I wrote:

>>Is emotion really extra-musical?

To which Denis Fodor replied:

>Boy, isn't it!--at least according to the most modern speculations of
>the most modern of cognition scientists.  ...

You took me too literally.  Emotion isn't "in" music.  It is one of the
effects of music.  Just like you can't see the electricity in lightning,
the light is only an effect of the electricity, not the electricity itself.
But who sees lighting and says "I'm looking at an effect of electricity;
not electricity itself." Likewise who says "I'm feeling an effect of music;
not music itself." No. One would be inclined to say "This music is very
stirring." I feel that it gets the idea across of how I see emotion in
music.

Time for some more research scientists.  I don't know who, but a study was
done by some scientists on how music works on the mind and they found that
it affects the sub-concious centers.  Why am I telling you this? Because it
proves that there is more to music then just a pretty or logical
arrangement of notes.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that
normal languages don't have so profound an effect on the sub-concious as
music.  Thus, why I say the emotion is in music is because music created
well alters the way people think/produces an emotional responce.

I'm trying to be clear here, but I'm not certain if I am.  I guess I'm
almost as adament about this as Bob is about Haydn.

I think that the exodous from emotion in music by the "professionals" is
because they got mad that normal people recognized it was there, too.  But
then again who were/are most of these professionals? Mostly the kind who
say "Music is to be composed in this way only...parallel 5ths and 8ths are
evil...you must have a sonata form first movement in a symphony...it's a
cardinal sin if the whole section isn't using the same bowings and/or
fingerings...play what the arrangement says...etc." As essencial as all
those things seem, most if not all are fallacies, especially the one about
arrangements.  Most arrangements are perfectly horrible.

Joseph Sowa
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