The Arts (Art)

by jwarshawsky , Thursday, September 25, 2008, 13:32 (5902 days ago) @ dhw

I've just been reading a text by the German artist Gerhard Richter, in which he posits that 'music ... creates moods because the sounds are similar to real tonal expressions of sadness [and] joy...'. If true, this would explain how, for example, we 'know' that a sad song is sad - its tonality echoes some atavistic vocalization of, say, mourning. This strikes me as both plausible and beautiful. - In dhw's posting of August 25, he writes about 'the written word, which alone enables us to communicate directly with past and future generations'. Maybe - if conditions remain in place for listening to recorded sound (or even if parents continue to sing soothing lullabies to their children) - music, too, can be said to enable direct communication - of emotion, at least - from generation to generation. In this way, perhaps its status in human evolution can be said to run parallel with that of language.