Fundamenta Musicae | Center for Musical Philosophy and Humanities

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The book is an introduction to Eero Tarasti’s works on music, as well as musical semiotics in general. It covers a wide range of sources from multiple disciplinary fields in order to familiarize the reader with the basic language and common references of semiotic inquiries in music. Starting with the basics of structural and Peircian semiotics, theories of discourse, topic theory and others, and their application to music, the book moves on to discuss their interpretation in Tarasti’s decade-long oeuvre.

Article / 2023

Music in Ancient Greek Philosophy and the Possibility of the Question of Musical Being

Harry Rangelov

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The question of what Being itself is finds its roots already in Parmenides, whose theses serve as the point of departure for Plato and, in this sense, for Aristotle and a large part of subsequent ancient Greek thought. At the foundation of this question lie two pairs of antithetical determinations: One–Many; Eternal–Temporal. When Parmenides, and after him Plato, attempt to understand Being through these essential characteristics, they encounter profound semantic ambiguities.

Already at this initial level of problematizing Being, music plays a particularly important role for the human soul and its dispositions. In the Republic, it prepares the guardians either for battle or for rest; in the Timaeus, it is responsible for the proper tuning of the human soul according to the proportions of the celestial spheres. These spheres contain within themselves the proportions closest to perfection, being the first reflection of the Eternity of the One; thus, the role of music as the bearer and transmitter of these proportions—from the heavens to the human soul—proves crucial also for the understanding of Logos itself. The fallen human being struggles to return to its perfect Being, and it turns out that, apart from reason, music too grants access to that Being.

In Plato, however, this access remains unexplained; the relation of music to eternity is abstractly clear but practically obscure. Music is presented as the art of correct proportion, yet also as the art of time, since it finds its concrete existence only during performance. How, then, do eternal proportions relate to the temporal nature of music? And why, in the Republic, is its function reduced to a merely ethical one, whereas in the later Timaeus its function acquires ontological significance—it tunes the soul according to perfect proportions?

Already against the background of classical Greek thought, the problem of musical being is discernible and possible. The greatest example is Aristoxenus, a student of Aristotle, who was the first to ground theoretical knowledge of music in hearing (and not in reason). For the first time, he places the question of Being—initiated by Parmenides—on an entirely different foundation. In this short paper, I shall attempt to articulate precisely this musical foundation: the one Aristoxenus establishes, arising from the humus of an already developed classical problematic of Being, and the one that makes the question of Musical Being possible.

Monograph / 2023

The Musicologically Rational and the Musically Rational

Музикално-философски анализ на феномена „цялост“ в музиката. Феноменологически подход

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The present study aims to identify and articulate a point of intersection between science and the activity of “music.” The integration of science, musicology, and music within a common thematic field is achieved by examining the concept of “scientific rationality,” understood as a normative concept of correct (rigorous, logical) thinking, correct conduct, or their mutual correspondence. From this perspective, musicologically rational denotes a conception of correct musicological thinking, whereas musically non-rational refers to music itself in its unfolding.

Musically non-rational contains rigor—musical rigor, musical logic—that does not lend itself to scientific verification, yet at the same time constitutes the fundamental point of orientation for musicological rigor. Given that the musically rational (the musically logical) is part of the musically non-rational, some of the discrepancies between classical scientificity and musicology may be viewed less as an inability of the latter to meet the methodological criteria of the philosophy of science, and more as a relativistic stance taken by the former toward its objects of inquiry.

Thesis/Dissertation / 2023

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The thesis examines the phenomenon of “wholeness” in music from a musical-phenomenological perspective, while raising the question of the methodological foundations which make possible music phenomenology’s approach to this phenomenon. The main thesis of the dissertation is that in order to perceive wholeness in music, the I must first identify with it. Musical experience suggests that wholes in music have no musical meaning if the I perceiving them does not identify with them. In this identification, however, the I and music are no longer separate – for example, as poles in a subject-object structure – but are one. Hence, a musical-phenomenological analysis of the phenomenon of “wholeness” in music reveals wholeness not as a property of music as “object,” but as a property of the relation between I and music. Musical wholeness is the wholeness of the relation between I and music. The thesis confirms this position in the lifeworld testimonies of a number of prominent nineteenth- and twentieth-century musical practitioners and theoreticians, and then proceeds to a phenomenological analysis in order to highlight musical wholeness as a fundamental given of musical phenomenology.

