1st Edition

Experiencing of Musical Sound A Prelude to a Phenomenology of Music

By F. J. Smith Copyright 1979

    First Published in 1979. This book represents the work done by its author to begin to lay the ground musically and philosophically for enormous tasks that still remain to be done and may require a team of researchers in various fields relating to experiential phenomena. Coming from a background of musicological studies as well as active musical performance, the author's orientation is different from that of the professional philosopher as such, who is apt to understand sound phenomena in more generalized manner rather than addressing himself to specifics in music and music theory. These essays trace the path taken by the author in the last years and are studies that were a necessary prelude to a systematic work on the philosophy of musical sound, a work that is in preparation. Most important has been the attempt to show the qualitative steps taken from Helmholtz through German and French phenomenology to the beginnings of a dialectic of musical sound.

    Introduction

    1 Prelude to a Phenomenology of Music

    2 A Critique of Visual Metaphor in Philosophy and Music

    3 Working Propositions in Sound: a Baroque Suite

    4 Musical Sound, a Model for Husserlian Time-Consciousness

    5 Cartesian Theory and Musical Science

    6 Musicology in Need of New Horizons

    7 A Phenomenology of Musical Esthetics: The Continuing Redefinition

    8 Esthetic Re-education: the Experiencing of Musical Sound

    9 Implications of Phenomenology for Music Education

    10 Phenomenological Theme with Dialectical Variation

    Postscript: The “End” of Philosophy: the Muser and Music-Maker

    Acknowledgments

    Biography

    J. F. Smith