Pointless aspects of music Essay Example For Students

Pointless aspects of music Essay It was therefore believed that the temperament could be affected by composing pieces of music in the suitable mode (e.g. the Hypodorian mode was believed to have the ability to weaken the phlegmatic humour, as signified by the -P), and it can be assumed that by censoring music appropriately, a balance in the humours was what Plato hoped to achieve. As Plato goes on to say at 518d, Thats what education should bethe art of orientation. Educators should devise the simplest and most effective methods of turning minds around. It shouldnt be the art of implanting sight in the organ, but should proceed on the understanding that the organ already has the capacity, but is improperly aligned and isnt facing the right way. The mind must be realigned, then, not just by proper musical education but also by gymnastic and mathematical education, working in conjunction with one another in order to produce noble citizens. There are problems here as well, though: Plato acknowledged that while there is a perfection in mathematics that cannot be paralleled in this world, and while he duly consulted Pythagorean theory (530e), he also realised that there were irrationalities present which (in the context of Greek mathematical advancement) couldnt be reconciled10. In particular, the Greeks were deeply disturbed by the problem of infinities and wanted to ensure that youths did not become caught up about learning any pointless aspects of musicDont you realise that people get music wrong too? They laboriously measure the interrelations between audible concords and soundssome of them claim to be able to detect a further intermediate resonance and maintain that theyve found the smallest possible interval (531a-c). In this derision of meticulous picking apart of musical mathematics, though, Plato contradicts himself yet again, for in the Timaeus particularly he spends a great deal of time on how the Demiurge mathematically constructs the diatonic scale, the range of which has been fixed by mathematical and physical considerations.  However, Platos focus throughout all of this is the nature of the soul. He does, it is true, commence the illustration of the diatonic scale by using the tetractys11 (arithmetical progression 1, 2, 3, 4, which adds up to the perfect number, 10). It contains the numbers forming the ratios of perfect consonances (2:1, octave; 4:3, fourth; 3:2, fifth) and the Demiurge completes the sequence by inserting harmonic and arithmetic means between the numbers we already have (the double and triple intervals), the result of which is shown in Appendix A. However, in the progressions 1, 2, 4, 8 and 1, 3, 9, 27, he stops at 27 (three cubed) not so much for mathematical reasons but more because the cube represents the body in three dimensions. This suggests that the focus ought to be on the effects that are created by the approved forms rather than on their mechanics, despite the importance of mathematical education being emphasised by Plato throughout the Republic. This emphasis on effects (and perhaps more importantly, these effects when put together) is further denoted by the use of the term   (muse-ish), particularly in the Alcibiades (1.108c-d), where the answer to the question what is manifests itself as harp-playing, singing, and moving properly. Plato also in the Laws uses   to refer to the bodily expression of rhythm (thus supplementing the definition given in the Alcibiades), suggesting that music affects the body and the soul. In order for the pupils to feel these effects, and go some way to understanding them, thorough teaching (both physical and dialectic) is required the merits of dialectic teaching in particular are discussed at length in the Republic from 531e onwards. The technology impacts on music industry EssayThe fluctuating nature and sometimes-contradictory moments of the music education as described in the Republic can mean that to an extent, the intentions of those hypothesising about this imaginary state can be unclear. However, a certain amount can be deduced. The system entails the highest quality of teaching to the most deserving of citizens, in order to create a noble, sophisticated and highly intelligent race of people, whether this be physical, dialectic, or purely conveyed on the basis of imitation. In censoring music and the way it is taught (and other forms of media, for that matter), it is hoped that this will condition the minds of the people in order to trigger the effects detailed above. To deduce the aims of the Republic (even if we use the system of music education as some sort of microcosm) is more elusive, since its aims and objectives are a little ambiguous (i.e., is the text political, psychological or something else?). However, what can be said almost certainly is that the system was never intended to be realistically implemented and is certainly not a government manifesto of radical change; therefore discussion of what it is hoped would be achieved by the censorship and direction of musical education is perhaps a moot point, since as a hypothetical text it can engineer very little in the way of physical change, no matter how much peoples minds are changed by it. In terms of the system of music education, though, we can be a little more conclusive. The lack of resemblance of Ancient Greek music to Western music means that Platos aims can be difficult for the modern reader to comprehend. The language and music must be dealt with together in a way that cannot be achieved in Western arts (Georgiades 69)17. Consequently, Platos fusion of his approaches to censorship of language and of music (i.e., working with the two forms of performance together rather than separately) is probably the clearest and most realistic vision painted of achieving the desired result of a perfect community. It is plain how the idea of creating this community came about, more so if the Allegory of the Cave is put into a 21st-century context18: if a person is tied to the settee, and their only view of the outside world is through media (perhaps more specifically, the television), it becomes clear that those images and myths are more than powerful enough to shape our picture of ourselves and the world. Plays and public oratory were the media and propaganda of Platos day, and painting, statuary and music often served similar ends. However one assesses the Republics solution to the problem, and whatever kind of text it is, this is one of the problems that elicited his suggestion of such harsh bowdlerisation of the arts he so clearly adored and had been schooled in. The resolution may not appeal, but the problem almost certainly exists.