Music as a Chariot

Chapter 4

What Is Music?

Introduction: What’s in a Name?

It is the essential uniqueness of human experience, our perception of time in particular, that makes our insistence on defining the word “aesthetic” as “how we perceive the world through our senses” so critical. Each of us perceives the world differently, first because of the uniqueness of our eyes and ears, but more importantly, because of how our brains process the information provided by those senses. And while there is a lot to be said for playwright José Rivera’s description of theatre as “collective dreaming,” we must acknowledge that only the stimulus is the same for each audience member¹ (Svich 2013, 47). What happens inside each person’s brain is undeniably unique and different. ...