Georg Simmel and the Sociology of Music

Author(s): K. Peter Etzkorn

Source: Social Forces, Vol. 43, No. 1 (Oct., 1964), pp. 101-107
Published by: Oxford University Press
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101

GEORG SIMMEL AND MUSIC

traditionally hypothesized adoption of an oppositional political position.
Naturally, but especially in view of the
limited nature of the data presented herein,
the usual caveats concerning further research
apply. It is especially necessary that the whole
concept of ressentimnent be carefully analyzed

and operationalized for further testing and

examination. Additionally, this testing should
make use of samples and population which
allow for some determination of the sources
and generability of the concept insofar as it
may be used to explain and predict the behavior
of other social groups.

GEORGSIMMELAND THE SOCIOLOGYOF MUSIC*

K. PETER

ETZKORN

University of Nevada
ABSTRACT
Simmel's first published study is examined for its current relevance to the sociological
study of music. It is found to be rich in suggestions for research while it does not present a
coherent theoretical scheme or program for the sociology of music. Simmel's empirical examples, however, suggest that key areas for this discipline are (1) the social meanings which
are represented and expressed in music, and (2) the position and function of music in society.
Implications for a theory of taste groups on the basis of. differential socializationi are suggested.
A

rticles in sociological j ournals and interests.2 However, more directly sociological

books contain many references to the

manifold aspects of Georg Simmel's
work. Indeed the recent centenary of his birthi
(1858) occasioned several reappraisals of his
various contributions to sociology in the light
of contemporary scholarship.' One significant
aspect of his work, though, has to our knowledge been neglected. It is of sufficient merit to
be brought to the attention of contemporary
scholars, especially since there seems to be a
growing interest in the sociology of artistic
life. This is Simmel's extensive early work in
what today might be called the sociology of
music or ethnomusicology.
In his later life Simmel's discourse on artistic
and aesthetic subjects tends to pursue more
philosophical interests while it nevertheless still
contains passages that reveal his sociological
* This version of a paper originally prepared for
the 1960 American Sociological Association meetings owes much to the incisive discussion of Seymour Leventman and helpful comments by my
former colleagues Walter F. Buckley and Clovis R.
Shepherd.
For example Kurt H. Wolff, ed., Georg Sim-

inel 1858-1918:A Collectionof Essays, with Translations and a Bibliography (Columbus: The Ohio
State University Press, 1959), xv, 396 pp.

and relevant to the traditional concerns of the

social sciences is his 1882 paper "Psychologische und Ethnologische Studien ihber Musik"
which he published in Lazarus and Steinthal's
Zeitschrift

fuir Vo3kerpsychologie.3

This study

was published three years prior to the well

known Alexander Ellis paper "On the Musical
Scales of Various Nations,"4 which is frequently considered the earliest important landmark in the history of ethnomusicology.5
Ellis' paper is concerned with the analysis of
structural aspects of the tonal materials of
different culture areas and with developing devices for their description and measurement.
In many ways Ellis' approach is analogous to
traditional anthropological concerns with the
study of culture traits.
2

See for example chapters IV and V in Georg

Simmel, Philosophische

Kufltur (Leipzig:

Klink-

hardt, 1911).
3Vol. 13 (1882), pp. 261-305.
4 Alexander J. Ellis, "On the Musical Scales of
Various Nations," Journal of the Society for Arts,

33 (1885).
5 Curt Sachs, Our Mlusical Heritage (New York:
Prentice Hall, 1955), p. 12. Bruno Nettl, Music in
Primnitive Culture (Cambrdige: Harvard University Press, 1956), p. 28.

