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Keane Southard
MUSC 5842
Professor Caballero
December 14, 2010
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In the evaluation of works of art, and consequently our ability to enjoy them, there has generally
been too much focus on the short term and on limiting the amount of information to consider when
evaluating them. Yet, in order for a fair and appropriate judgment of a work of art to be formed, there
needs to be a shift in focus from our current obsession with short-term consequences to a healthy
fascination with the long-term journey and an inclusive view of related information. This entails
opening ourselves up to a wider frame of reference in terms of both time and knowledge, and revising
artistic evaluations every time more information concerning an artwork is discovered. This kind of
evaluation will create more reasoned judgments about artworks, can greatly contribute to our
enjoyment of great works of art, and could potentially have profound societal effects beyond the artistic
realm.
It seems that this focus on the short term and neglect of the long term is a product of a general
trend in Western societies throughout the past century. As we have gained new technologies and more
options in everything we can choose, we have become a culture obsessed with immediate gratification.
We have discovered how to create more options and choices than ever before: more flavors of ice
cream to choose from, more kinds of music to listen to, easier global communication and travel, which
means that we can meet more people to choose friends and spouses from, more medicines to take
(along with more diseases), etc. The only thing we haven't been able to make more of is time. It is true
that these advances in medicine have resulted in our living longer (a trend that is now beginning to
reverse); so we have added more time at the end of our lives, but we still have only twenty-four hours
in a day. Most of the decisions we have to make occur within the same time frame as before, except
that we now have many more choices to evaluate before we make one. Even more importantly, we
have so many more choices in nearly every aspect of our lives. This affords us less time for each
decision we make even when we have more and more choices. Consequently, in order to make these
decisions more quickly, we must ignore some of the pertinent information available to us. We simply
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don't have the time evaluate many of our decisions as carefully as we should.1
Considering the United States, many of the problems we are facing today are a result of this
focus on the short term while ignoring the long-term ramifications. The financial crisis of the past few
years was fueled partly by consumers relying so much on credit and not being able to pay off their
debts. Our healthcare system is so broken because of our focus on treating symptoms of disease
instead of making lifestyle changes to prevent long-term illness. Our debates on the morality of
abortions could be largely avoided if a critical long-term consequence of sexual intercourse, which is
the possibility that pregnancy and the beginning of creating another human being may result, were not
blinded by an overwhelming short-term consequence, which is physical pleasure. The climate crisis, as
well as most of our other environmental problems, could have been largely avoided if we had paid
attention to the long-term effects of using finite and highly pollutant energy sources, stopped our
mindless economic consuming and disposing of products and resources, and switched to clean energy
sources despite the short-term inconveniences of higher energy prices and initial investments. These all
could have been avoided if our collective focus had been on the long term instead of the short term.
This short-term focus has also invaded the arts and the way people evaluate works of art. With
so many more choices to make in so many different areas of their lives, most people have less time to
devote to art, if they even devote any time to it at all. At the same time, there are more artists today
creating more art than ever before in the history of the world, and never before has all this art (in
varying degrees of quality) been so easy to find and enjoy. The advent of the iPod and portable mp3
players has enabled people to be able to carry around days' worth of music in their pocket. This, along
with our daily bombardment by music through advertisements and various media, has shortened our
collective musical attention span. Our lack of time due to our multitude of choices has diminished the
1. Much of the information in this section comes from the following source:
Barry Schwartz, “Barry Schwartz on the Paradox of Choice,” TED Conferences, LLC,
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html posted September 2006.
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amount of time we can and usually do spent listening to a piece of music. If, after a few seconds of
listening, someone doesn't like the song that is playing on their iPod, he or she can easily skip to the
next one and continue to search for something immediately appealing. In addition, oftentimes people
do not explore new art out of their own volition, but will only perceive a new work based on the
positive recommendation of a friend or critic. Even then, a work of art, especially within the
performing arts, is usually only perceived once. Then right after a performance, we immediately ask
others “Did you like the piece?” Yet, in the case of music, and if the work is of significant length, the
ability to fully grasp and understand the work on a single hearing is extremely difficult if not
impossible. Jerrold Levinson argues, “Music of any extent consists of a series of successive events,
which cannot be apprehended simultaneously in a single perceptual act. The parts of an architectural
facade can be taken in more or less in one sweep; the parts of a symphony cannot.”2 Even by going to
an art museum it is easy to see how often people stop for a couple of seconds at a painting or simply
give it a glance as they walk by. Most people don't have, or want to devote, the necessary time to reap
These quick aesthetic evaluations are not unique to listeners of music but also by professional
artists as well. Some musical ensembles and conductors put out a “call for scores” and often get
overwhelming numbers of musical scores sent to them. These usually are in such a quantity that they
are unable to spend enough time listening and looking at each work in order to decide what are the best
works of art to program. A temporal art form, such as music, can only be fully experienced and
appreciated in its own time frame. It cannot be compressed, stretched, or cropped (aside from
reasonable tempo fluctuations) without losing a significant portion of its intended experience. The
sheer volume of art that exists today is so huge that if one sat down to listen to all of the different
musical works that had ever been written and recorded in a genre, such as works for pipe organ, and
2. Jerrold Levinson, Music in the Moment (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997), 2.
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did not rise until finished, he or she would probably be stuck in that chair for several years.