Article / 2022

Organic Wholeness in Heinrich Schenkers's Lehre

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The theme of organic wholeness in music is central to Heinrich Schenker’s theory. According to the early Schenker, music is not organic, since it lacks causality and logic; yet its entire effect rests on its imitation of natural organicity. In his later works, the theorist perceives music as an organic whole founded upon natural laws. Throughout the development of his theory of wholeness, Schenker conceives of organicity as an “objective” given, essentially independent of any conscious or subjective activity. Consciousness, he argues, can only contaminate the organic whole; therefore, if the composer or performer wishes to grasp musical wholeness, they must approach music instinctively rather than consciously. Instinct, however, is also naturally determined—it is a gift and, ultimately, a matter of genius, but a genius grounded in the laws inherent in objectively pre-given nature. Thus, the role of the I in relation to music—the composer, performer, or listener (including the analyst)—is reduced to the “passive” witnessing of music’s immanent organicity. If a subject perceives wholeness in music, it is the result of their complete (instinctive) “absorption” in the organic whole.

Article / 2022

The Phenomenon of Musical Identification. A View From Heidegger's Early Phenomenology

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The starting point of the following article are statements by various prominent musical performers of the 20th century who have testified to the life-experience of musical identification, i.e. the experience of unity and oneness with music. The purpose of the article is to explore the phenomenological implications of this experience on the basis of Martin Heidegger’s early phenomenological work. The article compares Heidegger’s early view of phenomenal givenness with that of Edmund Husserl. While Husserl sees phenomenal givenness as constituted by (transcendental) consciousness, Heidegger finds primary givenness in the resonance (Mitschwingen) between the I and its lifeworld. I argue that in Heidegger’s early phenomenology it is not the subject, but rather the relatio between I and world, which “constitutes” givenness. This viewpoint allows for the exploration of musical identification as a life-experience. Musical identification suspends the difference between subject and object. In musical identification, it is the relation between “I” and music, which is constitutive of both. Thus, music cannot be adequately grasped in phenomenological terms if it is regarded simply as an object, which is the premise of more traditional phenomenological approaches to music such as Roman Ingarden’s and Mikel Dufrenne’s. Ingarden and Dufrenne both position music at a distance from the subject, as something to be explored in its objective characteristics, without presupposing the constitutive relation between them. Contrary to them, Hans-Heinrich Eggebrecht, Günther Anders and Ilya Yonchev all recognize that the subject-object divide is insufficient for the exploration of musical experience. However, while Eggebrecht ultimately remains within the subject-object-dichotomy, Anders and Yonchev both develop the idea of musical Mitsein, or Being-with-music, which dispenses with the subject-object premise altogether and interprets musical life-experience as a mode of Being within which the sense of the I and musical sense coincide.

Article / 2021

Antheil and Musical Wholeness in the Work of A. B. Marx

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A major theme in Adolf Bernhard Marx’s work is the idea that music has sense only to one who “participates” in it. According to Marx, musical Antheil – i.e. participatory belonging-to – is at the foundation of every musical activity, such as composing, performing, or listening (including listening analytically and critically), in its authenticity. The German word “Ant(h)eil” reflects on the participatory nature of this relation – the person or I, who relates to music, “has a part” in music, is fundamentally partial to it. In Marx’s thought, musical Antheil embraces both the spiritual and the sensual part of the person, i.e. it engages the totality of the person. Conversely, music also has an “inner”, spiritual side, its content or Idee, and an “outer”, sensual side, its form. The musical whole is, according to Marx, the unity of musical content and form, which, however, always involves the Antheil of the I to this given whole. Thus, Antheil is a fundamental aspect of musical wholeness itself – it is only within the I, which participates in music and is “partial” to it, that music can be “whole”. Thus, Marx’s account of musical Antheil is arguably a reflection of what in the following text is called musical identification – the living, immediate state of identification between the I and music. Musical identification is a primary condition for understanding musical content and, by extension, musical form. Musical wholeness is not just a characteristic of music itself, but a characteristic of the relation between the I and music.

