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For musicians and fans
TAKE IT SERIOUSLY,
It’s only music!
Much has been said and much remains to be said about music.
Plato believed that music was in par with gymnastics. A way to teach children what they do not naturally possess which is, a sense of rigor, order and measure. Plato was never fond of the latest tune but rather attached to the notion of anchoring one’s soul in the realm of ideas, mathematics and dialectics, the only worthwhile nourishment of the mind according to him.
By contrast, his student, famed Aristotle believed that they were two kinds of music. One he called <<Phrygian>> and the other he called <<Dorian>>.
The Phrygian being what we’d call today <<Variety>>, such as Rock, Country, Hip-Hop etc.. “ Music, which relaxes the soul but doesn’t nourish it ” as he would claim.
The Dorian music though, although difficult to perceive is full of rich and substantial content. “ Music which is that of those who have the privilege of time to spare and can dedicate themselves at elevating their souls ”, always according to Aristotle but which today sounds like wishful thinking..
Surprisingly Kant, the German genius, was totally closed to the possibility of equating what he called the Beautiful and the Sublime to music which he relegated to the rank of Activity about Sensitivity, which had only a secondary meaning in his philosophical stratas of thought process
As for Hegel, music is just a mediocre intermediary stage between poetry and painting. For him this art deploys itself in time and therefore music’s vocation is to represent the State of the Soul but no higher nor a deeper level of thought.
However in the world of philosophical approaches to music, arrives Nietzsche’s
provocative rebuque of the above views. For him art as well as music have nothing to
do with truth and here rests music’s principal virtue. According to him Life seeks
Illusion.
But then comes Marcel Proust for whom Music multiplies the worlds we perceive and those we imagine. For whom our pains and
sacrifices allow the fecund grass to grow, the grass of
masterpieces upon which other generations will step on , spread their blankets and
have their own Picnic on the Grass.
TITLE: TAKE
IT SERIOUSLY… It’s Only Music.
DESCRIPTION: Much has been said and much remains to be said about music.
Plato believed that music was to be equated with gymnastics. A way to teach children what they do not naturally possess which is, a sense of rigor, order and measure. Plato was never fond of the latest tune but rather attached to the notion of anchoring one’s soul in the realm of ideas, mathematics and dialectics, the only worthwhile nourishment of the mind according to him.
METATAGS :ijamr, ijamrmagazine, vrlmags, Plato,
Kant, Marcel Proust, Nietzsche, Aristotle, dejeuner sur l’herbe, picnic, truth, life
seeks illusions, Phrygian, dorian, activity about
sensitivity, two kinds of music, vocation, letter from the editor, page 3,
Rock, Rock n Roll, Country, Hip Hop, Classical music.