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102

SOCIAL FORCES

It may be idle to speculate why Simmel's

study apparently did not arouse comparable
attention in his owIn day and why it should have
fallen into such neglect that even his professional colleague and personal acquaintance Max
Weber ignores it in the fragment of his study
of the rational bases of tonal systems.6 Weber's
preoccupation with tonal systems as the building material of music is indicative of the trend
of scholarsshipin this field which followed Ellis'
model. Perlhaps Simmel's reluctant attitude
towards behavioristic psychology averted the
early German ethnomusicologists from taking
serious issue with his work since their professional affiliation and training was largely in
this area.7 Perlhaps these scholars felt more
at ease with Ellis' "Cent System" for the objective measuring of tone intervals than with
Simmel's insistence that there was an important
relationship between ethnic folk music and thepsychology of the social group practicing it.
In this context one mi-aybe reminded that it
also took several generations of sociologists
before the French conception of coi&science
collective entered into the working vocabulary
of. British social-anthropology and American
sociology.8 And yet it is interesting to note
that the only reference to Simmel's study which
we found in English appeared in 1909 in W. I.
Thomas, So-urce Book for- Social Origins.9
In this paper we wish to address ourselves
more specifically to some of our reasons for
resuscitating Simmel's study rather than to
paying general homage to one of the fathers
of the sociological discipline. This decision
does not imply that there would be no legitimate

grounds for, say, searching for a sociological

explanation of the neglect of this aspect of
Sinimel's work by sociologists, especially since
several outstanding scholars later arrived independently at related and even similar positions.
Nor would it be less significant to examine the
variety of methodological implications that are
raised by Simmel's differing epistemological
positions in the treatment of the arts during
the course of his scholarly life. Here, however, we wish to restrict ourselves to an exploration of this early study of Simmel in which
he treats mnusicas an aspect of social relationships by which individuals communicate amonig
one another andclwlhich in turn, maintain, structure and restructure these relations.
In his later analytical distinctions between
the various modes of sociological inquiry and
related Kantian arguments, he relegated music
to the sphere of Itultur2.30 Kutltur was to be
treated aesthetically and philosophically. The
early Simmel in general, therefore, might perhaps be most relevant to modern sociological
appraisals of art and music. In order to make
the content of the Simmel paper more accessible to contemporary readers, we first wish to
provide an extensive summary of Simmel's
study before we relate it to aspects of his later
writings and point to its present relevanlce.
SIMMEL

ON

MUSIC

In Simmel's paper we have an example of

truly 19th century scholarship. Simmel combines classical erudition (and ample quotes in
Latin and Greek) with philosophical focus and
the search for corroborating evidence in collections of ethnographic museums and the journals
6 Max Weber, Die rationalem tnd soziologischen
of world travellers. He opens his paper with
Grundlagen der M11usik (Munich: Drei Masken
a critical analysis of Darwin's theory of the
Verlag, 1921).
of music. According to Darwin the
origin
7 Among the pioneers of this field may be menhuman species developed vocal music before
tioned besides Ellis, a physicist, the psychologists
Herbert Spenvon Hornbostel and Carl Stumpf, and the physician developing rhythm and speech.
"all
that
the leading
a
related
view
cer
had
held
and physicist Helmnholtz.
8 Paul J. Bohannan recently traced the develop- vocal phenomnena . . . have a physiological
ment of this concept to its present relationshipwith basis . . ." and that "the expressiveness of the
10 On this point see several quotations below and
the concept culture. "Conscience Collective and
Culture,"in Kurt H. Wolff, ed., EmnileDurkheiin.. the discussion of Simmel's methodology in Rudolph
1858-1917: A Collection of Essays zuith Transla- H. Weingartner, Experience and Cuiltutre:The
tions and a Bibliography (Columbus: The Ohio Philosophy of Georg Simmel (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1962), p. 102.
State University Press, 1960), p. 77-96.
9 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
11 Charles Darwin, Abstamming des Menscheit,
1909), p. 646.
1875, Vol. II, p. 317.

