Understated Significance of Form in Gracyk’s Aesthetics of Popular Music

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Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
J Muu elektroninen julkaisu
Date
2020
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Language
en
Pages
Pages 2-13
Series
POPULAR INQUIRY: The Journal of the Aesthetics of Kitsch, Camp and Mass Culture, 1/2020
Abstract
In his book Listening to Popular Music: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Led Zeppelin, American aesthetician of popular music Theodore Gracyk does not specifically examine the problems of the aesthetic form of popular music. Moreover, the role and importance of the listener's aesthetic experience of musical form is not clearly emphasized in his thoughts on the aesthetic evaluation of popular music compositions. However, some of the most important Gracyk's thoughts on the experience and evaluation of popular music – including his critique of "active listening“ thesis and his analysis of the competencies needed for the adequate evaluation of popular music – are inevitably bound to the problems of musical form. In this paper, I am primarily interested in the reasons why the significance of musical form is understated in his aesthetic theory. In the first chapter of the paper, I try to show that Gracyk didn't actually downplay the importance of musical form in his criticism of the notion that "active listening“ to the structural aspects of a musical composition is the only genuine way to aesthetically experience music (a notion he primarily attributes to Hanslick). I argue that Gracyk's arguments against the „active listening“ thesis and his thoughts on the consequences it has on the experience and evaluation of popular music cannot be rightfully applied to Hanslick's theory, in which musical form is the basis for the appreciation of a classical music piece. Following this, in the second part of the paper, I analyze the way in which Gracyk's thoughts on the aesthetic evaluation of popular music, expressed in his understanding of Robert Hatten's views on stylistic and strategic competencies, are directly linked to the listener's ability to experience the musical form of a popular music composition. I conclude by suggesting that although this is not explicitly stated in Gracyk's aesthetics, the musical form in his book Listening to Popular Music is of greater importance than it has been explicitly stated. In addition, I explore certain similarities in Gracyk's and Hanslick's aesthetic conceptions that are easily disregarded if the thoughts of American aesthetician are interpreted through his critique of the „active listening“ thesis.
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Keywords
Theodore Gracyk, Eduard Hanslick, aesthetics of popular music, musical form, listening to popular music, aesthetic evaluation of music
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