THE ONTOLOGY OF CLASSICAL, ROCK, AND JAZZ MUSIC Andrew Kania, Doctor of Philoso

220 Pages·2005·2 MB·English

ABSTRACT

Title of dissertation: PIECES OF MUSIC: THE ONTOLOGY OF CLASSICAL,
ROCK, AND JAZZ MUSIC

Andrew Kania, Doctor of Philosophy, 2005

Dissertation directed by: Professor Jerrold Levinson
Department of Philosophy

Iinvestigate the nature of, and relationships between, works, performances, and
recordings in the Western musical traditions of classical, rock, and jazz music. I begin in
chapter one by defending the study of musical ontology against a recent attack by Aaron
Ridley. This leads into a discussion of the appropriate methodology for investigating the
ontology of art, and the reasons for doing musical ontology, particularly in a comparative
way.
In chapter two I review and reject several theories of what a classical musical
work is. I defend the view that such a work is an abstract object – a type of performance –
against several objections, most notably that abstract objects cannot be created, while
musical works are. In chapter three I argue that classical recordings, as they are typically
made, are correctly conceived of as giving access to performances of the works they
purport to be of, despite the fact that they are not records of any single performance event
in the studio.
Before tackling rock and jazz, in chapter four I investigate the concept of a work
of art in general, arguing that there are two necessary conditions an art object must meet
to be a work: (1) it must be of a kind that is a primary focus of critical attention in a given
art form or tradition, and (2) it must be a persisting object. I argue further that (i) there is
no need to subsume all art under the work concept, and that (ii) drawing a distinction
between works and other art objects need not lead to valuing the former over the latter.
In chapter five, I argue that the work of art in rock music is a track for playback,
constructed in the studio. Tracks usually manifest songs, which can be performed live. A
cover version is a track (successfully) intended to manifest the same song as some other
track. In chapter six, I discuss various proposals for the ontology of jazz. I argue that in
jazz there are no works, only performances.
PIECES OF MUSIC: THE ONTOLOGY OF CLASSICAL, ROCK, AND JAZZ MUSIC

by

Andrew Kania

Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the
University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
2005

Advisory Committee:

Professor Jerrold Levinson, Chair
Professor Georges Rey
Professor Garry L. Hagberg
Associate Professor Michael Morreau
Associate Professor Richard G. King
©Copyright by

Andrew Kania

2005
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Iwould like to acknowledge the help and support of many people throughout my writing
of this dissertation. I was extremely fortunate to find in Jerrold Levinson a supervisor
who is not just an excellent philosopher, but also a generous and understanding person. I
would not have made it through the Ph.D. without his help – academic and otherwise.
I was also fortunate to find at Maryland an ideal environment for a graduate
student of analytic philosophy. Not only are the other grad students supportive of each
other and interested in each other’s work, but the faculty always have time to discuss our
work with us, treating us with great respect as junior colleagues. In particular I would like
to thank Peter Carruthers for increasing the tangible support for grad students, and
helping me in various other ways in his capacity as Chair, Michael Morreau for being on
my committee, and Georges Rey for reading drafts of everything I gave him, and taking
me up Mt. Tamalpais to discuss them. With his rock musicology course, Richard King
showed me that good interdisciplinary work is possible at a large state university.
The American Society for Aesthetics provided another warm professional home
for me. I particularly value the conversations I have had there with Stephen Davies, Ted
Gracyk, and Lee Brown at the meetings of the last few years.
This dissertation is much better than it would have been had I not lived for the last
four years with the philosophers of 4800. Sometimes I think the Finn, the Frog, Anna,
Borotsori-chan, and Brad know more about comparative musical ontology than I do. I
thank them all. I also thank my parents, Susi and John, and Barry Weyburn and David
ii
iii
Post, for all the support they have given me and, at least as important, all the support I
have taken from them.
Finally, I would like to thank Julie, who has changed all my life for the better,
including this one small part of it. Thank you.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ii
1. Chapter for the End of Time: In Defense of Musical Ontology 1
2. Nothing New Under the Sun? The Ontology of Classical Works 33
3. Authentic Recording Practice: Classical Performances and Recordings 88
4. The Work ‘Work’ Does: Works of Art and Other Art Objects 113
5. Making Tracks: The Ontology of Rock 134
6. All Work and No Play: The Ontology of Jazz 167
7. Conclusions 201
Works cited 204
iv
1
CHAPTER FOR THE END OF TIME:
INDEFENSE OF MUSICAL ONTOLOGY
In a recent paper in the Journal of Philosophy,Aaron Ridley, a notable philosopher of
music, attacks the study of the ontology of music (2003).1 His conclusions range in
strength from the claim that musical ontology is ‘absolutely worthless’ (203) to the
suggestion that ‘in musical aesthetics, ontology comes last (at the end of time, perhaps)’
(215). I do not think that this dissertation is absolutely worthless; nor am I prepared to
postpone my submission of it indefinitely. I must, therefore, defend the practice of
musical ontology – of saying what kinds of musical things there are. The best way to be
convinced of the value of musical ontology is to read some, and thus I hope that by the
end of my dissertation, at the latest, the reader will find Ridley’s conclusions
implausible.2 But here I can at least dispatch Ridley’s negative arguments, say something
about the benefits of musical ontology, and describe my methodology.
I.CONTRA RIDLEY
Ridley’s strategy is as follows. He first argues that musical ontology has no consequences
for musical aesthetics or practice, and that no one is in fact, or should be, puzzled by
questions of musical ontology. (By ‘musical aesthetics’ he seems to mean the study of