Thesis/Dissertation / 2021

An Attempt at a Hermeneutic Analysis of Music Education Based on the Philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer

Harry Rangelov

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In this text, I will use Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics as the basis for a music-educational position in which the place of music in human life and in education will be delineated. Proper philosophical hermeneutics deals with the limits of human knowledge and the methods through which it is acquired and interpreted. In a music-philosophical context, hermeneutics defends the idea that musical being comes alive only in the act of musical engagement, characterised by complete devotion and playfulness. In such an engagement, the state of lived experience comes to the forefront—an experience that presupposes a unique and concrete temporality.

Time, however, is treated in multiple ways within philosophical hermeneutics. When it comes to the phenomenal temporality of musical experience, it is always here and now; in it, all subject–object relations fall away—the person and the musical share one and the same being. In music, this temporality is clearly perceptible, since music, as a temporal art, requires from everyone (performers, listeners) full devotion and inner activity in the present moment.

But philosophical hermeneutics also includes another, equally important mode of time: historicality. To accept the tradition and culture (in their concrete and unique context) of each epoch, each time; to recognise their interconnectedness; and to understand how music and human thought about music change in different periods—this constitutes the hermeneutic perspective on historicality.

Musical experience requires a sensus communis (common sense), through which one senses, internalises, and understands the musical. This sensus communis represents an inner disposition of the person, dependent on their social environment and concrete historicality. Such a sense presupposes an educated society in order to be realised, for society must serve as the soil in which the “common” of this sense can emerge. Building the education of society—forming this sense—is a task of utmost importance, assumed precisely by education.

Education, in turn, needs a clear model through which to guide itself—a truth, a criterion by which a person becomes educated, that is, develops and sharpens this sense; and all educational means, through the path of experience, must direct the person toward an educated experience. Gadamer’s hermeneutics invites us to assume that if, in a game or an experience, something is disclosed to us that cannot be disclosed otherwise, then the experience itself contains knowledge. Aesthetic experience, characterised above all by such playful engagement, must therefore also contain knowledge, an image, and a model.

Only music—as a bearer of aesthetic and moral value—can serve as the foundation for music education. The claim that music can provide a model, that one can be educated through it, can rest only on the foundations of a truly common sense. From this standpoint, play—as a mode of human relation to the world in which subject–object distinctions dissolve; play, which is the primary mode of being of the musical work and the very place where musicality lives—emerges as the essential means of education.

Education must make use of musicality and play, which reside within lived experience, for its own purposes—but in such a way that the inherent purposiveness of the play act is not destroyed, for play itself can never be a means, but only an end. Any criterion imposed from outside appears contentless from the standpoint of play and experience.

For an excerpt from the thesis, click “Download” below.

Monograph / 2021

Methodological Foundations of Eero Tarasti's Musical Semiotics

Christian Vassilev , Emil Devedjiev

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The book is an introduction to Eero Tarasti’s works on music, as well as musical semiotics in general. It covers a wide range of sources from multiple disciplinary fields in order to familiarize the reader with the basic language and common references of semiotic inquiries in music. Starting with the basics of structural and Peircian semiotics, theories of discourse, topic theory and others, and their application to music, the book moves on to discuss their interpretation in Tarasti’s decade-long oeuvre.

Collection / 2021

Musical development and music education

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Musical Development and Music Education (Riva, 2021) offers an experimentally grounded psychological overview of how children develop musically and how that knowledge can sharpen classroom practice. The authors frame the book around two pressing pedagogical realities—the gap between teachers’ experiences and children’s musical worlds, and policy-driven regulation of schooling—arguing that developmental music psychology can orient curricula and methods more reliably. The volume spans eight chapters: two methodological and six thematic. It introduces core cognitive perspectives (Chomsky, Piaget, Bruner; the mind–brain problem) and contrasts them with behaviorist approaches to learning and classroom management to situate today’s research landscape. It then synthesizes stage-based models of musical growth (Gardner; Swanwick & Tillman; Hargreaves) and theories of children’s musical thinking (Serafine; Bamberger), highlighting implications for instruction. Early musical perception—from prenatal to infancy—is mapped across spectral (pitch, scales, harmony) and temporal (rhythm, meter) structures. A central concept is musical enculturation: how culture narrows perception and how education can broaden children’s “code” repertoires across Western and traditional idioms, a question with particular relevance for Bulgaria. The closing chapters review how training shapes competence and how musicians differ cognitively from non-musicians, the links between musical ability and language (phonological orientation, dyslexia), and mechanisms of musical emotion across ages. Intended for educators and researchers, the book functions as a compact guide to current evidence with direct classroom relevance.