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GEORG SIMMEL AND MUSIC

103

only to provide special emphiases to existing

linguistic communication patterns rather than
to form the very origin of human communication.
Having establislhed this point, he proceeds
to supply further ethnographic illustrations.
From this evidence he then concludes that
occasions for the employment of musical emphases oln speech communication occur whenever, in the view of the respective social groups,
some of the hunima emotions are not adequately
represented by speech. Anger, happiness, and
joy are such occasions which are characterized
in primitive and civilized discourse by variations in the voice pitch and modulations of the
speech melody. Von Humboldt is quoted- as
having shown that the expression of sexual
desire in the courtilng situation also leads to
pitch variations in speech patterns. Another
example of humanl emotions which find expression in music is the complex of mystic-religious
phenomena.
Simmel's refutation of Darwin's hypothesis
could be treated as an example of an elementary
functional approach to the sociology of music.
His search for the origins of music proceeds
from relatively contemporary social consequences of music to the hypothetical reconstruction of its very origin. This is the identical process by which 19th century ethnography
was shown to illustrate "incipient functionalism" by Evans-Pritchard.l6 For Simmel, the
definition of vocal music is "speech which is
exaggerated by rhythm and modulation."'7
Thus, rhythmic patterns have to be superimposed on the variation of pitch, which is the
outgrowth of emotional vocal expression, before modulated speech becomes vocal music.
*The structure of Simmel's argument for
the origin of instrumental music is
explaining
12 Herbert Spencer, Essays ont Edutcation (New
his subsequent analysis of addiFrom
similar.
York: Dutton), p. 317.
reports he infers that inethnological
tional
Gedanken,
13 "Wie die Sprache zum concreten
strumental music is generally a further elabverhalt sich die Musik zu der mehr verschwinimenden Stimmnung: das erste ruft das zweite hervor,
oration of the already practiced performance
weil das zweite das erste hervorrief."
of vocal music.'s The use of ideophones seems
14 He refers to the writings of Amniian, John
to be predoominantly associated with dance

various modifications of voice is . . . therefore

innate."12
While Simmel does not deny that vocal
phenomena have physiological bases-wlhich
would be untenable from any scientific point
of viewv-he proceeds to refute the claim of the
genetic priority of musical vocal belhavior over
language behavior. In the course of this stimulating argument, Simmel develops his conception of music which is of interest here. He
views music as an acoustic mediumnof communication which conveys feelings of the performer. "Just as language is related to concrete thought so is music related to feelings
which are somewhat less precise. The first
[language] creates the second [thought], since
the second created the first."13 Accepting the
to
psychologist Steinthal's thesis-according
which the first manifestation of Man is connected with processes of thought and "human
thought is derived from speech"-Simmel reasons that language could not have developed
out of vocal music.
For empirical support of this argument Simmel turns to evidence contained in a number
of ethnographic sources.14 In this fashion he
presents data from a sample of societies which
includes people of Rio de Janeiro, the Caribbean, the Maori, Brasilians, Australians, Caucasian soldiers, "the Tehueltschen," and classical antiquity.15 In addition to these data
gleaned from published sources, he also reports
his own experiences with a family in Berlin
whose children could not sing the melodies of
folksongs without also singing their words.
Simmel seems to be convinced by this combined
evidence that vocal music camnechronologically
after the development of speech in the history
of communication. Thus the role of music is

Horne, Freycinet, Hochstetter, Martius, Grey,

Poppig, Bodenstedt, and Cicero without, however,
giving full citations of his sources.
15 One should probably not be too critical as to
whether he is indeed dealing with "societies" since
this criterion would not be satisfied by the scanty
evidence which he provides.

16 See especially chapters II and III of E. E.

Evans-Pritchard, Social Anthropology (Glencoe,
Illinois: the Free Press, 1952).
17 Simmel, op. cit., p. 264.
Is He refers especially to the reports of GerlandWaitz, Briigsch, Le Gobien, and Salvado.

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104

SOCIAL FORCES

activities or other functions which are rlhythmically patterned, such as tribal preparationls for
warfare. His designation of European military music as Ldrm und BlasmusikI9 may suggest that he conceives of military activities as
primitive, especially since he stresses that wind
instruments are more characteristic of primitive society than string instruments. Instrumental music thus represents to Simmel a more
elaborated mode of expressing human emotions
than can be gained through vocal music alone.
Onice instrumental music has been developed
in the history of mankind, it can be divorced
from its accompanying function for vocal music
and come to stand by itself. To Simmel, vocal
music expresses referential emotions in their
natural state, while instrumental music can
more easily approach objectivity-which is for
Simmel "the ideal of art." In instrumental
music "feelings

do not disappear,

. . . they still

stimulate the production of music and are still

stimulated by it." However, instrumental music
and its performance are not the immediate expression of these emotions. Rather instrumental music turns out to be "an image of them
which is reflected through the mirror of
beauty."20

