Stairway to Heaven: Moving Towards a Musical Meaning

Date
1997
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Haverford College. Department of Philosophy
Type
Thesis
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Award
Language
eng
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Haverford users only
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Abstract
The focus of my thesis is the meaning of music, a topic which is best examined in relation to musical form. As the bulk of the paper is devoted to examining various theories of musical meaning and their viability, it is difficult at this time to define "musical meaning" in a way that is not completely ambiguous. Perhaps it is sufficient to say that meaning is how something is construed to be significant. This notion of construal is vital, for it stresses the necessary contextuality of meaning. In construing meaning, there is a necessary element of extension and interaction which occurs: one cannot speak of a hermetic meaning which does not signify something to someone. This notion of meaning implies the existence of a context through which the human world can interact with the entity in question. Consequently, the entity must possess some quality which facilitates participation. This necessary quality is embodied in the idea of form, which provides a tangible structure through which musical meaning can be construed. Musical form provides the means of apprehension and evaluation through which the individual can derive a sense of meaning.
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