Traditionally, the aesthetics of music or musical aesthetics concentrated on the quality and study of the beauty and enjoyment (plaisir and jouissance) of music. Aesthetics is a sub-discipline of philosophy. However, many musicians, music critics, and other non-philosophers have contributed to the aesthetics of music. In recent decades philosophers have tended to emphasize issues besides beauty and enjoyment.
It is often thought that music has th...
more
Traditionally, the aesthetics of music or musical aesthetics concentrated on the quality and study of the beauty and enjoyment (plaisir and jouissance) of music. Aesthetics is a sub-discipline of philosophy. However, many musicians, music critics, and other non-philosophers have contributed to the aesthetics of music. In recent decades philosophers have tended to emphasize issues besides beauty and enjoyment.
It is often thought that music has the ability to affect our emotions, intellect, and our psychology; lyrics can assuage our loneliness or incite our passions. For this reason, the philosopher Plato proposed that music is a dangerous entertainment that should be closely regulated by the state. (Plato, Book VII)
It is commonly believed that human responses to music are culturally influenced. For example, musical passages in Beethoven that sounded highly dissonant to his contemporaries do not sound dissonant to listeners today. As such, music's aesthetic appeal seems highly...
less