This is the quandary we find ourselves in: we have been forced to make quicker decisions and
aesthetic evaluations because of the overload of choices in our world, yet the greatest artworks demand
that we take our time and gather information about the work as well as repeatedly perceive them. As
we perceive a work multiple times, study it, learn more about its construction, its historical
background, the environment it was created in, look at it from different angles (literally and
metaphorically), etc., we end up with more knowledge about, and are in a better position to judge, the
artwork, which in turn reaps better aesthetic returns for the perceiver.
If we want to know what the universal masterworks of art are, the best way is to simply wait a
long time. The test of time does a wonderful job of accurately sorting the flops from the fads from the
masterpieces; determining whether artworks sink like a rock, sink slowly like a ship with a leak, or
float like a well built freighter. A flop is evaluated as poor and is forgotten very quickly. Both a fad
and a masterpiece usually enjoy immediate success and are generally judged as aesthetically wonderful
right from their inception. The difference is that while a fad appeals to its first perceivers, either
through an attractive artistic surface or by playing to the particular tastes of a specific generation or
cultural segment of a society, it fails to provide the same meaning and aesthetic attention to future
generations and changing cultures. Masterpieces, on the other hand, tap into universal aspects that are
understandable by and aesthetically relevant to all subsequent generations despite changing cultures
and societies. These works are rediscovered by new generations who find these works to have
significance in their own lives even though they may have been created in a world and culture much
Masterpieces don't even need to have short-term praise and acceptance to qualify as a
masterpiece. Only long-term acceptance by many subsequent generations is necessary. Just look at the
late works of Beethoven, the symphonies of Mahler, or the music of Charles Ives, all which were not
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recognized as great works of art by the wide majority of people while their music was newly
Part of this lack of immediate critical acceptance can be explained by these works using
unfamiliar musical materials and styles. Leonard B. Meyer states that, “because expectation is largely
a product of stylistic experience, music in a style with which we are totally unfamiliar is meaningless.”3
In order to glean meaning from a piece of music, we need to draw off of “past experience” and
previous knowledge, which applies both to information obtained from within the work and outside of
The phrase 'past experience'...must be understood in a broad sense. It includes the immediate
past of the particular stimulus or gesture; that which has already taken place in this particular
work to condition the listener's opinion of the stimulus and hence his expectations of as to the
impending, consequent event...The phrase 'past experience' also refers to the more remote, but
ever present, past experience of similar musical stimuli and similar musical situations in other
works. That is it refers to those past experiences which constitute our sense and knowledge of
style. The phrase also comprehends the dispositions and beliefs which the listener brings to the
musical experience as well as the laws of mental behavior which govern his organization of
stimuli into patterns and the expectations aroused on the basis of those patterns.4
Susanne K. Langer is in agreement that these unfamiliar aspects of a work of art must be gradually
assimilated into a person's and culture's experience before their meaning and an informed aesthetic
judgment can be made. She says, “A form, a harmony, even a timbre, that is entirely unfamiliar is
'meaningless,' naturally enough; for we must grasp a Gestalt quite definitely before we can perceive an
implicit meaning, or even the promise of such a meaning, in it; and such definite grasp requires a
certain familiarity. Therefore the most original contemporary music in any period always troubles
3. Leonard B. Meyer, Emotion and Meaning in Music (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956), 35.
4. Ibid., 36.
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people's ears.”5 If this process had not happened, perhaps today we would not have the pleasure of
understanding and enjoying the great works of Beethoven, Ives, and Mahler.
All of the above aesthetic conclusions brought about by the test of time are shared evaluations
held by society as a whole, but this doesn't work same way for individuals. Suppose someone created a
painting just for you, but you didn't like it and then threw it in a chest. Yet forty years later, you finally
opened that chest back up to see it again and this time you think it a masterpiece. In this case, your
judgment can still be quite flawed. Perhaps, in your older age, your positive viewing of the painting is
only the product of your current state and forty years of new experiences, yet forty years later on you
could hate it again. This could make the work now a fad of this current time.