Article / 2021

Social projections in the music classroom

Article / 2018

Linguistic Analogies in Edwin Gordon’s Theory of Early Childhood Music Development

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The text outlines the central ideas in Edwin Gordon’s theory of early childhood music development through an analysis of his linguistic analogies. According to Gordon, the first nine years of life are crucial for shaping a child’s musical potential, which is initially fluid but gradually stabilizes. Optimal development requires musical learning to occur in a natural, spontaneous, and intensive manner, analogous to first-language acquisition. Gordon identifies four “musical vocabularies”: listening, singing/rhythm chanting, audiation–improvisation, and music literacy, emphasizing the foundational role of the first two, formed earliest in life. At the core of his theory stands the concept of audiation—the process of internally hearing and understanding music, which underlies all musical actions. Gordon argues that musical development is often hindered by the dominance of verbal practice, which obstructs the spontaneous emergence of the singing voice. Therefore, early home music-making is essential for establishing musical experience and understanding. The text highlights the need for music pedagogy to recognise its unique nature, distinct from verbal instruction, and to adopt educational approaches grounded in the natural mechanisms of children's musical learning.

Article / 2018

On the Impossibility of Harmony to Pass Beyond the Musical

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Many existing understandings of harmony place it in a sphere beyond the strictly musical—for example, when harmony is linked to the fundamental ground of things, or when we sense in it a possibility of grasping the unity of the whole (τὸ πᾶν, totum). Here such understandings are called into question. The corresponding views of harmony—as a theoretical, pedagogical, and practical discipline, as well as within compositional practice—are examined in the tension between the rational striving for comprehensiveness in harmony and the perception of the consonance of sounds within the musical act.

From the perspective of musical practice, thematizing harmony and its foundations is problematic because it is unclear whether theoretical formulations arise from reflection on something actually heard, or whether they are merely constructs of self-sufficient rationality. Detached from the context of living music, where their prototype lies, musical modes still carry their substance, yet the use of predetermined or abstract theoretical models in creative activity condemns the composer to closedness and limitation.

Conversely, imitation within the tradition—arising from admiration and reverence for that which transcends us—can illuminate the original in tradition in an entirely new way; and our task is only to preserve it without altering it, and to perfect it while safeguarding it. Innovation arises from the unrepeatable manner in which the performer or devotee relates to that which they feel an impulse to imitate. In such a case, for the composer the work becomes an open system, and its goal lies beyond the system itself.

Study / 2018

The Upbringing of the Creative Person as a Goal of Education and the Forms of Compulsion in Normative Educational Communication

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The present text proceeds from the concept of creative personality, which is defined by the creative talent intrinsic to every child. It is not related to a particular (artistic) activity, but to the primal capacity of every person to re-create themselves. From a pedagogical standpoint, such an assumption accepts that the upbringing of a person as a goal of instruction is conditioned by the nurturing of the creative gifts of the child. In school, group work requiers a group-appropriate approach, as well as the appropriation of regulative mechanisms by the system. The article describes some of them as functioning forms of compulsion, which disable the child to unfold its creative potential and contradict basic assumptions about education, which have remained unchanged from Antiquity to this day

Article / 2017

Тerminological inconsistencies in functional theory in the methodology of its teaching

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Function is a fundamental principle of functional theory, not just mapping the musical sense of the unique being that cannot be penetrated from the outside. Terminological discrepancies manifest as either the same term with different meanings or different terms with the same meaning. The issue is not the discrepancy, which is inevitable, but the claim for a more rigorous scholarly approach or stricter taxonomy to resolve the inability to find suitably precise terminology. This essay traces inconsistencies in the work of advocates of functional theory, such as Parashkev Hadjiev, Evgenii Avramov, Hugo Riemann, Herman Erpf and Sigfrid Karg-Elert, by comparing systems with degrees to those with degrees and functions. In practice, scale degrees and their harmonic identities are also functional. I argue that function in musical experience is not an abstract concept but the perception of a particular chord. The mind may determine the existence of a phenomenon in what has already been heard, but it does not have to manipulate it according to related artificial rational schemes. Harmony teaching should therefore take the simplest route and shorten the journey to perception. For example, the dominant first degree (DI) may more appropriately be described as the cadential six-four chord. In this way confusion of the principal harmonies T and D (the first and fifth degree) can be avoided. While questions about proper student guidance and avoiding confusion are considered, they still remain open.