Instrumental music, thus, is also shown to be

related to the basic communicative function of
vocal music. But it is much less direct in expressing human emotions. It is more of an
imitation of the original emotions and is, therefore, not as constrained in the use of musical
idioms and expressive musical symbolism as is
vocal music. By being less precise in expression, instrumental music is more inclusive than
vocal music. Music as an art form, according
to Simmel's views in his early period, comnlunicates feelings less precisely than vocal folkmusic. Nevertheless it creates "typical reactions which include fully the more individually
specific responses which are produced by verbal
communication."21
MUSIC

IN

SIMMEL

S SOCIOLOGY

From this summary of the "forgotten"

Simmel paper it may already become clear why
it might be of relevance to the contemporary
student of the relations between art and social
19

20
21

Simmel, op. cit., p. 278.

Ibid., p. 282.
Ibid.

structure. Simmel not only provides us with a

suggestive explanation of the role of music in
social life and an elementary (though theoretically based) taxonomy of types of music, but
he also demonstrates that a proper sociological
assessment of the social context of art requires
both an understanding of the technical aspects
of the musical art medium and an awareness of
the social processes which surround it. His
example suggests that it is important to study
how the musical properties are acquired by
social actors, how they become socially defined
as something special and how this special status
is related to the variety of special social adjustments which influence the social system and
may in turn have repercussions on the musical
mode of expressions. These are some of the
concerns which are implied in the early Simmel,
but are not as explicitly explored in his later
sociological writing where he seems to be more
colncerned with the impact of already given art
forms on selected forms of social interaction.
In his Grundfragen deroSoziologie (1917), for
example, he treats art as having laws all of its
own.22 "Fully established, art is wholly separated from life. It takes from it only what it
can use, thus creating, as it were, a second
time.3 . . . From the realities of life they [art
and play] take only wlhat they can adapt to
their own nature, what they can absorb in their
autonomous existence."24
Even though he
speaks here metaphorically, as if art by acting
anthropomorphically could produce social consequences independently of human actors, he
seems to employ this ambiguity in order to introduce philosophical and aesthetic ideals concerning wllat the ideal role of art should be.
While I do not mean to suggest that one could
not study sociologically the relations between
some relatively autonomous properties in social
life and those social action patterns which are
typically influenced by them, the limitation to
this approaclh on aesthetic (or philosophical)
grounds would seem to be an unjustified truncation of other promising modes of scientific
inquiry. By itself, such an approach would also
212 Georg Simmel, Grundfragen der So2iologie
(Berlin: de Gruyten, 1917) as cited from the
translation in Kurt H. Wolff, The Sociology of
George Simiiiel (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press,
1950).
23Ibid., p. 42.

24Ibid., p. 43.

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GEORG SIMMEL AND MUSIC

tend to overlook the dynamic qualities of social
life which demand that every aspect has to be
given social significance anew-even though, of
course, this process of continuous validation is
seemingly automatic and ordinarily escapes
our everyday attention. Nevertheless, J. S.
Bach's music had to be composed first in its
peculiar style and then had to acquire social
significanice in each. succeeding generation of
admirers of Bach. This is so even though his
music represents the aesthetic perfection of the
art of a period and serves as a model for the
evaluation of other composers of the same
period. While it is a legitimate sociological
question to ask how Bach's music affects social
groupings under varying circumstances, it is
also a legitimate and fruitful approach to ask
how certain social groupings today happen to
appreciate Bach (and not Teleman) and what
musically speaking, they come to appreciate in
Bach and how these acquired musical insights
affect other significant aspects, say, in the lives
of Bach disciples. It is these latter types of
questions which the early Simmel raises and
which the later Simmel does not seem to entertain.25

In the early Simmeel analysis of music, all

types of musical expressions are, as we have
seen, examined in terms of their communication
function in social life. A given piece of music
may communicate both absolutistic and referentialistic meanings.26 While niot ruling out the
former, it is the latter meanings with which
the early Simmel is principally concerned.
These refer in some way to concepts, actions,
and emotions of the extramnusical world in
which the composer and musicians (and their
audiences) live. They would seem to be related to the socially mediated choice of the particular musical activity and its content. The
later Simmel is more concerned with absolutistic meanings which are provided by the context of the musical composition itself. Frequently (if not exclusively) they concern formal relationships between musical elements
which make up the structure of the compositions.27 Since music in general is defined as a

