Written by Catherine Quigley
According to Bowman (1998), Susanne Langer (1895-1985) discussed music as an expression and avenue of perceiving and understanding feelings. In many ways, Langer expresses that music provides a unique avenue of insight within the person. Rather than the use of music strategically to teach certain points about emotional experience, music naturally reveals universal truths and insights. It’s the classic understanding of art as a way of “showing,” not “telling” a specific message. It’s not that music causes certain moods or feelings directly Rather, music allows the listener or musician to (a) better understand something within themselves or (b) experience something on another plane of understanding. Langer seems to emphasize that music should come from, be authentic and faithful to, and reveal what’s within humanity. If music is emotionless and mechanical, what’s the point? So, music as an interpretation and emotional experience shouldn’t be oversimplified by suggesting that a piece of music must lead to an emotional experience. Instead, the experience of listening to and participating in music is subjective, and is based on the individual and what is within them.
I found an interesting distinction of Langer’s to be the difference between emotion and feelings. In Langer’s early work, she uses these terms more synonymously. She then emphasized that they mean different things. Later in her career, Langer emphasized that rather than being exclusive to moods or emotions, feelings encompass all things felt and understood in the human experience. Anything noticed by the observer, or any tension, stimulus, contribute to the music’s participation with feelings. Music can be understood as representing “what life feels like” (p. 215) as Langer says, rather than a direct music-to-feelings pipeline.
Overall, Langer views music as a way to challenge the observer to experience something they never have before, whether that’s (a) feeling a new or different emotion, (b) observing something they’ve never seen or experienced in artistic expression previously, or (c) remembering an emotion or experience from long ago. Music provides the observer with a new lens to experience these processes. In this way, music serves as a form of education for developing the observer’s artistic perception, whether that means their emotional understanding, artistic sensibilities, or internal reflection. Music can help people see and understand insights they never would have gained access to otherwise, which is an enormous benefit to us as humans in the journey of better understanding, accessing, and expressing our complex inner lives.
Reference
Bowman, W. D. (1998). Philosophical perspectives of music. Oxford University Press.
Philosophy of Music 