ABSTRACT
This chapter examines a number of influential theories proposed by philosophers and musicologists as to the nature of these meanings and how mere sounds can have significance for certain listeners. In a review on the role of meaning in music, Ian Cross and Elizabeth Tolbert highlight different approaches to understanding meaning in music. Theoreticians concerned with the topic of meaning have formulated theories of meaning in music as well as for many other kinds of representations. J. Hospers and J. O. Urmson take for granted that knowledge of the world of nonmusical sounds, situations, and eventsshapes the way the music can be interpreted. On this view, the aesthetic and emotional appeal of nonrepresentational music remains a mystery. In everyday life, tensions are frequently unresolved, while in music, resolution of tensions is at the very heart of music as an experience. In ordinary life, the source of tension and the mode of resolution may be very different in general character.
