Naturalistic Systematic Musicology  and Meyer’s Views on Emotions  and Meaning in Music Cover Image

Naturalistyczna muzykologia systematyczna wobec poglądów Meyera na emocje i znaczenie w muzyce
Naturalistic Systematic Musicology and Meyer’s Views on Emotions and Meaning in Music

Author(s): Piotr Podlipniak
Subject(s): Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Music
Published by: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne
Keywords: schematic expectations; veridical expectations; musical style; paradox of the information theory; Bayesian inference; uncertainty; surprisal; formalism; absolutism; emotivism; referentialism;

Summary/Abstract: Leonard B. Meyer’s book Emotion and Meaning in Music was pub-lished more than half a century ago. It still provides inspiration for musicologists with various specialisms to undertake research aimed at understanding the intriguing link between music and emotions and the relationship between musical structure and meaning. Since the publication of this outstanding volume we have seen extraordinarily dynamic development of the musicological disciplines constituting that part of systematic musicology which is based on the premises of naturalism. The article focuses on those selected research areas of this branch of musicology where the influence of the ideas first presented in the above volume is particularly significant. The most important of Meyer’s postulates in naturalistically oriented systematic musicology that continue to be discussed include: the key role of expectation in shaping our emotional reactions to the musical passages we hear and the inner musical character of the affective meanings created in this way. The main challenges faced by Meyer’s postulates during the re-cent decades are examined, and the solutions to them proposed with-in the framework of naturalistically oriented thinking about musi

  • Issue Year: 2020
  • Issue No: 21 (30)
  • Page Range: 91-107
  • Page Count: 17
  • Language: Polish