The point I am trying to make is that time itself does not automatically refine judgments, but it
is the collective work of a large number of people over time. This is what either elevates it to the status
of a masterpiece or drops it into the footnotes of history (if it is lucky). This process comes from many
people repeatedly perceiving it, some studying it in depth, some attempting to perceive it through
differing angles and approaches in order to reach the work's depths (or lack thereof), and by some
This is how a consensus on a work is reached through sufficient time, but this process can also
happen individually, although in these cases what results is an opinion that needs to be defended, and
that opinion may or may not turn out to be the overall consensus years down the line. In addition,
whereas the consensus on a work can be reached without certain individuals actively perceiving and
studying an artwork, because that process is taken up by other people, individuals only come to their
refined and improved judgment of a work through their own repeated perceptions and further study.
You can't be looking at a painting and learning more about it if it is sitting in a chest for forty years.
This brings me to another issue concerning the acquisition of more knowledge about a work of
5. Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1942, 1951, 1957 [third edition]), 263-64.
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art. Even if the actual artwork is sitting in your chest, you undoubtedly could be learning more about it
without needing to look at it. You could be reading articles written about it (if these exist) or asking the
painter him or herself questions about the creation of it, what kinds of materials were used, his or her
ideas, etc. However, all this other information is only useful if the person gathering the information
can, at the same time or later, perceive the artwork with this new information in mind. Alan Goldman
explains that, “knowledge that can inform one's experience of a work includes that of the artist's
intentions, techniques, attitudes, problems overcome, and so on. Such knowledge is aesthetically
relevant only when it does inform one's experience of the work.”6 New information is useful in helping
us to perceive the artwork in a different way, perhaps gleaning significance and substance that we did
not comprehend before, or helping us to see through what we first found to be compelling. These new
insights are what enable us to make a better and more refined judgment of a work of art, but we must
Immanuel Kant in his book The Critique of Judgment, in contrast to the approach I am
promoting, argues that in order to properly judge a work of art one must perceive the work
disinterestedly.7 That is, you must perceive the work without any attention to information or ideas that
are not in the work itself. As Peter Kivy explains, Kant believes that we should view works of art with
“a pure judgment of taste” where all “prior beliefs, concepts, and other conceptual predispositions”
must be put aside so that the only thing left of the artwork to evaluate it upon is its form.8 In this way,
subjective aspects of the perceiver are ignored, and anyone able to perceive an artwork disinterestedly
should come to the same aesthetic evaluation. This is Kant's way of objectively evaluating works of art
6. Alan Goldman, “The Aesthetic,” in The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, ed. Berys Gaut and Dominic
McIver Lopes (London, New York: Routledge, 2005), 265.
7. Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgment, trans. James Creed Meredith (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1928).
8. Peter Kivy, Introduction to a Philosophy of Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 54-55.
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Kivy gives a modern example to further explain Kant's view. Imagine that two people, Mr
Positive and Mrs Negative, are viewing a sunset. “Mr Positive says, 'My, what a beautiful sunset,' and
Mrs Negative gives the opposite opinion. Mr Positive then adds, as if to win Mrs Negative over to his
view, 'This sunset truly is displaying forth the glory of God,' to which Mrs Negative, not to be beguiled
by such maudlin sentimentality replies, 'This sunset is the result of the appalling air pollution extending
over the entire State of New Jersey.'”9 Kant would argue that neither person has achieved a pure
judgment of taste because, as Kivy explains, “each of their judgments has been tainted, so to speak, by
But this example brings up several problems with Kant's view. Indeed, Mr Positive and Mrs
Negative have not divorced themselves from information they possess that is related to but not part of
the “work” itself (although it is debatable whether a sunset can even be called a “work or art” in the
first place). But is it even possible for them to do this? In my own personal experience, I don't believe
I have ever been able to achieve a disinterested state when perceiving anything, not just art, although I
can't say I have tried very often. Perhaps it happens when one perceives the first artwork of his life
(although this could be “spoiled” if someone has told you her opinion of the work even before you
perceive it), yet it seems that every other artwork that is perceived after that initial one must be
“tainted” in some way. There is a possibility that this state could be achieved through a practice such
as Buddhist meditation, where meditators are sometimes able to push all other thoughts out of their
mind and focus on a single thought. As I have a very limited knowledge of this practice, I'm unsure
whether this meditation would be able to be applied to perceiving works of art or not, but it seems
plausible to me. However, it still seems that, for most of us, achieving this state of disinterested
perception is extremely difficult to do and rare to come upon. In other words, in regards to the state of
aesthetic perception and ability in people today, I believe the act of perceiving disinterestedly at all
9. Ibid., 54.
10. Ibid., 54.
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times is impractical.
