In the days of Plato's Republic, music was believed to have a profound ability to instruct. When composed appropriately, music had essential and transformative power in the field of moral education. Through his Essay on the Origin of Language, Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau extrapolated music as having an elementary role in man's educational journey through time. For Rousseau, the origin of language lies in our growing desire to express our deepest passions and feelings. Hence, this desire served as an impetus to our political organization. Likewise, this need to reach others in a more civil tone was the birthplace of music. Rousseau shows that the musical current runs through the very core of our ability to relate rationally to others and to the world around us. Although Rousseau greatly advanced musical theory through the link man's penchant for language and music, the evolution of music and its forms shed new light on Rousseau's theory of what constitutes music. The language model serves as a useful guide to the music produced in 18th century Europe, yet the music in its current, experimental form speaks to the provinciality of Rousseau's definition. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay What makes Rousseau's work worth examining is that, unlike philosophers such as Kant, Hegel, and later who made significant contributions to music theory from a philosophical perspective, Rousseau was a composer himself. Instead of abandoning the realm of the field as a mere extension of his own conception of aesthetics and the arts, he actively worked to create music in line with the ideal properties he envisioned. He was in fact a highly esteemed musician and therefore understood the practice that successful music required in his time. One can see the importance that music had for Rousseau, as his main occupation was as a musical copyist. This close connection he felt for his art is reflected in his philosophy on music, as a creation intimately and inextricably connected with language and therefore with all human expressions and connections. Rousseau's Essay on the Origin of Language is a work in strict parity with the Romantic tradition that it helped stimulate in European thought. Rousseau's thesis is that language did not evolve among humans as a necessity to communicate our thoughts for pragmatic social or economic purposes. Rather, language emerged from the abyss of human passions. The difference between simple sound and music emerged from this need to articulate our passions. In the famous watering hole scene he depicts, in which the man is struck for the first time by the beauty of the female figure, Rousseau claims that this incorporation of a more civilized tonal dimension occurred through the desire to woo the opposite sex. The voice on the other hand requires training. There is no natural voice that nature lends us. What is striking about Rousseau's description of the provenance of language is that it purely encapsulates this passionate impulse. As the birthplace of our language, it was the path to higher rationality, but the irony of this is how it is crafted with such seemingly carnal and animalistic intent. Although it provides a solid basis for the proximity of music as an imitative form of language, it seems rather simplistic to state so broadly that language arose fromonly from passion. Similar to Rousseau's argument in the Discourse on the Inequality of Man, there is little that can be done when it comes to criticizing the moment when music and language were first created by man. It's a more or less unknowable moment. When it comes to Rousseau's desire to define what music is based on this proximity to the spoken word, there are much greater ramifications. Unlike Rousseau who attempts to shed light on the connections between music and language, Rousseau projects his musical theory onto the entire body of musical creation. He gives us an idea of ​​what is and what is not musical, and thus gives us something to contrast certain examples of sound and determine their particular musical character. In other words, Rousseau is making a much broader statement in attempting to define music and, in doing so, potentially places limits on a craft that continually reshapes and emerges. By tracing the emergence of music in human existence and connecting it to the moment in which humans developed a communicative language, Rousseau has a very clear picture in mind when he talks about music. The line that Rousseau draws in his writings between what is musical and what is not musical is whether sound follows the pattern of language. It must imitate the twists and turns of language as guided by our passions. The melody of music is what Rousseau associates with the presence of passions. Music imitates changes in speech, such as when you are afraid. In this way, music represents precisely those passions that it channels. “In every imitation, some form of speech (some form of speech) must replace the voice of nature.” It is not enough that nature produces sounds similar to that of speech. It is the passions underlying the speech transposed into the music that constitute the thrust of the piece itself. Music is a form of indirect representation of the passions we feel ourselves. Listening to a song that evokes these passions, we are pushed to feel the same twists in our soul ourselves. In other words, speech has a certain character and awareness that elevates it above the level of natural sounds. For Rousseau, anything less would be merely logical. Due to differences between languages, music produced by some regions may have different sound qualities than others, but the feeling contained in it is still preserved. Furthermore, such music can only be understood if one understands the language on which the song is based. “Each is influenced only by the accents that are familiar to him; his nerves respond only to the extent that his mind inclines to them: he must understand the language in which he is spoken, if he wants to be moved by what is said to him. Understanding music requires a culturally specific understanding, codified by one's native language. For Rousseau, humans not only created music, but are also the only animals that are musical. Although we may consider some animals to be musical, such as songbirds, Rousseau claims that man is the only animal that emerged from nature and is capable of composing music. According to Rousseau, because the sounds of nature are not a reflection of human passion, they are not something we can follow and connect with in the same way. Music works with language precisely because we don't see the language first. Instead, we first perceive the feelings behind them. In other words, music offers us not just a series of sounds, but a composition imbued with a set of feelings. The pattern of melody in music gives us the ability to anticipate and follow a piece of music as it progresses in time. The passion composed of the melody gives the music a specific order. This is itsomething that nature does not possess. Purely physical, uncultured sounds are simply pleasant; they don't touch us more deeply. Nature does not have the ability to be music due to the human element that is separate from its existence. It is this cultural layer present in the creation of music that makes it distinct. We understand music because we recognize it as such, as a superior creation that appeals to our passionate impulses. Sounds are unmediated sonic gestures; they are "natural" noises. External sounds can be compelling, but those sounds situated in discourse and interpretive contexts are truly significant. Consequently, this awareness requires a certain level of cultural habituation. As Rousseau says, “Impolite ears perceive our consonances as mere noise. It is not surprising that when natural proportions are altered, natural pleasure disappears.” Music is pleasant and meaningful because it involves our shared cultural discourses: “Sounds act on us not only as sounds but as signs of our affections, of our feelings; this is how they arouse in us the emotions they express and the image we recognize in them”. As any contemporary individual who uses the English language can tell you, the language is continually advancing. The creation of music is ultimately based on the idea that man had desires that surpassed his physical needs. “If we had had nothing but physical needs, perhaps we would never have spoken to each other and yet we would have understood each other perfectly only through the language of gestures.” Because we have such complicated social needs and desires, we speak with our own voices. Culture is the force that pushes our communications forward, finding new terms and ways to express them through the spoken and written word. What Rousseau's theory does little to consider is the nebulous way in which language exists and how it is sculpted by a group of people. Certainly Old English varies greatly both grammatically and syntactically from the modern iteration of the language. Rousseau is aware of the presence of multiple languages ​​and explains them in this way, each of which speaks of a different resulting form of music. Although Rousseau describes the musical medium as time, he does little to explain the progression of music across large periods of time. The creation of music did not stand still for artists like Rousseau. His reflections serve as a guide to determine the essential features of the music. Such a formalized definition of music does not limit artistic freedom, and creativity will always extend beyond these prescriptive limits. That doesn't mean there can't be crossover between the musical and the non-musical. Likewise creativity is not stifled in light of the definitions of film and photography, using still images in moving film is not a perversion of the craft and in many ways can serve to advance composition. Although Rousseau wants to get at something essential about the character of music and what is distinctively human and what is in the realm of the natural, the use of natural and even more abstract sounds interpolated with the music can enhance, not detract from, the product resulting. . More importantly, if music were strictly defined as that which follows the cadence of our language it would result in a much slower progression for musical genres. Because of how slowly language changes over time, music would be forced into much slower changes than a more lenient definition would allow. What is important to distinguish is that when birdsong or anything natural is appropriated for the creation of music, it is still appropriated in a certain way. It is manipulated similarly to oneinstrument regarding the melody and harmony of the given piece. In other words, it is intentional with a depth and kind of thoughtfulness that nature does not possess. While this intentionality is important to Rousseau, it seems to give a glimpse into nature's potential to replicate music similarly to us. There are physical actions that happen outside of our person, present in nature that can replicate the music that was made. Who is to say that a downpour, punctuated by the periodic clap of thunder, is not an example of nature giving us a premeditated version of later forms of our own music? What we create may come from a different kind of inspiration, but it would be foolish to say that there are no examples in nature that man fails to find sonically pleasing. Although Rousseau is inclined to think that music and language originated in the same place, making man its sole possessor, what must have preceded music and therefore facilitated its ability to establish itself as a form of expression is our ability to love music. We must have possessed the recognition of certain tones, the differences between them and how they could be arranged in a way that reflected a given feeling. The intensity present in a storm is not something conferred by human consciousness and representing a human feeling or passion; it is a reality of nature. Rousseau would not agree with this particular point, as he states that to make a song about the sea, it would not be enough to simply record or replicate its sounds. We need to arrange a piece that evokes emotions similar to the sea and reminds us on a conscious level what the sea is like. Simply replicating nature is not enough; it is borrowing what has already been. Rousseau seems to suggest that before the creation of music, man did not contemplate the potential musical relationship of things (as we do now). Instead, he simply thought about the causes of that sound. The man did not stop to reflect on the musical quality of the lion's roar; he was more interested in recognizing and evading it. Objects are represented through the passions that the object would normally produce. And we, in turn, are open to those things to the extent that those passions are aroused in us and we feel this passion. In feeling this passion, we are open to the objects that are indicated and represented by the passion. If music is, as Rousseau interpreted, as a form that mirrors the flow of language, then music is a kind of language itself. Those who have not been introduced to forms of music like free-form jazz will not have the background to interpret that sonic experience as something meaningful. Being able to see the composition as something understandable is necessary to its understanding. Whether Rousseau would have seen jazz in free form, as music, is a moot point, but the passion present in his liberation is undeniable. It is an example of a form of music that holds to the idea that music is always an expression of man's emotions, but as it is ultimately a profusion of extemporaneous notes, it departs significantly from his interpretation of what constitutes a song musical sound and understandable. Rousseau's definition of music is based on how he viewed music in his time. If he were an individual living in the current period, it is doubtful that he would support a musical theory equally opposite to that created in the intervening period. Rousseau's theory of language and music must be respected in itself, as an attempt to narrate the emergence of music over time with respect to a criticism that has great relevance in the modern era. The structure that is seen in music is relevant to a particular one.