1Aslightly different version of the paper appears as the fourth chapter of Ridley 2004.
2This much does not even depend on my conclusions’ being true, or my arguments’ being particularly
good. If a reader is interested enough to engage with them, then the value of the field is surely granted.
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Musical Ontology 2
questions of musical value.) From this he concludes that no one should engage in debate
over questions of musical ontology. He then argues that, contrary to musical ontologists’
claims that answering questions of value requires an ontological theory, or at least
ontological assumptions, in fact the reverse holds: the ontological facts about music
depend on facts about its value. Thus the ontologist cannot defend herself by claiming
only to be doing musical metaphysics, divorcing her inquiry from questions of value.
Iwill argue against each of Ridley’s claims. First, I will show that Ridley’s main
argument about the relationship between musical ontology and value fails, since it
equivocates on the notion of the ‘content’ of a musical work. Second, I will show that his
subsidiary argument – that musical ontology is not worth doing since genuine ontological
questions never arise in musical practice – does not succeed, and that Ridley fails even to
keep controversial ontological assumptions out of his own article. Third, I will show how
the ontology of music can have important consequences for questions of musical value,
though a much more concrete case is made for this conclusion by the following chapters
than by my abstract arguments here.
1.1 Ontology and content
Ridley’s argument against doing musical ontology independently of, or even prior to,
musical value theory is the following.
[A] performance of a work cannot be ‘faithful’ to it unless it evinces an
understanding of it. And if a performance’s faithfulness is, minimally, a matter of
the understanding it shows, then a performance is, in that much, to be valued in
proportion to the richness, depth, insight, subtlety and so on of the understanding
it evinces. But if this is right, evidently enough, much of the ‘content’ of a given
Musical Ontology 3
work is only revealed in the understandings that faithful performances of it
evince. And that means that any attempt to specify that content – the content to
which a good performance is faithful – in advance ofevaluative judgements about
particular performances of it, or independently of such judgments, must be futile
and self-defeating. (Ridley 2003: 213)
(Note that by ‘faithful’, Ridley seems to mean ‘good’, or ‘valuable’, since according to
ordinary usage, but contra Ridley’s, one can produce a performance that is faithful to a
work, without its being revelatory, or even particularly interesting.)
The first thing that calls for comment in this passage is Ridley’s apparent
misconception of what it is musical ontologists do. When he says that much of a given
work’s content is revealed only in performances of it, this is supposed to be a rebuke to
the musical ontologist. But I cannot think of a musical ontologist who would claim that
his theory can tell you what the content of a particular work is. Musical ontologists
theorize about the kinds of musical things there are – works, scores, performances,
recordings – and the relations between them. Musicologists (broadly construed), on the
other hand, talk about particular works, performances, scores, and so on. To give a
concrete example, Stephen Davies, in an important recent book on musical ontology,
essays a theory about the relation between a work and a performance of it. He argues that
three necessary conditions jointly suffice for a performance’s being of a particular work:
‘(1) the performance matches the work’s content, more or less; (2) the performers intend
to follow most of the instructions specifying the work, whoever wrote them; and (3) a
robust causal chain runs from the performance to the work’s creation’ (S. Davies 2001: