Music

Ron Bombardi is a gifted philosopher and teacher, a fearless leader, and a trusted friend. He's also a very talented musician. This Fall he'll teach a course on the philosophy of music. He talked about it on a program broadcast by WMOT Sunday.

This is a hot topic lately. The Library of Congress has been sponsoring a series of lectures on music and the brain. Daniel Levitin says the world sings six (kinds of) songs. Steven Pinker says music is "auditory cheesecake."

Does music connect emotions and concepts? Does it express what concepts cannot? Does it need to be anything more than fun? Lots of intriguing questions here.

The great thing about the soundtracks of our lives is that they can be replayed, but each replaying may bring a new experience. And every new/old song can be thrilling in a unique way.

Besides being intrinsically delightful, music is the perfect metaphor of happiness in general. When William James deplored "the worm at the core of all our usual springs of delight," it was the music of life that he feared losing. But happily, he noted, most of us can find the "Play" button again. After suffering the "falling dead of the delight," we rebound: "the music can commence again;—and again and again—at intervals."

One of the things I love about morning is the reliably-recurrent tweeting of our avian companions. Theirs seem less labored than ours. There's a lesson.