ABSTRACT
When one truly describes music as sequences of sounds or tones, it immediately seems mysterious how it could have the value for us that it does. Pure instrumental music does not (or need not) represent anything or inform us about anything. It does not teach us about ordinary life or the objects that occupy us within it. Unlike painting and literature, it is an essentially abstract art, lacking referential content and any direct relation to the world of ordinary objects. From literature we can learn how to react to real people by reacting to fictional characters, and we can learn to visually perceive the world in fresh ways by viewing paintings. But we learn nothing of ordinary sounds by listening to music; they only sound worse in comparison. Ordinary sounds can inform us of the nature and location of the objects that produce them, but we do not ordinarily listen to musical tones in order to gain such information. In listening we gain information neither about ourselves nor about the world, despite claims of some theorists to the contrary. And even if they are right and I am wrong about this, we certainly do not typically listen in order to gain such information. Instead, we are interested in organized tones for their own sake, at least when we are aesthetically interested. But why should we be?