Article / 2016

Methodological Relativism in Epistemology as a Problem of Musicological Rationality

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The question of methodological relativism in epistemology illustrates one of the most serious problems in music-related research, namely the reduction of the cognitive relation to music to the purely scientific characteristics of its elements, particularly to those of the natural sciences. If musicological rationality is a form of cognitive relation that, on the one hand, remains grounded in musical experience and, on the other, stands in relation to epistemology and the sciences, the following question arises:

How can musicological rationality remain knowledge of music through musical experience without turning into knowledge of abstract objects through scientific method?

In other words, how can we avoid the methodological relativism of scientific investigation and remain guided by music itself?

Article / 2016

Modulation as the Basis of Musical Form in the Context of Hugo Riemann’s Doctrine

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In the following text the author makes an analogue between the modulation theories of Hugo Riemann and Parashkev Hadjiev as representatives of two different schools of harmony, as well as their different positions concerning the fundamental connection: modulation - musical form, with the focus on Riemann's 'Systematische Modulationslehre als Gmndlage der musikalischen Formenlehre' ('Harmony Simpliüed orthe Theory ofthe Tonal Functions of Chords.') According to Riemann, modulation is no more than functional interpretation (Umdeutung der Funktionen) in the meaning of a new explication, or change of functional meaning, while in Parashkev Hadjiev modulation is a transition to the new; it is fully formed and established with a cadential tonality. For Riemann the genesis of large forms is in small structures, i.e., cadences. Thus, according to Riemann, the difference between intermediate cadences and modulation is only in size but not in content. In a static tonal center as tonic, different tonalities appear only as different levels of extended harmony according to their functional meaning, in Riemann's terminology. The author follows different harmonic phenomena in the meaning of potential or real modulation as: cadence and its different forms of extensions (for example, using intermediate dominants and pedal points), tonal jumps (Tonalitätssprünge) and modulation. The text takes into account the differences with our harmony school - for example, the so-called (Rückgang) in Riemann, which returns us to the original tonality.

Article / 2016

Musical Act and Rational Investigation

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The article is concerned with the question whether music is accessible to rational investigation. The musicological answer is reduced to the efforts to examine what happens in the musical act because it is the only event in which the relation with music is possible. The musical act is the defining moment, but the tradition of rational investigation has always been associated with the possibility of a self-contained investigation of this act as a set of elements, characteristics and regularities. This tradition is born in the philosophy of Antiquity as an attempt to deduce terms and conditions for music, which do not match the spontaneity of the musical act and the immediate rendez-vous with music. Among all types of rationality, only the musicological rational has the advantage of being capable of seeing musical „rigor" (accuracy, order, etc.) as supra-rational, insofar as it goes beyond the theoretical rigor and testifies to regularities of a completely different order. The question of the rational in music is valid only because the musical act follows regularities, but musical regularity (Gesetzmäßigkeit) is beyond the regularities accessible to the rational.

Article / 2016

The Idea of Musical Philosophy

Ilya Yonchev

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While taking into account the millenia-old intuitions about the relationship between music and philosophy, the present text aims at rethinking music as an uncompromising and resolute point of departure for a philosophy of human existence. The underlying position of this philosophy is one that eludes the tyrannical ubiquity of language and is not subject to linguistic speculations or manipulations. Its explicit orienting point is the decisive role of the immediate musical experience in its self-evident (for the musician) validity. The possibility to think about music freely and legitimately is sought in the primordial musical-philosophical advantage of the music-maker - taken in himself, and at the same time doubtlessly inseparable from the musical act. In view of its stated aims, the text addresses mainly questions about the boundaries of the musical, about every legitimate "residence" within its sphere and about every "illegitimate" approach to music - such as talking about music from the vantage point of a research field, a specific discipline or method. Musical philosophy strives to highlight music before any theoretical constructs have been superimposed on it (e.g. musicological, philosophical-historical, psychological, culturological, etc.). That is why musical philosophy always takes into consideration its own underlying foundations and incessantly tests whether they remain musical in a non-musical millieu. It views music primarily as a mode of "residing" which cannot be described and approached by means of contingent premises, and which unequivocally imposes its own ways of self-evident sensing; this mode presupposes an unique and in-the-music-act personal position - participation, which, however, does not vanish in other modes of existence, but sets a horizon pointing to the arche principles of human contact (encounter) with the world.

