Hermeneutics

Abstract

Musical hermeneutics, the interpretation of the meaning of musical works, genres, or performances, has traditionally been limited by the assumption that any meaning music might have must derive from the intrinsically musical dimension of form, technique, or structure. This assumption is a mistake. Understanding why it goes wrong may lead to a more robust and revealing understanding of music. A more genuinely musical hermeneutics is possible in light of two modern philosophical concepts—care (from Heidegger) and aspect-change (from Husserl and Wittgenstein)—combined with two new ones: hermeneutic delay as an essential feature in the generation of meaning and paraphrase as a fundamental condition of language in particular and communications media, including music, in general. The interpretive practice thus made possible, illustrated with examples from Haydn and Debussy, extends humanistic knowledge and is consistent (but not compliant) with advances in neuroscience and digital technology that have broadened the concept of cognition beyond conscious thinking.