105

vehicle for the communication of emotions and

instrumental music as the vehicle for the communication of diffuse emotions, Simmel raises
theoretical questions as to the basic structure of
social communication.
Part of his argument is, we recall, that in
instrumental music the commmunicativecontent
is not as precise as in vocal music. Yet we
know that the degree of communicative precision depends on a variety of social responses
to the vehicle of communication. These responses, of course, are learned responses and
subject to variations by changes in the learning
situation. Musical themes, thus, may call fortlh
specific emotional (or other) responses among
properly prepared listeners.
For example,
comnposersof film music frequently capitalize on
this phenomenon when they accompany love
scenes with the sounds of soft violins. By employing systematically selected musical cliches,
composers of film music have succeeded in preparing the audiences of mioving pictures to
expect certain happenings on the screen or to
have an appropriate emotional set for the
happenings. As long as the listener has learnedi
how to convert the abstract musical tone sequences into anticipations of socially significant
consequences, it is not necessary to employ
Simmel's referentially more precise vocal
music. Instrumental music will do tlle same if
a sufficiently consensual group has learned to
associate similar responses with appropriate
musical stimuli.
Even though it might be desirable to discuss
undeveloped and weak points in the Simmel
paper and to comment at lenigth on Simmel's
questionable ethnographic evidence, this would
not substantially contribute to what would seem
to me to be the more essential contribution of
the study to contemporary scholarship. That
is, for him sound patterns per se are devoid of
meaning unless they are perceived as conveying
learned emotive content. While Simmel demotistrates that the learned emotive content and
the form of expression may vary, he concludes
from this examination of the descriptive materials that "apparently [the style of] music is

25 See for example Simmel's books on Goethe trinsic" and "extrinsic" modes of analysis raises
analogous methodological problemnsin the sociol(1913) and Rembrandt (1916).
26 For this distinction see chapter I of Leonard ogy of knowledge. "Ideologischeund soziologische
Interpretation der geistigen Gebilde," in Salomon,
B. Meyer, Emotion and Meaning of Music (Chied., Jahrbuch fur Soziologie (Karlsruhe: Braun,
cago: University of Chicago Press, 1956).
27 Karl Mannheim's distinction between "in- 1926), Vol. II, pp. 424-440.

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106

SOCIAL FORCES

characteristic for the character of a people."28

Variations in the appreciation of different
musical styles might therefore be associated
with social group differences. More specifically, Simmel stipulates that in order to become
great art, music must embody national or social
group characteristics.
Only thereby will it
have meaning for the members of the nation.
He cautions, though, that this observation. "is
not to be construed to mean that they [the arts]
have to be patriotic [in subject matter]. On
the contrary, history shows that art could produce the most beautiful blossoms in politically
most disorganized states-iin analogy to flowers
which grow on heaps of rubbish. What I mean
is simply this, whatever great and well-formed
talents an individual may bring into his life,
living within his society will only transform
him into what he is. It will impress his character on him. From it he will receive his goals
and means. Precisely, the greater are his
talents, the more will he accept from his national heritage."29 In order to achieve greatness, the artist has to work within an artistic
tradition, parts of which he must accept anid
refine.
This train of reasoning will hardly sound
revolutionary to the contemporary social scientist, even though it might have had such a
flavor in the outgoilng 19th century romantic
era. Simmel's early conception of artistic greatness is thus based to a large extent on techniical artistic dimensions, such as how an individual makes use of the artistic tools which are
provided for him by his tradition. Moreover,
it would seem to me that it may contain the
beginnings of a theory of taste groups. In stuggesting that the artist is great who refines the
artistic style of his national heritage, Simmel
opens the question as to (a) the social processes
which differentiate between the access that individuals have to the sources of artistic tradiBach spent most of his life in
tions-e.g.,
Northern Germany while Handel (another
North German) lived and worked in the major
musical centers of the 18th century; (b) there
are obvious differences in the processes of acquisition of the technical skills needed for the
refining of musical traditions-e.g.,
Mozart's
extensive and protected early studies vs. Bee28 Simmel, op. cit., p. 302.
29 Ibid., p. 297.

