Monday, February 9, 2009
Aesthetic Mode of Thinking
Education in the arts differs from other fields of education in the way students are taught to think. Most aspects of education require logical, objective reasoning. Arts education, on the other hand, requires an “aesthetic mode of thinking” (Abeles, Hoffer and Klotman 1995, 77). The delayed gratification of musical expectations in quality music can evoke this kind of thinking.
The aesthetic mode of thinking has to do with considering more than just immediate experiences and particular artistic properties. The aesthetic thinker contemplates the relationships between artistic properties: students of the arts should “acquire an inclination, desire, and ability to consider objects for the qualities they possess and to react with feeling to those qualities. Logic, proof, and correctness are not required to perceive qualities or to react with feeling. What is needed is an imaginative, sensitive, and perceiving way of beholding visual objects and listening to aural objects” (Abeles, Hoffer, and Klotman 1995, 77). However, all humans should be adept at both rational and aesthetic thinking.
Leonard Meyer believes there are four qualities of music that evoke aesthetic thinking and can be used to evaluate musical works. First, listeners detect syntax and therefore have certain expectations for what they will hear. Second, composers of quality music employ “temporary deviations before fulfilling the syntactical expectations,” which the listener perceives (Abeles, Hoffer, and Klotman 1995, 81). Third, these expected tendencies are not fulfilled immediately, and fourth, humans derive enjoyment from this delayed gratification and find the experience more meaningful (Abeles, Hoffer, and Klotman 1995, 79-81). Although these four steps are a guideline for determining quality music, the listener must use an aesthetic mode of thinking to determine its relative value.
“The need for a balance between unity and variety” in music and “the requirement for both the predictable and the novel in music” are requirements of music that listeners will only expect if they are engaged in aesthetic thinking, and they must engage in aesthetic thinking to find enjoyment in this tension and release (Abeles, Hoffer, and Klotman 1995, 82-83).
Abeles, Harold F., Charles R. Hoffer, and Robert H. Klotman. Foundations of Music Education, 2nd ed. Belmont, CA: Thomas Higher Education, 1995.
The aesthetic mode of thinking has to do with considering more than just immediate experiences and particular artistic properties. The aesthetic thinker contemplates the relationships between artistic properties: students of the arts should “acquire an inclination, desire, and ability to consider objects for the qualities they possess and to react with feeling to those qualities. Logic, proof, and correctness are not required to perceive qualities or to react with feeling. What is needed is an imaginative, sensitive, and perceiving way of beholding visual objects and listening to aural objects” (Abeles, Hoffer, and Klotman 1995, 77). However, all humans should be adept at both rational and aesthetic thinking.
Leonard Meyer believes there are four qualities of music that evoke aesthetic thinking and can be used to evaluate musical works. First, listeners detect syntax and therefore have certain expectations for what they will hear. Second, composers of quality music employ “temporary deviations before fulfilling the syntactical expectations,” which the listener perceives (Abeles, Hoffer, and Klotman 1995, 81). Third, these expected tendencies are not fulfilled immediately, and fourth, humans derive enjoyment from this delayed gratification and find the experience more meaningful (Abeles, Hoffer, and Klotman 1995, 79-81). Although these four steps are a guideline for determining quality music, the listener must use an aesthetic mode of thinking to determine its relative value.
“The need for a balance between unity and variety” in music and “the requirement for both the predictable and the novel in music” are requirements of music that listeners will only expect if they are engaged in aesthetic thinking, and they must engage in aesthetic thinking to find enjoyment in this tension and release (Abeles, Hoffer, and Klotman 1995, 82-83).
Abeles, Harold F., Charles R. Hoffer, and Robert H. Klotman. Foundations of Music Education, 2nd ed. Belmont, CA: Thomas Higher Education, 1995.
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