The spatio-temporal nature of musical understanding

Abstract

The nature of musical understanding is currently being intensively investigated in both analytic and continental philosophy. Many authors point out that such understanding has an important intellectual component. This article studies the question of spatial components of musical understanding. B. Wharf drew attention to the fact that we often carry out spatial objectification in the mind. A. Bergson wrote about the same. Music has a motive, musical phrases, often a melody, and all that can be represented in the form of a drawing. To understand music means to understand the logic of the unfolding of the melody, and “unfolding” is a spatial phenomenon. Husserl writes of a temporal horizon when listening to music, but the horizon is also a spatial phenomenon. Furthermore, Husserl points out that the fluid meaning of music remains “the same”, and in order to see it, one must step out of the flow of time to some fixed point. Such an exit is virtual, but possible. However, those are not ordinary spatial representations. The term “quasi-space” is used for them, reminiscent of Husserl’s double intentionality. In that quasi-space the pattern or gestalt of music is formed. At the same time, there is a certain transcendental point, a limit to which our exit from the flow of time tends.