Of course, even though it may be impractical, it does not follow from that that Kant's view is
incorrect or is not what we should be striving for in our aesthetic judgments. But there still remain
other problems with Kant's approach. Considering again the sunset example, Kivy explained that each
person's judgment was tainted “by an extraneous belief about the sunset” but what does he mean by a
“belief”? Kivy claims that both people have “injected a strain of the personally 'idosyncratic' into the
judgment, making it no more universal than any other judgment based on feeling.”11 His definition of
belief here, at least as it applies to Kant's theory, is that beliefs are subjective. But let's take a look at
the beliefs of Mr Positive and Mrs Negative again. Mr Positive's belief seems to be that the sunset “is
displaying forth the glory of God” which is his reason for judging the sunset as “beautiful.” If anyone
is even slightly aware of the philosophical arguments on the existence of God, it is clear that this view
by Mr Positive is quite subjective, in that it is probably impossible to prove that this sunset is
displaying forth the glory of God. This statement's validity is set on the shaky premise that God exists
in the first place. Clearly, this can be classified as a subjective view and subsequently a belief.
But what about Mrs Negative's “belief”? It seems that her belief is that the sunset is the result
of air pollution, and that this causes her to judge the sunset as the opposite of Mr Positive's, presumably
ugly. But is her premise subjective? It doesn't seem so, as the presence of air pollution is something
that can be objectively confirmed. Of course, Mrs Negative may have no evidence for this claim. She
may be mistaken, and this would make her judgment invalid. However, if she does have evidence, it
can be indisputable. This presence of air pollution does not constitute a subjective belief but is instead
based on other information that can be indisputable. We are then left to assume that her belief is that
she thinks that the air pollution is “appalling.” However, in contrast to Mr Positive's belief, this is a
claim that has much more evidence to back it up, such as the environmental and health effects of air
pollution, its usual appearance and how the majority of people view its presence, and is much less
controversial than Mr. Positive's belief. While still subjective, it is a belief that is supported by better
Another problem is that of whether or not it is important to take into account the existence of
the object itself. Should we ignore the fact that the sunset is in fact not simply the sun, but the result of
the sun seen behind air pollution which is creating the “object” of the sunset? Kant would say this
In opposition to Kant's characterization, we are interested in the real existence of the objects we
perceive aesthetically. We would not enjoy a performance of an opera in the same way if we
knew that the singers were only moving their lips to a recording, or if they were only life-sized
I believe that Kant is right in that subjective information related to a work of art should be disregarded,
or at least minimized and backed up with supporting evidence when used. Aesthetic judgments that are
built on flimsy subjective beliefs are not going to be strong. On the other hand, we shouldn't ignore all
outside information that pertains to the artwork in order to reach a disinterested state in which we will
be able to focus on the artwork itself. There is objective information related to an artwork that is
important, as well as subjective beliefs that can be significantly supported with other evidence, that
should be taken into account in order to better understand, enjoy, and judge an artwork. This related
information often comes about through interaction and contemplation of the artwork over a long period
of time.
Levinson believes that we should limit the information we use in evaluating a piece of music
since certain related information does not have any impact on aesthetic judgments. He espouses a view
of musical appreciation that relies solely on the relationship of sequential musical events and that
ignores large-scale structural implications. He states that, “Rationally justifiable features of large-scale
organization have no direct relevance to either the appreciation or the evaluation of a piece of music.”13
This exclusionist view ignores the fact that many listeners who have understood these large-scale
constructions, such as practitioners of Schenkerian analysis, have gained more appreciation of a work
through these means. Perhaps Levinson himself is not one of these listeners, but it is wrong to deny,
with something as subjective as appreciation, that no one else can benefit from this kind of analysis.
To better understand the benefits of more time and information in the judgment process, it will
be helpful to present an example from my personal life. This involves the culinary arts, which is
unique among art forms because it happens to be tied up with, for better or worse, the necessary
survival act of eating (unless you happen to be on a feeding tube). When I was a child, I was an
extremely picky eater. I chose what to eat (when I had the choice) largely based on my sense of taste.
In general, anything that was not immediately pleasing to my senses did not make it into my mouth a
second time. At this point, I was making my judgments of food based on the short term and on a very
small amount of information from actual experience with different foods. This approach to evaluating
food remained mostly unchanged until my early twenties. In the time in between, I did learn some
things about nutrition, and this drove me to eat a couple more foods than I previously did, but this was
not a significant change. During this time, most of the food I ate was not purchased or prepared by
myself, but by my parents, cafeteria workers, and restaurant or fast food chefs. But when I first started
living on my own and had to purchase and prepare most of my own food, I began to think about food in
new ways. Being a frugal and financially efficient person, I wanted to make sure, because I was
spending my own money to put food on my plate every day, that I was making the best decisions in
buying food that I possibly could. I began to learn more about the food I had been eating all my life,
such as the nutritional content (or lack thereof), what ingredients (listed and unlisted) were in them, and
the agricultural, environmental, health, financial, and social consequences of creating and eating these
foods. After gathering and evaluating all these new pieces of information, I revised my judgments of
many foods because my criteria, while still partly dependent on my taste buds and my short-term
aesthetic enjoyment, were more heavily influenced by the long-term effects of the food's nutritional
benefit to me, and their environmental and physical impact on the world and animals.
