PALGRAVE STUDIES IN SOUND Series Editor: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard SOUND AND THE AESTHETICS OF PLAY A Musical Ontology of Constructed Emotions Justin Christensen Palgrave Studies in Sound Series editor Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard Aalborg University Aalborg, Denmark Palgrave Studies in Sound is an interdisciplinary series devoted to the topic of sound with each volume framing and focusing on sound as it is concep- tualized in a specific context or field. In its broad reach, Studies in Sound aims to illuminate not only the diversity and complexity of our under- standing and experience of sound but also the myriad ways in which sound is conceptualized and utilized in diverse domains. The series is edited by Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard, The Obel Professor of Music at Aalborg University, and is curated by members of the university’s Music and Sound Knowledge Group. Editorial Board: Editorial Committee: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard Michael Bull (series editor) Barry Truax Martin Knakkergaard Trevor Cox Mads Walther-Hansen Karen Collins Kristine Ringsager More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/series/15081 Justin Christensen Sound and the Aesthetics of Play A Musical Ontology of Constructed Emotions Justin Christensen Music & Sound Knowledge Group Aalborg University Aalborg, Denmark Palgrave Studies in Sound ISBN 978-3-319-66898-7 ISBN 978-3-319-66899-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66899-4 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017962129 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub- lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institu- tional affiliations. Cover illustration: Cover pattern © Melisa Hasan Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland A cknowledgements Following the spirit of Gadamer’s development of ideas through dia- logue, this book has developed through many discussions and dia- logues, with insights gained from colleagues, friends, and family. As a result, I owe a great deal of thanks to many people for helping make this possible. First of all, I would like to thank my interviewees Cassandra Miller, Miguelángel Clerc, and Steve Potter, whose ideas on their compositional practice have not only provided me with concreti- zations of many of the abstract concepts explored in this book, but their ideas on their practices have helped me to better express some of the ideas in this book. Next, I would like to thank Mark Grimshaw for asking me to write this book as part of his sound series. Furthermore, I would like to thank Mark and my other colleagues at the Music and Sound Knowledge (MaSK) Group at Aalborg University, who have been a great support during my past three years in the department. These members of MaSK include Martin Knakkergaard, Mads Walther-Hansen, Hans-Peter Gasselseder, Kristine Ringsager, Maria Kallionpaa, and Jonathan Weinel. There are also a number of others at Aalborg University that I need to thank. I would like to thank Brian Bemman for his thoughtful comments and help. I would also like to thank David Meredith and Gissel Velarde in the Music Informatics and Cognition Group for their stimulating discus- sions on music cognition. Similarly, I would like to thank the Centre for Cultural Psychology and their kitchen seminar for their valuable feedback and stimulating discussion. v vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS As these ideas have been percolating for some time, I would like to thank a number of friends for their valuable input over the years. This includes Emlyn Stam (who has kindly read and given comments to numer- ous papers of mine over the years), Graham Flett, Elliot Simpson, Ezequiel Menalled, and Christian Karlsen, among many others. Finally, I have to thank my parents and my family in general for their support over so many years. c ontents 1 T he Aesthetics of Play 1 2 Musical Emotions 39 3 The Dynamic Autonomous Artwork 67 4 Modes of Affective and Aesthetic Experience 89 5 Conclusions 119 Index 125 vii CHAPTER 1 The Aesthetics of Play Abstract In this chapter, I present an introduction to Gadamer’s aesthet- ics, a leading approach to aesthetics in the phenomenological tradition. Influenced by Heidegger, Gadamer is interested in how art impacts our experiences in the world, through mutually dependent disclosures and hiddennesses. These disclosures not only disclose themselves but also reveal the presence of the hidden or unfathomable, which draw us into the game of the aesthetic experience. This awareness of the hidden requests an active participation from us as listeners, and asks that we submit to the proposed rules of the game. It also further asks for an immersion into the game of the aesthetic experience that our consciousness does not control nor fully anticipate, allowing us to be potentially changed by the game. Keywords Phenomenology • Gadamer • Hermeneutics • Primacy of play • Aesthetic experience 1.1 Play Through history, play has generally found legitimation in being a place for “kids to be kids”, and as an antidote to the goal-driven doing (praxis) and making (poesis) that is often seen as a purpose for life. As a result, other than the hedonic value that it offers in making learning more enjoyable, play has been frequently presented as having no utility on its own. One of the defi- nitions of Play in the Oxford English Dictionary Online (OED) is that play © The Author(s) 2018 1 J. Christensen, Sound and the Aesthetics of Play, Palgrave Studies in Sound, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66899-4_1 2 J. CHRISTENSEN is of the “[s]enses relating to recreation, pleasure, and enjoyment”, having sub-entries of play as “[t]o engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than for a serious or practical purpose; to amuse or divert oneself” and “[t]o pretend to be, represent, or imitate as a game or for fun” (2017). Although views on play have been changing through the past century, numerous thinkers through history have suggested that play is merely care- free phantasy and frivolous nonsense, an escape from reality, or an interrup- tion from the continuity of our purposive lives (Fink et al. 1968). As the major motivating factor for play is the intrinsic motivation of play itself, it quickly contrasts itself from other human activities whose goals are external to themselves. It is likely this stark contrast from work that has relegated play to its limited role in life as a periodic antithesis. I will argue here that this is a misunderstanding of the ontology of play, and that play performs a major role in both childhood and social development. Similarly, I will propose later in this chapter that aesthetic play (a back and forth of presentation and reception between a performance and an audi- ence) has potentials for self-unconcealment, the disclosure of aspects of one’s own being that occurs while the art event presents itself. Throughout our life, aesthetic play also generally resists against the fading of our expe- riences into habituated action, a forgetting of our being. Selectively fight- ing against this forgetting of being is important in that it allows us to adapt to new situations and to understand novel stimuli. Huizinga has proposed that through history “a certain play-factor was extremely active all through the cultural process and … it produces many of the fundamental forms of social life” (2009, 173), concluding that civi- lization “does not come from play like a babe detaching itself from the womb: it arises in and as play, and never leaves it” (2009, 173; emphasis in original). Another definition of play in the OED is that play is of the “[s]enses relating to movement, exercise, and activity”, with sub-entries of play as “[t]o exercise or occupy oneself, to be engaged with some activity”, or “[o]f a living being: to move about swiftly, with a lively, irregular, or capri- cious motion”, or “[t]o move, revolve, or oscillate freely, esp. within a definite space”, or “[o]f a thing: to move briskly or lightly, esp. with alter- nating or irregular motion” (2017). Similarly, the etymology of play likely comes from pleyen, which means “to dance, leap for joy, rejoice, be glad” (2017). Related to this, play is crucial in the juvenile development of most mammals and birds, and continues into adulthood in a few species such as primates, elephants, cetaceans, and parrots (Behncke 2015). As these spe-