Ontologies of Music

Abstract

Abstract Music may be what we think it is; it may not be. Music may be feeling or sensuality, but it may also have nothing to do with emotion or physical sensation. Music may be that to which some dance or pray or make love; but it’s not necessarily the case. In some cultures there are complex categories for thinking about music; in others there seems to be no need whatsoever to contemplate music. What music is remains open to question at all times and in all places. This being the case, any metaphysics of music must perforce cordon off the rest of the world from a privileged time and place, a time and place thought to be one’s own. Thinking—or even rethinking—music, it follows, is at base an attempt to claim and control music as one’s own.