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The same strange illusion which we are under when we seem to seek the
something which a face expresses whereas, in reality, we are giving
ourselves up to the features before us,– – that same illusion
possesses us even more strongly if repeating a tune to ourselves and
letting it make its full impression on us, we say, “This
tune says something”, and it is as though I had to find
what it says.
And yet I know that it doesn't say anything in which I might
express in words or pictures what it says.
And if, recognizing this, I resign myself to saying, “It
just expresses a musical thought”, this would mean no more than
saying, “It expresses itself.” ‒ ‒
“But surely when you play it you don't play it
anyhow, you play it in this particular way, making a crescendo
here, a diminuendo there, a caesura in this place,
etc.”‒ ‒
Precisely, and that's all I can say about it, or may be all
that I can say about it.
For in certain cases I can justify, explain the particular expression
with which I play it by a comparison, as when I say, “At
this point of the theme, there is, as it were, a colon”, or,
“This is, as it were, the answer to what came
before”, etc.
(This, by the way, shews what a “justification”
and an “explanation” in aesthetics is
like.)
It is true I may hear a tune played and say,
“This is not how it ought to be played, it goes like
this”; and I whistle it in a different tempo.
Here one is inclined to ask, “What is it like to know
the tempo in which a piece of music should be played?”
And the idea suggests itself that there must be a paradigm
somewhere in our mind, and that we have
139.
adjusted the tempo to conform to
that paradigm.
But in most cases if someone asked me, “How do you think
[y|t]his melody should be played?”, I will as an
answer just whistle it in a particular way, and nothing will have
been present to my mind but the tune actually whistled (not
an image of that). | | |