Towards A Metamusic

Abstract

Today's technocrats and their followers treat music as a message which the composer (source) sends to a listener (receiver). In this way they believe that the solution to the problem of the nature of music and of the arts in general lies in formulae taken from information theory. Drawing up an account of bits or quanta of information transmitted and received would thus seem to provide them with ‘objective’ and scientific criteria of aesthetic value. Yet apart from elementary statistical recipes this theory—which is valuable for technological communications—has proved incapable of giving the characteristics of aesthetic value even for a simple melody of J. S. Bach. Identifications of music with message, with communication and with language are schematisations whose tendency is towards absurdities and desiccations. Certain African tom-toms cannot be included in this criticism, but these are exceptional. Hazy music cannot be forced into too precise a theoretical mould. It may be possible later, when present theories have been refined and new ones invented.

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