such a way as to make it as transparentas possible to the listener. In more objective terms, this ‘musical idea’concept is substantiated also by musical analysis, through the way the latterdiscloses relevant relationships (often logical) in content and structure.On the subject of musical preferences, many musicians would contendthat there is more to the holding of interest over time in music than itsmere complexity of form, and that good music may hold interest indefinitelyby virtue of the subtlety of its meanings.We would like to note especially that the experiments on reaction timesand the like, quoted in support of the assertion that musical ideas haveno absolute, culture-independent status, could just as well be seen as illustratingthe fact that familiar tasks can be accomplished more rapidly and more reliablythan unfamiliar ones.We believe that to reject the concept of musical idea (as well as othersin the fairly considerable philosophical literature that exists on significancein the arts) is to lead the subject on to a wrong track: seeing music simplyin terms of ‘basic aspects of sound such as loudness and speed interactingin ways that are less easy to predict’ is almost certainly as oversimplifieda view of the subject as is seeing mathematics as merely a game played withsymbols.Brian Josephson and T. L. Carpenter, University of Cambridge

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