Lenard Bernstein has an interesting 6 part lecture series where he draws out a theory of music where he uses an analogy between music and Chomskian linguistics to describe and analysis music. It really is a wonderful work, but as I watched it, I found something that I wholly disagree with, and something that contradicts many other aspects of the lecture series.
Here is a link to a page with all of the lectures on it if anyone is interested
http://www.openculture.com/2012/03/leonard_bernsteins_masterful_lectures_on_music.html
Now, I do think that this parallel that Mistro Bernstein draws between music and language is a useful. It is especially useful for someone who is ignorant of the structural and theoretical aspects of composition theory, there are many similarities between music and language that are explored in great detail in the series that go beyond my own understandings of linguistics. This is not what I find wrong here in Bernstein's work. Rather, I find his metaphysical posturings about music, as well as language, to contradict much of what is he actually explaining.
Bernstien spends much of the lectures talking about the material aspects of music, yet he claims that music is an expression of what he calls," The Corporal World." He seems to be in revolt against the very thing he is explaining. In the first lecture he talks about human evolution, how music evolved from speech, and many other material realities that dictate how and why we experience music in the way we do. Which is all well and good, until he starts(in the second lecture) to discuss how music is a spiritual endeavor. He is so bold to proclaim that the moment this odd belief in the duality of existence(spiritual life and material life) that art, aesthetics, beauty etc. will disappear, and that our lives will be entirely mechanical and devoid of meaning.
Still, he does not resist actual material explanations for music, as seen here.
Music is not some mystical event that is ordained to a composer or performer from some spiritual body. This is a disservice to us, this ideology(if you will) that music is some sort of mystical endeavor confuses you.
Our ability to experience music is a function of biology and our planetary environment. A note is a pitch, a pitch is a frequency of vibrations through the medium of our gaseous atmosphere. Our brains are extremely proficient at calculating ratios between pitches. These ratios are how we differentiate between harmoniousness and dissonances.
The mathematical ratio for a major third is 5 to 4, the ratio for a perfect 5th is 3 to 2, and so on. These ratios are the material reason behind our experience with music. There is no need to confuse ourselves with the mystical, with the magical, with the false.
To say that music, or art in general, comes from a separate corporal existence is to deny yourself the knowledge of who/what you really are. You are a biological being who is the product of billions of years of evolution. Our existence arose out of the death of stars, and the movement of galaxies, and this still isn't enough for some people. This is my issue. That our real circumstances are so incredible, and people think that this still isn't enough. Why hide behind spiritualism, when materialism allow us to see an incredible picture of the world. "We arose from microbes and muck" writes Carl Sagan, and if that isn't beautiful and inspiring enough for you, if that isn't amazing enough for you, that you have to invent a separate identity for yourself, then I think you are just scared of the truth.
That's the whole point to this. That our real, material, natural circumstances are amazing enough. We don't have to lie to ourselves. We don't have to invent duality for our existence, we don't have to hide from what we are. We are humans, we aren't spirits, we are brains. Our interpretations of our realities matter, we must stop hiding behind these types of things to explain why beauty and art exist. They aren't separate from us, they are us. We have made art, we have made beauty, we have created the things that make life worth living. Why is this so scary? Why must we hide behind myth?
Why must we hold onto to these ancient ideas, that separate us from our world? Why must we fall back into the thinking of the past? Why can't we look at ourselves and understand that we are biological entities, that we are a product of nature, that we exist as a part of the world. We are the eyes and the ears of a universe that is struggling to understand itself, and we are denying ourselves our ability to understand.
The reason that we fall back into mythical ways of thinking is because some people don't want the burden of all of meaning, all of beauty, falling onto them. We long for some semblance of a universal purpose because it's easier to place it onto mystical ideas than to face the truth. Our meaning, is up to us, that's why I think people still cling to these notions of the mystical. If everything is up to you, then you have to take responsibility for yourself, you have to dictate your own purpose. Look at the widespread belief in astrology, people want to run away from the responsibility of their own lives, so they invent roundabout reasons that they can place the blame onto. Oh, I'm only this way because mercury is in retrograde. No, you are that way because you are that way, it is no ones fault but your own.
Rejoice, for we are in control, even if we think we aren't.