Workshop in Philosophy of Music

10/07/2024

08/07/2022

Wspaniali autorzy, wspaniali tłumacze i wspaniałe, ciekawe i inspirujace teksty. Edmund Gurney i Vladimir Jankelevitch. Filozofia muzyki w zupełnie różnych odsłonach. Jak słuchamy muzyki, jaką potęgą jest muzyka, której słuchamy! Mamy dziedzieję, że przecieramy szlaki i szykujemy się na duużo więcej.

05/07/2022

20/06/2022

Dobrze się czują w plecaku... ale mieszkają też na sieci! Pod tym adresem https://doi.org/10.21906/9788376432250

22/01/2022

Richard Linklater, Waking life (polskie podpisy)

Mężczyzna próbuje dowiedzieć się, czym są i czemu służą marzenia senne, rozważając różne teorie na ich temat.

01/07/2021

22/01/2021

Theodor Adorno (1903-1969) - a well-known philosopher, sociologist, and music critic. Adorno was among the founders of the Frankfurt School. He was also a composer and a disciple of Alban Berg whom he adored. Born in a musical family with his mother a singer and aunt a pianist, he knew more about music than about anything else. However, it was only later that after hearing the premiere of Alban Berg's Lulu that he decided to be a composer and went to Berg to study with him. In time his writing took over and he abandoned his career in music composition but music was to him both a topic and a language. Adorno was not a music philosopher but an aesthetician. He was interested in aesthetics and in using art and aesthetic concepts to speak philosophically. Music was probably to him the most intimate but not necessarily the most important art.
The Philosophy of New Music.
Adorno wrote the Philosophy of New Music (still today one of the boldest writing on avant-garde music) to explain what was obvious to him but seemed to escape many listeners - the current status of new music. Even though Adorno addresses the two rival music composers: Stravinsky and Schoenberg, his book might be seen as addressing the other topics as well: the difficult status of new music, the logic and the structure of music, the music and humanity and the place of [new] music in modern society.
1. the Philosophy of New Music: The Difficult Status of New Music.
Adorno started with acknowledging that new (avant-garde) music is not easily understood, in fact it can't be grasped by most listeners precisely because it is breaking off with tradition. It distances itself from the traditional tools, musical forms and harmony making itself strange and "difficult". This way the new music speaks by rejecting the very language of music. The difficulty itself and the obscure character of the music makes it more genuine. New music that seeks to be understood is false - claims Adorno. This is why the works of Schoenberg were for Adorno the best example of music that has burned all its bridges and declined association with the tradition seeking its own new path. 2. The Philosophy of New Music: New Music as a Way of Realizing the Truth. Adorno proclaimed that new music - through its difficult moments and unexpected musical traits - has a way of discovering or showing off all the actual - brutal and violent - state of the world. 3. The Dialectics of Enlightenment: The Popular Music and Popular Culture and their Analysys. Adorno presented at least three texts in which he analyzed the current state of Popular Culture (mainly music) and perhaps the largest one is a part of the Dialectics of Enlightenment written with Max Horkheimer. In that paper Adorno presents his understanding and crashing critique of the popular culture as industry and as duming down or controlling the wast majority of people by playing to their weaknesses and want of simple pleasure. His analysis may seem harsh but it is even more true today than it might have been in the time it was written. 4. the Aesthetics Theory: Music and Art in the World of Man. In the Aesthetic Theory Adorno presented his final vision of art and the aesthetic. Proclaiming the ultimate dialectical entanglement of the material with formal, the intentional with spontaneous, the social with the individual and factual with ideal. Adorno's vision of the world was very pessimistic but he also believed in changing the consciousness of man through their artistic or aesthetics engagement. He believed in high art as a tool for inner change. Believed in music having the power to shock and shook the man with its sound, harmonies and rhythmical qualities. One need only to listen.

22/01/2021

Peter Kivy (1934-2017) The Corded Shell and expression.
Peter Kivy is well known as a philosopher of music. He devoted much of his energy and at least 9 out of his many books on aesthetics to music. He wrote on the essence of music, the meaning of music, the expression in music, music emotions, on the sense and importance of music, on music genius and correspondence of arts, on music relation to other arts like literature and dance. One of the most important of his books on music is "The Corded Shell" (1980) as well as the "Music Alone" (1990). They present not only Kivy's understanding of music and his position on emotions in music but well explained account of the discussions in this area.
Peter Kivy's understanding of expression. Kivy believes in expression but not in expressing emotions so that other people will be experiencing emotions that were felt and intentionally merged with the music by the composer. He also maintain a sober and rational take on emotions felt by the listener. He believes that even the most emotional listener may only reasonably expect that the feelings she/he "gets from the music" are there because of the historical, culturally or individually induced custom. Many people expect certain music to "sound" sad or melancholy because in their culture a slow-paced, soft music is more likely to be interpreted as sad then fast and up-beat one. On the other hand, many people will have one or two musical pieces or sounds that they associate with this or that character because of their own memory.
Expressivity. Peter Kivy in "The Corded Shell" introduced the concept of "expressivity" as an alternative for expression to refer to music as being expressive of certain emotions or characters in the same way as the tree or flower may be said to be expressive of certain quality (like sadness or queen-like behaviour) even though they don't expect a three or a flower to have those qualities...

24/04/2019

Zapraszamy serdecznie wszystkich zainteresowanych!

02/12/2018

Niestety warsztaty z filozofii muzyki nie odbędą się w ramach szkoły letniej Instytutu Filozofii w roku 2018/2019. Postaram się jednak wznowić warsztaty w ramach regularnych zajęć w roku 2019/2020 - jeśli mi się to uda. Warsztaty, jak zawsze, będą miały nieco inny przebieg niż typowe zajęcia. Będą się odbywały jako kurs przyspieszony, z zadaniami online oraz spotkaniami w sali. Dokładny plan pracy pojawi się na naszej stronie dopiero pod koniec roku akademickiego...