MUSICAL PRAXIS AS CREATION OF VIRTUAL WORLDS

Juha Ojala, Ph.D. Professor at Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland

Times of turmoil and calamities highlight the necessity of ethics – “the science of right and wrong”, according to Charles S. Peirce (CP 1.191). In socio-cultural turmoil, it is not clear to all what is right and what is wrong, or what is the ultimate good for which we strive – or ought to strive. We have one biological life. We have one planet to inhabit. We should know the summum bonum. However, being short-sighted we may not see the consequences of our actions, nor do the egoistic and altruistic ultimate goods necessarily match. In our being-in-the-world, we are continuously engaged in inquiry that allows us to estimate the future. Yet, individual pragmatic inquiry takes us only so far, and the object of scientific inquiry tends to be “only” the actually existing world as it is or has been. 

Music is known to be an inherently social process, and effective e.g. in emotional self-regulation, well-being, negotiation of identity, social cohesion and societal change. We do not exactly know why. In this presentation, I argue for a conception of music as art that enables the exploration of subjective experience and of social aspects of life by creating virtual situations, acts and events – virtual worlds – for us to experience. By means of cognitive metaphors, situations in music stand for possible situations of the world, even in so-called non-programmatic music.

For example, the way melodic material is treated by Claude Debussy or Maurice Ravel as differentiated from the texture versus being twined in it may function as sign of a subjectʼs experience and utterance thereof (of e.g. inquisitiveness or sense of freedom) versus of a non-animate environment inhabited, both with their interpreted but different meanings. The juxtapositions of J. S. Bachʼs fugue subjects, with their embodied and sociocultural meanings, may in turn stand for the belief of and reliance on better times to come. Or, the structuring of tutti by Ludwig van Beethoven or Robert Schumann may send, e.g., messages of resilience, empowerment and agency of the suppressed righteous.

We may position ourselves as virtual subjects actively engaged in the situations, or as their empathetic observers. Musical praxis allows safe playing and testing, reflecting on and anticipating changes in the actual world. Analyzing – or perceiving and interpreting – the signs of subjective experiences and social aspects represented in music comes with input to the performerʼs praxis. 

Biography

Juha Ojala is professor of music performance research at the DocMus doctoral school of the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki (2018–). In 2021–2023, he also served as the vice dean of research and doctoral training at the Sibelius Academy. Prior to UniArts Helsinki, he was professor of music education at the University of Oulu, Finland (2014–2018), programme director in music education (2012–2018), and leader of the Community of Research in Education, Music, and the Arts (CREMA, 2013–2018). He obtained his Ph.D. from the U. of Helsinki (musicology), and earned master's degrees in piano, composition, and electronic & computer music at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. Before that, he studied at the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki (M.M., piano) and at the Liszt Academy, Budapest. He has broad teaching experience as lecturer and university lecturer in music (U. of Oulu 1993–2014), lecturer in music technology (SibA 1997–1998) and as teaching assistant in music theory (JHU 1990–1992). In 1995, he was awarded the University of Oulu good teacher award. He carries the title of Docent from the University of Helsinki (in musicology) and the University of Oulu (music education research).