Article / 2016

The Pedagogical Character of Music

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The text examines pedagogicity as a principle (στοιχεῖον) inherent to musical activity and as the bearer of the secret of musical devotion. For musical pedagogicity, music is a mode of being and dwelling that reveals our continual capacity to alter ourselves, to be transformed. This pedagogicity naturally precedes any pedagogical abstract metaphysics—that is, the originally objectified and structurally presupposed pedagogy of traditional education.

The thesis of the article is that in the musical act we constantly and unfailingly choose one among all the possibilities of being. Often this choice has already been made and prefigures the kind of music we wish to hear. Music attracts and astonishes us to such an extent that it confronts us with a question implicit in the very act of making music: “How can I be in this way?” The encounter with music is an “encounter-question,” since it inevitably touches our existential, life-defining choice.

Insofar as, simply stated, we “cannot do without music,” answering this question is one of our human responsibilities. My conscious “What do I play?” and accordingly “What do I listen to?” is not so much an expression of whim or even taste, but an articulated, responsible reception of a world and a position within that world. In music we continuously bear witness to ourselves—to how and who we are (or choose to be).

Article / 2014

The Eastern Orthodox Singing “Ψαλτική” and its Epistemological Approach: Possibilities and Limits

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The paper has two parts. The first examines critically the assumption that the Christian singing known as ψαλτική (hereafter psaltiki) is or can be an autonomous science. The second is about the same singing, but as a subject of teaching and learning. In the first part, the focus is on the fundamental modern understanding of what is science as crucial for the general methodological question facing vocal musical phenomena. The second is focused on psaltiki as an oral tradition which has to be approached systematically by means of a proper method. Thus, the two parts are organized from the general to the particular. This following of the "objective approach" is an attempt to recognize the individual and characteristic place of psaltiki in musicology without, at the same time, excluding it from the general field of any science and, consequently, from the field of (musical) hermeneutics.

Monograph / 2013

Theoretical Aspects of Functional Harmony

Disciplina musica и музикално мислене през втората половина на XIII и началото на XIV вв. – три трактата: латински, гръцки и арабски

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With the antennas of his remarkable musical sensitivity, Diamandiev captures the crescendo of a music-theoretical tendency — the tendency to confine harmony within the realm of the rational. Functional harmony is almost the ideal example: from its very definition (“functional”), it shows that it deals with the performance of a role and the handling of meanings, and thus relies on convention, rule, and abstraction — concepts detached from what is actually heard.

What the musician lacks under such conditions is sound itself, the tonal substance. It is precisely the tonal substance that becomes an indispensable condition, a primary point of orientation, and a fundamental concept in the author’s work. Harmony unfolds in the relationship between the tonal substance of the chord and its function, between the sonic reality and its rational interpretation.**

From a review by Kristina Yapova

Habilitation / 2012

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The study seeks to uncover the musical thinking that produced three texts by different musical communities within a single historical period. Starting from the premise that in musical treatises such thinking may be revealed or concealed—that is, explicitly present, implicitly present, or excluded from consideration altogether—it aims to determine to what extent the musical dimension is preserved in scholarly texts. The three music treatises presented are: (1) a Latin Anonymous, (2) Book II (“Harmonics”) of the Treatise on the Four Sciences, or Quadrivium, by George Pachymeres, and (3) the Book of Circles by Safi al-Din al-Urmawi. Historically, the relationship between disciplina musica and musical thought is examined with reference to a period that was exceptionally formative for the entire Mediterranean and, in particular, for the interpretation of musical experience and for musical thought. The central question to which I seek an answer—philosophically, theoretically, and pedagogically—is why the Latin, Greek, and Arabic texts, all of which begin with the division of the string and thus appear to profess fidelity to ancient Greek musical science, are in their outcomes so different—indeed, different to the point of estrangement.

