More Than Feelings

Some Key Concepts in Thinking About 'Musical Maturity'

Some people might read the words musical maturity and think them synonymous with musical snobbery. There are enough grumpy, musical snobs in the world for that stereotype to have some believability. Regardless, the goal of musical maturity is still worth pursuing. In this post, I would like to consider some key concepts important in pursuing musical maturity.

Balance of Subjective and Objective Beauty

The average person today likely unconsciously has bought into the notion that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” That is, “what I consider beautiful is intimately connected to me personally and not subject to the evaluation of others.” This subjective view of beauty (or aesthetics) is oriented to me as the individual or subject that perceives this piece of art, be it music, poetry, sculpture, etc. Do I find this piece beautiful to my eyes, ears, and personal standards of what pleases me in art or music? This is an essential element of beauty—how the individual perceives it. But it is not the only element, nor should it be overemphasized to the exclusion of all else like it often is in our culture today. Thomas Aquinas talked about subjective beauty with the Latin phrase, “id quod visum placet,” or “that which, upon being seen, pleases.” But Aquinas didn’t stop there. He also recognized the essential aspects of objective beauty.

If subjective beauty is oriented to the subject considering the art, then objective beauty seeks to get at what qualities of this piece of art make it beautiful to the beholders of it. This approach seeks to describe the qualities of something in an objective way that is not focused primarily on the individual viewing it. Here Thomas Aquinas lists “integritas, proportio or consonantia, and claritas,” or you could translate them, “unity/integrity, proportion, consonance, and clarity.”¹ The critical thing to note here is that these characteristics of “unity, proportion, and clarity” are concerned with measurable and describable qualities of the objects of music or art, whether or not I, as the individual (or the subject) viewing them, perceive them as such. This is another vital point. I may perceive it in a way never intended by the artist who made this work of art. My perceptions and proclivities are not infallible. They are subject to my flawed, sinful nature, just like the rest of my thinking is. I don’t wish to belabor that point here, but the point is worth keeping in mind in this discussion.

In any case, there ought to be a balanced approach to viewing beauty in music and art. A balanced or mature view seeks not to overemphasize beauty’s subjective or objective qualities. We live in a time that tends to overly emphasize the subjective instead of the objective.

‘Nothing More Than Feelings’

There are numerous reasons why our modern culture emphasizes subjective over objective beauty. For one, broadly speaking, we are not musically literate and do not possess enough skills to make, adequately understand, or even evaluate music. We can’t sing, read, or write music. We don’t understand the fundamental elements of music, such as pitch, rhythm, melody, harmony, form, texture, timbre, etc. How, therefore, can there be any mature discussion on music? As a result, our culture is left, as the song says, with “feelings, nothing more than feelings” when evaluating music’s artistic qualities. We are left to judge works of art in music by how they make us feel at that moment. This uninformed binary metric sees music as something I “like” or “don’t like.” It can’t really do more than that.

Honest Self-Awareness

We don’t know what we don’t know. We must be honest in how we regard our tastes and preferences in music. Are we liking something too much because of how we feel when we interact with it? Or perhaps because of its nostalgic connection to our past? Or are we seeking a balanced view that works toward both a subjective and objective understanding of beauty in music and in art?

Art is not neutral. It is always trying to express or communicate something. Even if a composer says, “this piece is not saying anything,” he or she is communicating that message of attempting to say nothing. Therefore we must seek to understand what is being expressed and not overly rely on our own fallible feelings and perceptions. This is the real test of musical maturity. Can you hold your likes and preferences up against objective standards and descriptions by others? Roman Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar rightly discerns that beauty is more vital than we Christians have thought.

“When we lose beauty, we find that truth becomes more brittle, and goodness loses its attractiveness” –Hans Urs von Balthasar.

By What Standard?

For the Christian, we have an objective standard of truth, goodness, and beauty. This incarnate example is the person of Jesus Christ. We look to him as The way, The truth, and The life, as the scriptures say.² As the source of all truth, goodness, and beauty, we must seek to understand more and more about His creation from His Word and revelation. We can’t fully “gaze upon the beauty of the Lord,” as Psalm 27:4 says, this side of eternity. Still, we should make it our business to bring our likes, desires, and preferences into as much conformity with the standards of beauty the scriptures describe.

Do I believe that there is an objective standard of beauty? Yes! Am I able to articulate what that standard is entirely? No! Still, I have to be about wisdom and maturity when it comes to music and all of art.

Conclusion

There is likely no quarrel with the statement that the goal for every Christian should be wisdom and maturity. This should be as true in music as in every other good and profitable endeavor we undertake. Ultimately musical maturity, like wisdom, looks outside ourselves to objectively assess what the scriptures call true, good, and beautiful. In doing so, it seeks to understand what is “better” and “best” in fuller ways than mere distinctions of good/bad or like/dislike are able to do.

Musical maturity means we seek a balanced subjective and objective understanding of musical beauty—a balance that can’t only be found in my own personal perceptions and understanding of music and art. Ultimately, it is a maturity that must look to the “Word made flesh,” who is the source and standard of all that is true, good, and beautiful. Only in Him will we be able to make any meaningful progress and maturity in what beauty is.

1. See Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica, Book 1, Question 39, Article 8.

2. John 14:6