Desiderata for a satisfactory theory of musical expressiveness

1. Desiderata for a satisfactory theory of musical expressiveness Jerrold Levinson, “Musical expressiveness”, 1996.

2. 1. Analogy requirement • Musical expressiveness should be seen as parallel or closely analogous to expression in its most literal sense, that is, the manifesting of psychological states through outward signs, most notably, behavior. (p. 91).

3. 2. Extendability requirement • Musical expressiveness should be seen to be related to expressiveness in other arts, either by being transparently a species of expressiveness in art generally, according to some plausible account of that, or else a close relative of expressiveness as exhibited in other arts, where the divergence is explicable in terms of salient differences in the media involved. (p. 91).

4. 3. Externality requirement • Musical expressiveness should be seen to belong unequivocally to the music—to be a property or aspect thereof—and not to the listener or performer or composer. (p. 91).

5. 4. Immediacy requirement • Musical expressiveness should be something an attuned listener experiences or perceives immediately, rahter than arrives at intellectually, through reasoning or weighing of evidence, at least in basic cases, i.e. ones of simple expression. (p. 92-2).

6. 5. Generality requirement • Musical expressiveness may conceivably be of states too specific for words, but it must also comprise, and centrally, familiar psychological states of a general sort. (p. 92).

7. 6. Affectivity requirement • Musical expressiveness should be such that, when perceived or registered by a listener, evocxation of feeling or affect, or the imagination of feeling, naturally, if not inevitably, ensues. (p. 92).

8. 7. Valuability requirement • Musical expressiveness should be such that experience of it is or can be valuable, and something that contributes, at least normally, to the valueof pieces that possess it. (p. 92).