ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the aesthetic experience of a perceiver of any successful piece of art can be characterized as an "aesthetic trajectory," consisting at a minimum of three phases of familiarity, novelty, and synthesis. Acknowledging the existence of a biologically based aesthetic capacity, common to all humans, by no means forces one to exclude or ignore the profound cultural component of human artistic endeavor quite the contrary. Bioaesthetics needs further to incorporate some understanding of the social and cultural factors that shape, and in some cases wholly determine, the use of these capacities in the skilled viewer/listener. The chapter illustrates the value of notational systems in exploring cultural issues in aesthetics by considering the historical development of jazz notation. An empirical approach to aesthetics that sought to bridge the gaps between the different arts would lead rapidly to fascinating questions.