Article / 2011

Phenomenological Projections of the Musical

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The phenomenological view focuses directly on the immediate grounds of things; correspondingly, the phenomenological projections of the musical aim at highlighting the immediate foundations of music activities and references, at highlighting the immediate grounds of music itself. In light of the phenomenological view, the encounter with the musical is possible only in the musical immersion itself, the musicalisation. The rational relations concerning the musicalisation lie outside it. They do not reach it, nor comprise it. Conversely, the division of matters into musical and non-musical is based on the musicalisation. And since the only evidence of its exictence is the very act of its accomplishment, the issue of musicalisation comes down to the issue of my own musicalisation. The musicalised I is the core issue of the musical.

Monograph / 2010

The Musical Thought of Antiquity and the Church Fathers

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Dissertation of Yordan Banev for the award of the educational and scientific degree “Doctor”.

Turning to “musical thought” requires methodological clarity. We need an approach capable of revealing essential sonic dispositions that encompass the forms of diverse spiritual domains, united under common names such as ancient music and patristic chant. The need for a correct methodology arises from the speculative tendency to identify the thinking of music with the thinking about music.

With this in mind, the approach in the dissertation is phenomenological, but situated within the sphere of the musical itself, which makes it specifically different from philosophical phenomenological methods. Through this approach, the conceptual examination of musical thought refers to the thought of a life disclosed in music — a musically lived wholeness that can be seen only from within itself.

Consequently, the term “musical thought” will conceptually refer to the thinking of (within) musical phenomena themselves. It will be understood as the thinking of music (cogitatio musicae) in the same way that “vocal thought” does not mean the thinking about singing and singers, but the thinking that occurs within singing itself.

To download the dissertation abstract, click “Download” below.

Download the first part of the dissertation here.

Article / 2009

The Musical Unity Between Philosophy, Rite (Mystery), and Death

Article / 2009

The Therapeutic Use of Music in Islamic Culture: Parallels to Ancient Greek Thought

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The care to establishing good disposition of soul and body through the therapeutic use of music was central to the great masters of Ancient Greek and Islamic thought, who analysed in detail how the different types of music correspond to the different conditions of the soul. Music performance was constantly adjusted to the ‘inner instrument of the soul’ - in the person playing and in the listeners -in accordance with the theory of makam (the Ancient Greek tropos, or the Byzantine ihos). The aim was to bring all persons involved in the music event to inner spiritual harmony. Among the most illustrious representatives of the venerable music therapy tradition are: Pythagoras (580-500 BC), Saint Romanos Melodos (died c. AD 556), Al-Faraby (AD 870-950), Avicena (Ibn Sina, AD 980-1037) and Mevlana Rumi (AD 1207-1273). This article focuses on the Islam tradition which developed the earliest most systematic exposition of the therapeutic use of music.

Monograph / 2009

Тhe Musical Meaning

Ilya Yonchev

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By rejecting reflective observation as an expression of futile musicological “epistemological optimism” (futile because it operates with a “fully observable,” “petrified” object), fundamental musicology in Ilya Yonchev’s understanding points to another way of grasping musical utterance, the musical work, and musical interpretation as modes of musical being. Thus, the object of fundamental musicology becomes the description of the musical apprehension of being.

This description or investigation of musical meaning is possible only as transcendental and ontological, because it is carried out from the only possible meaning-constituting position—“my position as subject of the musical event itself,” that is, my being drawn into the musical. And only when this existential musical situatedness is apprehended ontologically can discourse arise. But not in a “positivistically scientific manner,” i.e., from an external standpoint; rather, it must arise “through a truth-constituting holding-within the musical meaning and through its own conceptuality, whose elaboration requires effort in order to bring it to the scale of the problem.”

In undertaking the task of proposing such a conceptuality, Ilya Yonchev maintains that amid the predominantly surrounding musical inauthenticity, the musical-philosophical uncovering of musical meaning is today the only position capable of serving musical practice and pedagogy.

Из рецензия на Розмари Стателова

Paper / 2006

Οι χρόες στα σλαφόφωνα μουσικά βιβλία από τη Βουλγαρία