Abstract
There have been significant changes in the ways in which humans experience music from the time of the publication of Gadamer’s Truth and Method in 1960 until today. While music was formally listened to in “earthier” formats, whether that be through live concerts or huddled around vinyl record players, we now live in a digital age in which music is largely experienced through what we can refer to as more “liquidated” formats, such as music streaming services or smart speakers and similar modalities in which the music is plugged into an easily accessible system whose very accessibility makes the music easily disposable. Using concepts from Gadamer’s hermeneutics, I think through what it means for music to be in these various formats. While certain modes of musical experience allow for the possibility of auditory Ereignis, that is, a musical event so full of meaning that it is capable of transforming one’s world, others more easily relegate the experience of music to episodic insignificance, that is, as lacking inner coherence. Ultimately, I argue that it matters how we experience music and in which contexts, since those very choices can render the musical elements of our lives as meaningful or meaningless.
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Notes
- 1.
Music is rarely an explicit philosophical topic for Gadamer in Truth and Method but he did provide a chapter to the volume Wo Sprache aufhört, which was a collection of essays on music written by musicians and scholars. In that work, he made an explicit connection to understanding in the realm of reading to the realm of music. Cf. Gadamer (2021).
- 2.
It might be helpful to point out that Gadamer’s understanding of experience is informed by Hegel, as Jerome Veith astutely observes: “‘Experience’ is for Hegel (and for Gadamer) a technical term. It refers specifically to episodes in which (a) we discover that something is otherwise than we previously understood it to be, and (b) this ‘negation’ leads us to a new, more comprehensive understanding of the thing. Experiences are in this way capable of breaking us free from our prejudices (though never from all at once) and opening us to new and more inclusive perspectives on the world” (2015, 140). I should also note that the term “Erlebnis” refers to the experience of the person, while Gadamer’s term “Erfahrung” refers to the hermeneutical experiential act that is then integrated into one’s world. Both are translated as “experience” in English. On the difference between Erlebnis and Erfahrung, see Davey (2016).
- 3.
Of course, Wittgenstein famously changes his mind in his later thought as represented in Philosophical Investigations (Wittgenstein 1968) with his concept of language games, a concept that Gadamer felt great affinity towards. For his commentary on this affinity, cf. Gadamer (1976, 126–127). As is common in early Wittgenstein scholarship, I’ve provided Wittgenstein’s logical index as a reference rather than the page number to accommodate other editions of the text.
- 4.
- 5.
A key phrase in this passage is “integrity,” which I’ll discuss at length below.
- 6.
I’m borrowing this language of liquidation from Polt (2018).
- 7.
I thank Richard Polt, Tyson Kratz, and especially Sam McAuliffe for comments on earlier versions of this chapter.
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Rentmeester, C. (2024). The Experience of Music in the Digital Age: From Auditory Ereignis to Episodic Insignificance and Back. In: McAuliffe, S. (eds) Gadamer, Music, and Philosophical Hermeneutics. Contributions to Hermeneutics, vol 12. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41570-8_12
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