thoven's lhardships in Bonn; and (c) there

are differences in the conditions for the demonstration of acquired skills in various social
circumstances -e.g., the captive audience of
official court composers and the available facilities for musical performance vs. the contemporary free-lance composer. What, in other'
words, are the social conditions that favor or
tend to retard artistic greatness and the formation of taste?
The current practice of defining taste groups
as acceptance groups has thus been anticipated
by Simmel in his view that the artist works
within the taste patterns of his artistic heritage.
But Simmel did not confuse the issue of popularity with that of greatness of art (as is sometimes done today) since for him greatness in
art is a matter which can be established andl
validated only through technical intra-artistic
analysis. Success of an artist, on the other
hand, may be the consequence of the size of his
group or following. Russel Lynes "highbrows"
would not necessarily be cultivating any greater
art for Simmel than the "lowbrows." These
groups would be examples of different consensual groups in which, perhaps, different
meanings would be accorded to obj ectively
identical artistic stimuli. Thus the Van Cliburn recording of the Tschaikowsky pianio concerto might be played for different reasons by
high and low-brows and correspondingly communicate different emotional meanings to these
listeners. Nor would Simmel likely conclude
from the contemporary increase in statistics of
classical LP record sales that good music is becoming more widely appreciated and that the
cultural level of the society is rising. Ratlher,
in keeping with his argument, he would probably demand additional data on the social
circumstances of the utilization of the records,
the types of listening situations, the musical
educational preparation of the listeners, the
emotional impact of the music oir, in short, the
communicated musical meaning, before he
would conclude that an increase in consumption
corresponds with an increase in appreciation
of classical music.
CONCLUSION

Simmel's foremost contribution to the sociology of music as contained, in his early study
consists, we would think, inl having shown that

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GEORG SIMMEL AND MUSIC

emnpiricalwork in this area is possible and can
lhave fruitful theoretical implications. IHe does
not provide us with a systematic program of
what the sociology of music ought to be concerned with. Thus he differs from contributors
who make up the major proportion of the literature in this field which is noted for its scarcity
of empirical woirk.30 Rather his focus on empirical problemls and his search for empirical
answers would seem to us to be an example
worth emulating in the building of this branch
of social science. Perhaps he might be criticized for not going far enough in his search
for answers, since not having an explicit system (or explicit frame of referenice) may have
prevented 11im from asking systematic questions. To this it might be replied that there is
no agreemenlt likely to come about as to what
would constitute the final boundary of asking
questions or systematizing answers in science.
It would seem to us to be eminently more in the
30 While there is a small number of empirical
studies by Mueller, Leventman, Nash, Kaplan, and
several other contemporaryscholars, this does not
detract from the fact that most of the published
articles that incorporate "sociology of mnusic"in
their titles are of the mentioned programmatic
variety. For relevant citations see K. P. Etzkorn,
Musical and Social Patterns of Songzwriters: An
Exploratory Sociological Study, Ph.D. dissertatioin,Princeton University, 1959, especially Chapter
IV.

107

interest of science to ask the kind of questions

that can be answered in the light of the data and
can produce new insights than to be overly
concerned with the neatness of systems of
analysis. While Simmel did not construct a
systematic program for the sociology of music,
his study makes it clear that he did not conceive of it as Bindestrich Sociology (special
subfield) but saw it within the major sociological context of human communications and social relations.
In summing up, Simmel's early study on the
ethnological and psychological foundations of
musicj in addition to providing stimulatinig suggestions for further research, touches on at
least two major concerns of the contemporary
sociologist dealing with artists and art. (1)
His elementary taxonomy of types of mllusic
relates to the complex of questions concerning
the social meaning which is represented in
music. (2) His discussion of what I have here
called "taste groups" relates to tlhe general
area of questions concerning the position and
function of music in society. It. contributes a
clearer diagnosis of the relationships between
different groups within the social structure and
representative items of artistic production by
suggesting the importance of studying the social
relationship structures which are typically associated with the socializationi of artists and audiences.

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