How can music be sad?

The GREAT thing about music is it can be a best friend to anyone in any stage of your life.

To snilf:

It's a good question to ponder, the universal nature of music, or its cultural specificity. The Bach phenomena in Japan is interesting in this regard. A 17th-century German Lutheran composer whose very cultural-specific music somehow becomes all the rage among late 20th/early 21st-century Japanese. How is that possible? The perceptions of beauty would seem to differ, yet the popularity of Bach's choral music in contemporary Japan begs some questions. The high suicide rates and despair evident in Japanese society, according to some interpreters, suggests a fertile ground for the sense of hope that animates Bach's music. Not just the lyrics of his orotorios, passions, or cantatas, either, but the music itself. It doesn't seem to matter that Bach's music is rooted in Early Modern western patterns, and that these are foreign to Japanese modes of thought. The response to the efforts of Masaaki Suzuki and his Bach Collegium Japan suggests that the bridges assumed by advocates of the music of the spheres are more than imaginary constructs rooted merely in ancient mathematical ideas. 

The conceptual origins of the music of the spheres provide a foundation that developed in different directions, mathematical, metaphysical, and musicological. Some current theories, even if speculative, remind us that the different languages of music transcend the local, and that our emotional response to sound waves requires a whole lot of wonder and curiosity. Count me in. 

Anton99,

Interesting point(s). I don't want to suggest that there aren't "universal" dimensions to music--or, for that matter, to sound more generally (thus, to include other animals, and perhaps also plants, as responsive to some of the same auditory stimuli we respond to). Moreover, I'm no Japan scholar. So take what I'm about to say with a grain of salt.

From what I've read, Japanese culture marked a radical transition after WWII and the atomic bombings. Prior to that, Japan was culturally isolationist. After that, Japan, especially the young, passionately embraced the western cultures that had defeated them in the war, especially America. Hence, the obvious and genuine interest in western music among late 20th century Japanese. Some of the greatest "western" musicians of that recent period were Japanese; the Suzuki Method of music pedagogy was developed there; Japanese students are way over-represented in good music academies; etc. etc.

Which is to say that the (recent) Japanese love affair with western music is not necessarily indicative of the "universality of musical aesthetics." Rather, it's historically determined--and historically limited.

To return to the question of this thread, then: if music can be widely perceived as sounding "sad" or "happy" or "profound," then one supposes there must be some objective feature to account for such agreement. I'd argue, however, that such features must be recognized to be culturally specific--that, without "training the ear" (and by that I DO NOT mean going to music school, but rather, just living in an environment permeated by music, and unconsciously, or at least not deliberately, assimilating certain patterns and relationships between tones), the perception of musical "meaning" (sad, happy, whatever) isn't possible. The hypothetical human being "raised by wolves" will not perceive music in the same way you or I do.

And so, if it's true that "music soothes the savage beast," it's not because that beast perceives it as "soothing," but for some other reason (like the "soothing" sound of a gentle rain, or whatever). 

Just some random thoughts. 

sfar,

Regarding tone of voice--are you really sure you can read tone of voice accurately? Probably you can with people you know well, even on the phone. But with people you don't know, or especially with people whose native language is different from yours, I suspect things are quite otherwise.

I'll give you a few examples to explain what I mean. The first time I heard my own voice on a recording, I was shocked. It did NOT sound at all like it sounds to me, and therefore, it did (does!) not express the emotion I mean it to express when I speak. I've tried to learn to do this more effectively--I suppose actors must be good at it, but I'm a professor and need to communicate effectively every day, so I should be, too. Still, it's very disconcerting to hear my voice as I suppose others must hear it. As several philosophers have pointed out, we get our "selves" from others.

Here's another example. My wife is from Croatia, and we've spent a lot of time there. To my ear, Croatians always sound angry--and this carries over to a native Croatian speaker who speaks in a different language. I met my wife at a language school in Germany; even Germans, who speak a notoriously commanding language, tended to recoil from her when she was trying to sound friendly.

Conversely, I've spent time in Italy, although I don't speak Italian. Listening to Italians argue sounds to me like they're flirting--just as Croatians flirting sound to me like they're arguing.

Cultural conditioning again. There just aren't many "natural" cognitive judgments in anything, in my opinion--not in aesthetics, or politics, or even ethics (despite what we'd like to believe). What we see, hear and think is filtered through a complex system of neurons that are patterned in part by environments. What seems "natural" to us is highly structured, conditioned, mediated.

snilf—

I think opposing cultural influence and objectivity is unnecessary. My example, and your response, suggests that such an either/or is too simple. I wasn't talking about Japanese composers, musicians, and students as much as listeners. How do we account for so much interest among the laity? Among those not trained in academies or educated in the west? The fact remains that in a society that has experienced high levels of culture-specific despair, something is breaking through from the outside.

I see little reason to relativize this experience. Yes, everything you say about cultural conditioning makes great sense. It's necessary to point this out, but hardly sufficient. Otherwise any real contact with others becomes impossible. Those articulating the constellation of ideas associated with the music of the spheres were cognizant of the local, but they weren't limited by it. It's a modern notion that we have somehow overcome the parochialism of the past, that we recognize for the first time that context is not only important, but the only thing. 

Subjectivity and objectivity are not opposed, but complementary. Again, if this wasn't true, there's no way that any form of communication—musical included—could happen except in the most surface of ways. My Japanese example was meant to illustrate that music reaches through and beyond the limitations of local culture. To me, and to many others, past and present, that suggests that there is something in music that speaks a "universal" language. One we all hear, and filter in different ways. But it's not simply local.

Which means that there can be a sadness etc. that can be heard in music. One we may need to learn to hear, of course. But the fact that we can learn it is important. And just because we learn something doesn't make it relative to environment.

If I stole your record collection and your audio equipment, your immediate response would tell me more about what you believe than any talk about cognitive patterns. Again, you're opposing things that need not be opposed. "That's wrong!", which you would yell as I carried off my haul, is hardly only a culture-specific response. Mediation never implies or demands relativity as you suggest. Otherwise mathematics, not to mention our topic of music, is nonsense.