In Western societies today, the main criterion for food evaluations in general, and subsequently
food choices, is taste, while nutrition, health and environmental effects are relegated to a much smaller
role. The result of this focus has led to huge problems, particularly here in the United States. Because
most businesses in the U.S., including food production and distribution companies, seek to grow their
company and always increase profits as much as possible, combined with the fact that every living
human needs to eat food everyday in order to function in the short term, the focus of food production
has been in creating tasty foods that are cheap and require little or no preparation while sacrificing
nutrition, the environment, employee safety, etc. The poor of this country, like everyone else, need to
eat each day in order to function and, because they must be extremely frugal with their food purchases,
are usually forced to purchase the most filling food for the lowest price. These are often highly
processed and ready-to-eat foods, as opposed to fresh fruits, vegetables, and ingredients to make meals
from scratch. In the short term, these foods keep people satiated, their taste buds happy, and their
wallet in better shape. These same food choices are often made by those who have access to and can
afford better food choices for many of the same or similar reasons. But the long-term effects of these
food choices (if you can even call them choices for the poor) both individually and collectively cause
epidemics of extremely prevalent and preventable diet-related diseases such as heart disease, diabetes,
and breast, prostate, and colon cancers, which burden the individual and all of society with huge
medical costs on top of crippling physical costs. Collectively, these short-term-focused food choices
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have had catastrophically detrimental effects on our environment. Of all these many problems, the
biggest problem that our world as a whole has to face as a result of short-term-focused decisions is
probably climate change, where animal agriculture, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization
of the United Nations, is responsible for eighteen percent of human-induced greenhouse gases.14 These
are just some of the long-term problems caused or exacerbated by short-term-focused food decisions,
and we would all be better off if consumers, food producers, distributors, and our government shifted
While I believe a long-term approach should be used when dealing with all kinds of art, I want
to look at music specifically, as this is the art form I know best and most intimately. Today, there are
many ways for a listener to take their acquaintance with a piece of music from a one-night stand to a
long-term relationship. Before the 20th century, after going to hear a performance of a piece of music,
there were very few ways to re-experience that work again. If you were musically trained enough, you
could get a hold of the musical score or transcription and perform it yourself (if it was a solo work and
you happened to play that instrument well enough) or organize a performance by friends and
colleagues, or take time to study the score. If you did not have enough, or any, training in music, you
had to wait around for the next performance of the work in order to hear it again. With the invention of
sound recordings in the 20th century and their increasing prevalence and affordability, it is easier than
ever to listen to musical works over and over again. In most cases, there is no need to wait for a live
performance in order to hear a work again (although a live performance is still in many ways better to
hear than a recording). It is easier than ever to live with a musical work and give it long-term attention
in order to make a more reasoned evaluation of it. You can even find different recordings by different
performers (or even occasionally the same work recorded twice by the same performer in different
14. The Humane Society of the United States, “An HSUS Report: The Impact of Animal Agriculture on Global
Warming and Climate Change,” http://www.humanesociety.org/assets/pdfs/farm/hsus-the-impact-of-animal-agriculture-
on-global-warming-and-climate-change.pdf (accessed December 13, 2010).
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ways) and listen to these works in different contexts, such as in your car stereo, with headphones, on a
walk through the woods, lying down in a quiet place with your eyes closed, etc. All these different
ways of listening can bring about new insights, new layers of meaning, and further enjoyable and
Owing to ever expanding research within the field of music, there are more resources than ever
to learn about music and musicians indirectly through books, journals, newspapers, and the internet.
For most pieces of music and composers, it is easy to find background information on the composer's
life, training, style, and the circumstances under which a certain piece was written, what inspired it,
what the composer was trying to convey (if applicable), the style it was written in, etc. There are also
lots of written analyses of works that the trained musician can use to dive deeper into a work. With the
exception of the last, all of these resources are available and useful for the listener that is not musically
trained.
