Music, existential aesthetics, 3

[GKCanman]

Unfortunately the music at the end has been spoiled for me because it reminds me too much about the mormon tabernacle choir. Its like when you've tried a new cereal with bad milk its hard to like the cereal ever again.

[athruzjohana]

i was in 12th grade. and i was playing a piece of music on stage. i had never experienced anything quite like it. the piece was watchman tellus of the night i believe. i never cried while playing my flute. i had never felt all the instruments in me. my flute connected me to all of these adolecent minds that i never even hung out with at school. but i felt... i can't even decribe it. ever since then i have felt that same feeling while making music. its...

[LPF767]

There are very few people on youtube who USE their brain to the extreme degree that you do and it's totally refreshing. You and Jonathan (adampants2008) are the perfect example of true deep thinkers, which there seems to be of little these days. I have been deeply enthralled with your videos for the past 2 hours! So long as America still has it's power and the net, please never stop speaking your mind outloud for us all. Thank you for the gift of YOU! Nameste~~~

[hoodboogaloo]

after one event of emotion had cease to be. the memory of that remained. in the memory and remembering, i experienced again but this time deeper.this was the case throughout the music. the places it moved me, the reflection upon the emotion moved me to seek something deeper.

[hoodboogaloo]

i was moved. marvin gaye - t plays it cool. while letting myself ride this experience i found a mirror and saw past experiences played in part. no colours or shapes, but reflection upon emotion. felt like an event after an event after one event of emotion cease to be.

[globetrvllr2]

Rational self-interest allows people to develop all of their faculties.

Cromwell and the Puritans closed theaters during the English civil wars.

[AlexShulhan123]

Beethoven's later works are the most expressive.

for example, the Grosse Fuge. That moves me, definately

[guitarfan67]

I find it harder to be moved when being forced (well, taking classes) to analyze, criticize and intellectualize art. =/ There should probably be some happy medium, or a way to separate viewing from a scholarly perspective and a personal perspective.

[thinkmorepink]

Again, what a lovely series. I am reminded every time you make a video, exactly why I subbed in the first place. "isn't it remarkable how a poem or story or music can become so much more than the particulars of the experience...an arrangement of color or sound..but can almost become a transportation"

When I am moved by music...I can close my eyes...and what would normally be darkness...I see color. Hues...a full spectrum...cycling...

Lovely

[gnosisandlight]

Ben.... have you been reading any CS Lewis by chance? If not google his sermon "The weight of Glory". Very similar to your argument here.

[HadeanAgent]

Bach moves me to no end. This is especially true when the music is played by a solo artist and he or she is trying their best to make sense out of the monumental complexity of the music before them. Glenn Gould's interpretation of Bach's Well-tempered Clavier is a perfect example of this. An excerpt of his recording was chosen to travel aboard an interstellar vehicle. If an alien civilization finds it however advanced, they will surely be impressed :)

[PianoIsTheRemedy]

I wanted to touch on religion a bit... And add to what you have said. I know that Beethoven derived some inspiration from Christianity... So many musicians and artists did in the classical period. I am reminded of Voltaire's "if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." Art is such a complex manifestation of human nature... One for which I find ineffable. Hence, my response to this piece by Beethoven is precisely that: what it does to me cannot be explained.

[PianoIsTheRemedy]

Really enjoyed this video. Harks back to our discussion the other day which I enjoyed equally. I wonder why some do not allow themselves to be moved or simply don't know how.

[Newton1692]

Schopenhauer.

[StevenErnest]

Imagination.

[rebyoshi]

Ben, somebody once told me that if an insect or cat looks at a painting of a forst they do not see a forest, they just see green paint. The ability to recognize patterns as representative of things is only a human ability. Is that true?

[scoutie111]

Ben-Thanks so much for this series. Allowing one's self the experience of being moved can be a scarey place; yes, it hurts sometimes. But better to have loved and lost...? Let's continue our discussion in KO. BTW,I got chills listening to B's 9th. Such beauty; it's overwhelming!

[TRAGlCHERO]

I feel music is an aesthetically refined emotion, sometimes wickedly melancholic, at others inspiring. Its as though it formulates those unexpressable emotions kept inside, and in so far as I identify and connect with them I feel understood, or perhaps I understand.

[naphra2]

I oftentimes find that things that deeply move me conjure up a mental state that represents something that is of importance, sometimes so that I can't tell what it actually is that is important about it; as if the whole emerged mental state were a direct symbol for the concept "important" itself.

[bubonicnate]

But, perhaps these abstractions are mearly side effects of more survival based talents - and are themselves not helpful at all? I love the sensations, but can't explain their possible use. Perhaps I am a sensation junkie...

[bubonicnate]

Individual songs are their own dimensions - self contained universes that I can return to at a whim of pressing play. Some are like a foreign planet and some are more home than home... almost always they make me feel more full somehow - less empty. Some bring up memories, some bring up hopes - and some are self contaned bits of different.