Open AccessFission and Fusion: From improvisation to formalism in law and music
Author(s) -
Desmond Manderson
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
critical studies in improvisation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1712-0624
DOI - 10.21083/csieci.v6i1.1167
Subject(s) - parallels , improvisation , performative utterance , novelty , formalism (music) , legitimacy , conjunction (astronomy) , sociology , epistemology , law , aesthetics , psychology , literature , political science , art , social psychology , musical , philosophy , visual arts , mechanical engineering , politics , engineering , physics , astronomy
Law and classical music are both performative disciplines. Both became concerned with practices of textual interpretation, and with questions of the authority of those texts and the legitimacy of those interpretations. But exactly how did that happen, and with what social consequences? The relationship between law and music across the centuries shows striking parallels and echoes. If we study them carefully each can illuminate the other, binding them together so that we can see them as two aspects of the same process and the same histories. The insights we gain from the novelty of their conjunction help us to understand these social changes better and differently. This conjunction will also help us see how much our disciplinary blinkers prevent us from observing the far-reaching social forces which these cultural practices at each moment both echo and animate.