On 10 Feb 2005 at 10:07, Ken Moore wrote: > In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> David W. > Fenton writes: >Plenty of music has meaning with absolutely no > non-musical external >references. We may not be able to verbalize > exactly what that meaning >may be, and we may not all agree on the > exact meaning, but the >meaning is, in fact, there in the music. > > We must mean different things by meaning, which is not surprising: > IIRC the philosopher A J Ayer wrote a whole book called "The Meaning > of Meaning". My favourite dictionary definition is "the sense > intended". Please explain how I should know what the composer intended > without extra-musical explanation. What most music conveys to me, > irrespective of outside information and explanation, is an influence > on my emotions, but I know that it can influence other people very > differently, even in the opposite sense, without necessarily being bad > music.
My dictionary is replete with words that have multiple definitions. That is, they have many meanings. No one would even begin to claim that because words have no single, definite meaning that words have no meaning at all. That we may perceive different, personal meanings does not show that there is no meaning there. Ever heard of inter-subjectivity? -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
