Professor Chasan writes:

>The point is that of course, music can express all kinds of things, but in
>its own difficult to pin down way.  I find it odd and intriguing that some
>members of this list deny that music can express emotions while others are
>quite sure that it can communicate the most subtle, specific, and complex
>sociological and philosophical ideas.

Music may make my blood race, but cannot 'communicate' anything about the
circulation of the blood.  Ideas, however subtle, specific and complex, are
communicated by words (including, e.g., mathematical formulae) and actions,
and sometimes more subtle ideas can be communicated through verse or drama
than through prose, and sometimes the ideas expressed in prose, verse or
drama can be communicated more vividly or subtly in collaboration with
music.  That does not mean that music is communicating ideas.  True, the
shower scene in 'Psycho' would be much less effective without the music;
but what would that music be just by itself?

'Emotions' - the Professor's use of the plural here is significant -
though they sometimes have immediacy, even urgency, are relatively
superficial.  We laugh, we cry; anger changes into love, love into guilt,
guilt into jealousy, jealousy into remorse; and so on.  Music speaks to
much deeper levels: call it the spirit, or the psyche, or the soul, or
the subconscious if label it you must.  Even where there are words, music
is experienced at an essentially non-verbal level, pre-verbal if you like.
When Edward Elgar wrote on the score of his great oratorio, "This is the
best of me", he meant (I believe) far more than the communication of ideas
however subtle, or the expression of emotions however complex.  The
greatest music springs from the deepest wells, and puts us in touch -
however fleetingly - with the ineffable.

While that's happening it can still be fun to discuss the outer layers of
the music onion - the complex emotions and the subtle philosophical ideas.

Alan Moss
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