Thoughts on performing music

JEROLD LEVINSON
University of Maryland

Jonathan Dunsby remarks, as have others, that doing music involves thought, or is a form of thought. In this paper I want to explore in what senses that is true, and assuming it is true, what is the nature of the thinking that goes on with music, whether in composing, performing or listening to it, and how those different modes of "musical thinking" might differ among themselves. I will be interested in what we should count as evidence of musical thinking, or perhaps equivalently, in what justifies classifying processes of musical creation, recreation, or reception as thinking, and how such thinking differs from the paradigm of thinking, that is, formulation and manipulation of thoughts in words. Some ideas of Wittgenstein on the understanding of music may figure in my reflections.

Address for correspondence: JEROLD LEVINSON University of Maryland USA