Censorship in music
In Eduard Hanslicks book On the Beautiful in Music, the chapter titled Music and Nature argues that music is not a part of nature, but rather a man made art form. Hanslick believes that all aspects of music are created in the human mind and are not a part of nature.Hanslick suggests that music has fundamental 'building blocks', which cannot be found in nature. He (Hanslick) believes that the sounds in nature are not musical they are just natural sounds. He goes on to say that mankind heard these sounds and attempted to duplicate them, which is how mankind got the first musical notes. To be music it must poses melody and harmony, which is tones, not just sounds. The two main 'building blocks', melody and harmony, cannot b
" The composer can remodel nothing; he must create everything ab initio" (p112). Hanslick suggests that these 'building blocks' of music are created in the human mind rather than in some aspect of nature. Hanslick believed that the third 'building block', rhythm, even though it can be found in nature, is not the same type of rhythm that music possess. Music is a man made creation in which nature did not contribute to. Hanslick felt that music was different from all other forms of art in the respect that music could not be associated with nature. Hanslick said that because music was so unlike the other art forms, in this aspect, that music was in a class of its own. It is because of music's disassociation with nature that makes it so unique from all other forms of art (p116) " All the natural sounds in the world are powerless to produce a single musical theme, simply because they are not music, and it is significant that music can only enlist nature into its service if it wants to dabble in the art of painting". He states that unlike art, music was unable to take anything from nature. The main argument that Hanslick is making in this chapter is that music and nature are not one in the same. To be music it must posses certain characteristics, which are impossible to be found in nature. An artist could perhaps look at something beautiful and paint it, whereas a musician must create something in his mind. Hanslick states (p112) " There is nothing beautiful in nature as far as music is concerned", meaning that there is no aspect of nature in which one could arrive at beautiful music. e found in nature; " Melody is not to be met with in nature, even in its most rudimentary form"(p105). He feels that musical rhythm is dependant on harmony and melody, whereas natural rhythm just occurs and is dependant on nothing, " But the point in which natural rhythm differs from human music is obvious: in music there is no independent rhythm; it occurs only in connection with melody and harmony expressed in rhythmical order" (p106).
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