Aristotle, Cicero, LeCoat



Week 1: Aristotle, Cicero, LeCoat

Chapter VI --- for it is a thing very difficult, if not impossible, for a man to be a good judge of what he himself cannot do.

besides, the flute is not a moral instrument, but rather one that will inflame the passions

-so, what defines an instrument? what qualties, properties? is it more than just the tone it produces? yeah, it is cultural, the shape, the idea behind it… ideology… the man with the guitar, the protest singer… Elvis with his guitar, the shape of it… but the shape lends to its tone, which is where it all starts

so we might start distinguishing between elements – rhetorical elements of music. we have instruments (which are granted different powers, different abilities, assumingly because what differentiates its qualities is its tone as well as its potential range… what else differentiates instruments, esp. instruments of the time period?) – and then also scalular theoretical compositional elements, or melody… then we also have the final dimension of rhythm which seems important, too…

t persons consists in its being in a less or greater degree, as pity, fear, and enthusiasm also; which latter is so powerful in some as to overpower the soul: and yet we see those persons, by the application of sacred music to soothe their mind, rendered as sedate and composed as if they had employed the art of the physician: and this must necessarily happen to the compassionate, the fearful, and all those who are subdued by their passions: nay, all persons, as far as they are affected with those passions, admit of the same cure, and are restored to tranquillity with pleasure.

Music and class: Such, therefore, should be the harmony and such the music which those who contend with each other in the theatre should exhibit: but as the audience is composed of two sorts of people, the free and the well-instructed, the rude the mean mechanics, and hired servants, and a long collection of the like, there must be some music and some spectacles to please and soothe them; for as their minds are as it were perverted from their natural habits, so also is there an unnatural harmony, and overcharged music which is accommodated to their taste: but what is according to nature gives pleasure to every one, therefore those who are to contend upon the theatre should be allowed to use this species of music

So an early sort of distinction between lo and high art, popular (enthusiastic) culture…

the relationship between music and education – where does it stand today? The 21st century middle school band…

Invention, improvisation

So the move here would be the relationship between the affective and music, and also to look at the ethos of these modes (phyrgian, dorian) and to actually try to piece out what that means – so for example, what is the actual technical difference between the modes and how did that correspond to an ethos?

But, still, music in education is important… it’s a move toward the social element of music. But we have to move past the idea of music as merely this sort of pathos, emotional, appeal…

Cicero

definition of rhetoric: (L) V. ''But the duty of this faculty appears to be to speak in a manner suitable to persuading men; the end of it is to persuade by language. (''rhetoric)

The role of education again: IV. ''Wherefore, that man appears to me to have acquired an excellent endowment, who is superior to other men in that very thing in which men are superior to beasts. And if this art is acquired not by nature only, not by mere practice, but also by a sort of regular system of education, it appears to me not foreign to our purpose to consider what those men say who have left us some precepts on the subject of the attainment of it.''

really interesting because it supposes that music must be taught, thus it has a language, it has a code, a system that can be transferred, even though its primary function is to stir the affective elements of the ‘soul’

thus if it has a language it can follow in Cicero’s definition of rhetoric as a means of persuasion… but what are the ends of musical persuasion? Again, must they be affective? No, I don’t think…

Where Cicero has relegated eloquence to the political and Aristotle relegates the musical to the affective, we must move beyond this …

V. (Second L)

“But Aristotle, who of all men has supplied the greatest number of aids and ornaments to this art, thought that the duty of the rhetorician was conversant with three kinds of subjects; with the demonstrative, and the deliberative, and the judicial.”

xxx

constructive performance of everyday life

Sausurre’s split – the mark of the arbitrary language – what if the sign and signified were not so disconnected? Perhaps this is the idiosyncracy of other languages, perhaps the language of music, whose sign and signified are closer… (or are they further apart?) – but it’s not relegated to a sub-position of the signalic, but lifted to a meaningful… more meaning meaningful position… linguistic relativity

meaning and…

Epistemic Music of Rhetoric

On eloquence (120): "Thus, for Cicero, as for Isocrates and the sophists, the intruition of eloquence, and response to it, is perhaps ultimately rooted in and the result of the physical (and limited) characteristics of speaker and the listener, in delivery and in hearing. Separating words from thoughts, says Crassus, is like severing body from mind" ... which is playing off the theme of the book which is to redefine the foundation of epistemology as something that incorporates "all the senses" (xi) -- an important shift to include music (and the auditory) as part of this groundwork. This seems like a signficant theoretical first-step. And also a hint at "eloquence" again from Cicero (which you mentioned!).

And then onto this idea of unity... I need to think this through thoroughly before I jump into any connections, but I like this line: "Poetic style is not merely a matter of pleasure, then; it is also a matter of the unity, power, and necessity of style in speech that we find in the sophistic philosophy of language and knowledge" (120)

and "Thus, for Zuckerkandl, the meaning of music, like music itself is temporal and therefore nonreferential. It refers to nothing but itself. The same may apply to the temporal nature of language as well.... Zuckerkandl therefore believes that the misunderstanding of music has been the result of "positivistic thinking" (161) which seems self-evident, this clash between positivism and aestheticism (?) or extended beyond to the very hard divide between the humanities and the sciences...

Thus, the argument is a necessary move to consider music as a contribution to society (which is viewed here to bein an (unfortunately) visual-centric logo-centric state) as well a move to consider the auditory as a significant and equivalent contribution to our rendering of epistomology and ontology.