Dodd 2007
Notes on Dodd (2007) Works of Music.pdf.
Dodd argues for a two-part "simple view" of musical works, consisting of “timbral sonicism,” that a musical work’s identity and essential properties solely consist in its sound, and type/token theory, that musical works in general are norm-types—abstract, unstructured, eternally existent entities—whose tokens are particular performances or playings.
The following annotations were made before reading the reviews in detail, and so reflect my initial rejection of Dodd's argument.
it into two discrete inquiries. First of all, there is what we may call the categorial question: the issue of which ontological category works of music belong to. Someone addressing this question is engaged in a project of ontological classification, with a view to revealing musical works to be concrete particulars, properties, sets, types, or some such. But, of course, merely assigning musical works to an ontological category does not tell a fully satisfying story about their nature. Such a story must also include an answer to the individuation question: an account of the identity conditions of musical works. The ontologist of music should thus provide something informative ofthe form ‘Work W and work W* are numerically identical if and only if... ’, or else explain why no such account can be forthcoming.
Categorical question is aligned with question of what a "work" in general is; individuation question is aligned with distinguishment of Swan Lake from not-Swan-Lake
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and the type itself. Certainly, it is a mistake to suppose that the one—many relation holding between a work and its occurrences can be better explained by treating it as the same relation as that obtaining between a set and one ofits members, or that holding between a property and one ofits instances.
The stronger of these two is property-instance, i.e. a sound-event can have the property of "being Beethoven's Fifth"
kinda reminded of Dawkinsian memes lmao
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2 Performances are sound-sequence-events produced by the actions of musicians using musical instruments. Playings are sound-sequence-events produced by actions of a different kind Examples of playings include sound-sequence-events produced by the placement of a disc in a CD player and the pressing of the ‘play’ button, and sound-sequence-events produced by the setting going of a player piano. I shall defend the thesis that works can have tokens that are neither performances nor playings
alternatively, performances are instances produced through virtuosic labor at the point of sounding (temporally)
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5 What ofthe music ofpure improvisation, such as that played in KeithJarrett’s Koln Concerts! Here I agree with Stephen Davies (2001: 15) that such music making does not involve the performance of a musical work True enough, someone might listen to a recording of one ofJarrett’s improvisations and attempt to reproduce it, perhaps even adding some improvisational flourishes of her own; but this is insufficient to show that the original improvisation is itself a work. Unlike genuine works, free improvisations are not regarded as blueprints for performances, and our interest in them lies in their immediacy rather than in their potential repeatability. Pure improvisations, then, inasmuch as they are not musical works, fall outside the scope ofthe simple view.
How rigid is a work—i.e. how "worky" is a jazz standard, for example?
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rences. Second, and perhaps most controversially, Chapter 5 develops an account ofcomposition as (creative) discovery that is compatible with music al Platonism. Since works of music exist eternally, the process by which Marsalis composed In This House, On This Morning cannot have ended with the bringing of this work into existence. This compositional process was,
Doesn't that force strong determinism into the compositional process???
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of how such works are individuated. For, in Ian Rumfitt’s words, the identity of a type is determined, not by which tokens actually exist, but by ‘the condition which a token meets or would have to meet in order to instantiate it’ (1993: 448)? As we shall see presently, this feature of the
to what extent does this view admit of a work which cannot be performed (poss. ex. Cage's 4'33" No. 2)? what of one which cannot be performed or played?
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Ifwe focus, to begin with, on the idealist thesis that musical works are to be identified with mental entities of some kind, we will note at once that it has attracted three main objections. First, in what is already emerging as
Elder 2004? difference between mind-dependent and mental objects?
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But such a view remains a mere promissory note unless the ontological nature of such mental constructions is fully explained and defended; and it is telling that precisely this task has not even been attempted by Pearce.
no you haven't addressed this fully! (maybe I should try elaborating??)
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equally, natural kinds are norm-types. There can certainly be improperly formed tokens of The Domestic Dog (Canis fatniliaris): albino dogs and dogs missing an ear or a leg are nevertheless tokens of the type. And it
this example does make me feel OK about norm-types
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have introduced a small change to the Thunderbird’. Ultimately, though, I doubt whether any user ofordinary language would complain ifthis remark were unpacked as the claim that the company had developed a new type of car based upon the original Thunderbird and sharing its name. Nothing
Original note: Okay this is just literally wrong
On revisit: this needs much more analysis than he offers
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besides possessing these features, types have also tended to be regarded as items that cannot come into or go out of existence (Wolterstorff 1980: 88; Kaplan 1990: 98). But does this mean that types are eternal existents
I don't buy a lot in this chapter—check these references
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