Yet even though a listener is untrained, this does not mean that they can't become musically
trained, and furthermore, if they are so taken by music, I believe they should make the effort to gain
theoretical and possibly technical knowledge about music. Even if someone believes that they simply
have no talent for music, (meaning they can't play an instrument or don't have a nice voice), or think
they are tone deaf, they can still learn much by studying history and theory. I happen to have next to
zero artistic ability when it comes to drawing or painting, yet when I got interested in understanding
abstract painting, I didn't just sit back and say “Well, I can't paint, so there is no point in learning more
about these artworks.” Instead, I found a book, and I read about art history and the construction of the
works and how planes, lines, colors, and movement work within a composition. There is much to be
gained from theoretical knowledge that informs one's listening process. Mark DeBellis explains, “It is
not the acquisition of an understanding of connections among distinct features [the trained listener]
hears, but a deepened perception of a property for what it is, that is central to his increased
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appreciation. And with this comes a deepened pleasure in the music.”15 He adds that, “Analysis can
There also seems to be a kind of stigma in the perceived ability to learn the basics of music
theory. Most people seem to think you either can or you can't learn music theory, but this is completely
wrong. I've taught music theory to non-music majors for the past two years and it seems obvious to me
that, if someone is willing to put forth the effort, they can learn the basics of music theory and enrich
their listening and overall aesthetic experience, even if they can't whistle a tune. Peter Kivy agrees
with me: “Anyone who enjoys, who appreciates, classical music, or any music, for that matter, can
acquire music-theoretical knowledge, if he or she is of a mind to do it. In that sense there is nothing
It is important now to address a question that is still unanswered. Disregarding the ignorant and
those who do not have certain choices, many other people are aware of the problems that exclusive
short-term thinking brings and the benefits of considering the long term. Yet why do many people
continue to eschew this way of thinking and evaluating? A lot of it has to do with the uncertainty of the
long-term future. For people who can afford to buy more expensive yet more nutritious and
environmentally-friendly food, yet still eat unhealthy and environmentally-destructive food, there is a
fear of losing the short-term benefits and hope for missing the long-term problems. “Only” one out of
every two Americans will have heart disease in their life, so if I am lucky, I can still eat the unhealthy
foods whose taste I love and still avoid these long-term health problems. Maybe scientists will finally
come up with a pill that will enable me to eat all these unhealthy foods and still not get heart disease. I
don't want to give up my tasty meat and have to eat something bland all my life like celery in order to
hope that this sacrifice will lower my risk of heart disease enough that I will not get it. For listeners of
15. Mark DeBellis, Music and Conceptualization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 129.
16. Ibid., 149.
17. Kivy, Introduction to a Philosophy of Music, 83.
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music, the added effort of looking at and analyzing a work does not guarantee the results of finding
further meaning and substance in a work. Why go through all the effort of learning background
information, music theory, etc., if I don't even like the sound of a work in the first place? I could put
forth hours (or years) of effort diving into the work just to find nothing more that can satisfy me
aesthetically, intellectually, and emotionally. This is especially true if it is a work that is not already
held to be a masterpiece. If you listen to a masterpiece and you don't find it a great piece after the first
listening, you may be more inclined to go back and listen again or analyze it in order to try and find
what everyone else seems to find meaningful in it. But even this general knowledge that it is a
masterpiece is a piece of information outside of the work that you would then be considering. If you
listen to a work that is not already acknowledged as a masterpiece, such as a world premiere of a
recently composed work or an obscure piece from a past century, and you judge it poorly on the first
listening, you are less likely to think that there may be cause to revise your first judgment. I don't
believe these thoughts are necessarily conscious, but I believe they provide a good explanation for why
Even though it seems that oftentimes we must sacrifice short-term benefits for long-term gains,
these are not necessarily mutually exclusive. We can have our cake (or perhaps something healthier)
and eat it too. In food choices, I've found that you definitely do not have to sacrifice taste for better
nutrition and lower environmental impact. After about four weeks of eating new foods and not eating
old foods, your taste buds change not only to become averse to the old foods, but to fully appreciate
and discover the natural flavors of the new foods. Because of the internet and the variety of cookbooks
today, there is no shortage of recipes for good tasting dishes using these better foods. By changing
your food choices, you will have to give up some of your favorite tastes, yet there is no shortage of
While the long term is where we should set our focus when dealing with works of art, the short-
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term benefits need not be lost and often still play an important role, albeit a much smaller one. The
short-term is crucial to act as a “hook”; something to draw you in and lure you to come back to that
work in order to start digging deeper into it to find more substance, aesthetic pleasure and satisfaction.
The short-term aspects are what will lead to the bearing of the sweeter tasting fruit down the road.
Let me give a personal example. In my early years of composing as young teenager, most of
the classical music I had heard had been compositions from 18th and 19th centuries that were firmly
within the system of common-practice tonality, and I had very little experience listening to atonal or
20th-century contemporary classical music. Consequently, the classical music that I liked was tonal,
and the little atonal music I'd heard I didn't like. When I began taking composition lessons with a local
composer, one of the first things he did for me was to give me a recording of Charles Ives' “Concord”
Sonata for Piano. I took this recording home, sat down to listen to it, and my first reaction was that it
sounded like someone was sitting on the piano keys and randomly hitting notes with no rhyme or
reason to it. Needless to say, I didn't like or understand it. Most likely, it was my lack of understanding
and inability to make sense of the work that caused my low evaluation.18 Despite this initial reaction, I
listened to the entire forty-minute work all the way through, and there were a couple fleeting seconds of
music that I did actually enjoy on the first hearing. These were the little snippets of hymns that Ives
uses (and in this case they are used by themselves without anything else going on at the same time).
These were little beautiful moments of tonal music that I could latch onto, moments that I wished at the
time had lasted longer, as they are very briefly heard before they are suddenly interrupted by the
predominating modern harmonic language. These little moments fascinated me, and I wondered about
why they were subjected to being placed in this “bad” piece. Because of this, and because my teacher
had found such meaning and substance in this piece, I listened to it several more times. Each time I
listened, there seemed to be more little bits that I “understood” and that I could find meaning,
significance, and beauty in. The more I listened, the more I came to understand. It was as if this
“understanding” was a virus that had infected this piece and was gradually spreading throughout the
entire work. For the next ten years, up to the present day, every time I have listened to this work I
understand more and more of it, and I predict this process will continue through the future. More
substance has been revealed to me and my evaluation and love of the work goes up a notch with each
listening. I have received such satisfaction from discovering, learning about, and listening to this piece
that I now consider it an absolute masterpiece, far from the unintelligible nonsense that I first perceived
it as.
But how did I come to “understand” this piece? Was it simply through listening to it over and
over that its secrets revealed themselves to me? I think this is partly the case. Repeated listening made
me more familiar with the materials, and I began to hear patterns as well as where material was being
repeated and manipulated. But in my life outside of listening to this piece, I was also listening to more
contemporary music, learning music theory, performing new works, and simply growing up and having
new experiences.
But I don't think I would have sat through listening to this piece over and over unless there was
something that I could understand immediately: those fleeting tonal hymns. In the short-term, those
gave me something of significance, and so I came back to listen to the piece again just to search for
more moments like those. This search yielded some new bits that I enjoyed, which led me to listen
again, and so on. This is what I think we should desire of our art, that it be like a journey that never
ends, where we are always drawn back to it because we want to learn more and we know that we will
However, if a musical work doesn't initially have something that appeals to you, you should
give it another listen if possible. After a first hearing, it is difficult, if not impossible, in most cases to
tell whether its lack of appeal (or its abundance) is due to the content of the work itself or to the
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context, including the performers, acoustics of the hall, the man coughing every two seconds who sat
behind you, the dinner you had eaten right before that didn't sit well in your stomach, etc. I advise that
the short term be defined, when dealing with musical works, to three or four listenings. At this point, if
you have yet to find signs of gold on the ground or from digging a couple inches below the surface, you
are better off not to waste your time and to head to other musical terrain for hopes at striking it
aesthetically rich.
It must be also noted that recently there has been a lot of research done on the validity and
accuracy of snap decisions and judgments. Research has shown that sometimes there comes a point
where gathering more information, particularly in making decisions that will have important
ability to make good choices. But Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Blink, even while arguing that
oftentimes our immediate judgments and evaluations within the first two seconds of perception can be
accurately and confidently relied upon, acknowledges that in order for us to have correct immediate
and unconscious decisions, a lot of time, effort, work, and study needs to be put in first.19 In other
words, we need to put in long-term effort in order to later have the convenience of reaching good
conclusions in the blink of an eye. This may be the explanation for why Langer, while it is important to
note that her criteria for good art includes the presence of “significant form,” argues that,
Intimate acquaintance with all sorts of music does give some versatile minds a power of
grasping new sound; people so inclined and trained will have a 'hunch,' at least, that they are
dealing with true 'significant form' though they still hear a good deal of it as noise, and will
contemplate it until they comprehend it, for better or worse. It is an old story that Bach,
19. Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (New York: Little, Brown, and Company,
2005).
20. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key, 264.
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A music listener, such as a critic, must have years of experience and practice discovering great musical
works before he or she can have a “hunch” and correctly judge a new work just by hearing the first few
moments or a single performance. If we don't have this background, we risk making false snap
judgments.
Perhaps the best analogy to the approach that we should take when perceiving works of art is
that of our dating and romantic relationships. A first perception of a work of art is like a first date. In
that first date, you are hoping that you are going to meet someone so great that you could end up
spending the rest of your lives together. If in that first date you have a good time and find some things
you like about him, you may go out on a second date to learn more about him and seek more
enjoyment. If you did not find anything you liked in that person on the first date and didn't enjoy the
evening, perhaps you will not want to go on a second date, or perhaps you will be willing to give him
another chance because you figure your low evaluation may be because he was nervous, or you felt
sick, or you didn't like the restaurant. As you go on more dates, you learn more about that person, his
interests, level of intelligence, quirks and peculiarities, and you see him in different situations and
contexts. This all adds to your evaluation of him. Either there is someone really wonderful and deep
underneath his immediately attractive surface, or there is no substance underneath his sugar coating. If
you continue to discover and learn more about this person and enjoy this process, the uncovering of a
complex and beautiful physical, mental, and emotional being, you could very well commit your entire
lives to each other in order to perpetually uncover and fall deeper in love with the bottomless well that
This is the ultimate appreciation of another person, and this is the same kind of relationship we
should seek from our art. The advantages that we have over the dating analogy are that we don't have
to worry about whether the artwork feels the same way about us (even if you argue that the work does
contain emotions) and we are allowed to be aesthetic polygamists. We are allowed to have life-long
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relationships with as many art works as we deem worthy and enjoy them all.
To summarize, there is no need to exclude any relevant information when making judgments on
works of art. Information can be continually gathered over a long time-span and judgments, which are
directly proportional to how much pleasure we receive from a work, should be revised with each
subsequent acquisition of knowledge. Goldman even argues that, in some cases, related information
that lies outside the artwork is critical for its basic understanding in the first place:
Even removing certain works from the context of practical affairs prevents proper aesthetic
appreciation of them. Much contemporary art reflects the techniques and themes of a
technological, mass productive and materially obsessed age, and the mundane and practical
aspects of life in this age. Ignoring the context of practical life loses the point of these works.
Older art too may better be appreciated in its narrower practical or concrete context. Taking
part in a religious service, using a cathedral for that purpose, can heighten rather than distract
In listening to music, Carlo Caballero argues for approaching and listening to pieces in various ways:
While I think listening tends to be multivalent and simultaneous in musical experience, I cannot
readily deny the value of understanding various possible modes of attention separately...In
adopting an inclusive rather than exclusive view of what constitutes 'listening to classical
music,' I hope to invite a range of inquiries—to open as much space to observation as possible
Since the domain and definition of art is ever-expanding and constantly growing, neither should the
perceiver's relationship with art be bounded. It should be inclusive rather than exclusive (but obviously
this only pertains to information that is in some way related to the artwork). In a great work, more
information can contribute to a higher evaluation, and subsequently more substance and a deeper and
more gratifying experience for the perceiver that can continue throughout a lifetime. In less than great
works, whatever substance is present can be wrung out of it like an orange, leaving the perceiver to
judge whether the wringing was worth the juice. Caballero writes further, “The knowledge of the
[musical] topic and its constitutive gestures matters for an affective experience. Without them, the
piece is diminished. I would go so far as to say that the more impure our delectation of the piece, the
deeper our emotional experience becomes.”23 In addition, artists themselves should adopt a long-term
view when creating their works. They should expect their art to be perceived eternally instead of
exclusively for the prevailing tastes of their time and place. Failure to adopt this view denies
As I mentioned in the beginning of this essay, the tendency to focus on the short term and
disregard the long term not only hurts art perceivers, but nearly everyone in Western societies. In fact,
it seems that this is a typical case of Art imitating Nature or, more accurately, Art imitating Life. If we
accept this view as the way art invariably is, that art is simply another thing to be consumed for
pleasure and then discarded, then art, as Plato saw it, aspires to be as good as nature but will always
fail. These are not the limits of art that I am acquainted with, for I know that art can do the nearly
unbelievable. As Oscar Wilde's character Vivian brilliantly argues in “The Decay of Lying,” art is most
powerful as a great lie. It should not strive to copy life as it is, but instead be visionary. It lies by not
telling us the truth of this world, but instead can show us a beautiful vision of what this world should
become. When this happens, Art does not imitate Life, but Life then imitates Art, as Vivian explains.
Wilde's character says, “Life holds the mirror up to Art, and either reproduces some strange type
imagined by painter or sculptor, or realizes in fact what has been dreamed in fiction.”24 What I propose
is that by focusing on the long term in art, through creation and perceiving, we may be able to change
our whole culture from a short-term focus to a long-term focus. This is the true power of art; the power
to deeply affect individuals but also fundamentally change the core beliefs and attitudes of society at
large.