ABSTRACT Stand-up so closely resembles-and is meant to resemble-the styles and expectations of everyday speech that the idea of technique and technical mastery we typically associate with art is almost rendered invisible. Technique and technical mastery is as much about the understanding and development of audiences as collaborators as it is the generation of material. Doing so requires encountering audiences in places that by custom or design encourage ludic and vernacular talk-social spaces and third spaces such as bars, coffee houses, (...) and clubs. Cultivating uncultivated speech and cultivating real audiences in found settings form the background of developing the stand-up comedian, neither of which lend themselves to the conservatory tradition we think of when we think of the development of artists. This article addresses two areas of the overall question of stand-up as art, starting with the ontological question of stand-up comedy: if it is an art where is it located, and what we may mean by “artworks” and “artworld” in stand-up comedy? Then I consider whether stand-up comedy as practiced can be reconciled with several recent definitions for art and note some of the special conditions and contexts for stand-up. (shrink)

Midwest Studies In Philosophy, EarlyView.

This article focuses primarily on improvisation in the arts as discussed in philosophical aesthetics, supplemented with accounts of improvisational practice by arts theorists and educators. It begins with an overview of the term improvisation, first as it is used in general and then as it is used to describe particular products and practices in the individual arts. From here, questions and challenges that improvisation raises for the traditional work-of-art concept, the type-token distinction, and the appreciation and evaluation of the arts (...) will be explored. This article concludes with the suggestion that further research and discussion on improvisation in the arts is needed, particularly in the areas of non-jazz improvisation. (shrink)

I aim at explaining the sense in which the notion of improvisation is important for the ontology of art. In the first part, I criticize the widespread assumption of the repeatability of a musical work without transformation of its identity and defend Conversational Improvisational Emergentism (CIE) as the specific contribution of improvisation to musical ontology: in an improvisation, values and meanings of what has been played constrain what follows and are themselves retroactively (trans)formed by what follows; likewise, the performing interpretations (...) of musical works and traditions reinvent their meanings and evaluation criteria, responding to past interpretations and opening up (as well as binding) possibilities for future interpretations. In the second part, I extend the scope of my investigation to art more generally. By critiquing the principle of «no evaluation without identification» and referring to Peter Lamarque’s and Joseph Margolis’ views about art ontology, I propose a transformative theory of artworks, which is based on the thesis of the improvisational “nature” of artistic practices (a thesis that I conceive of as a particular form of CIE). Its core point is that evaluative and performative interpretations of artworks (re)shape creatively, and retroactively, the meanings and the flexible identities of artworks. Accordingly, the artworks’ meanings and identities emerge (and are (trans)formed) through the cultural improvisational interactions in which artworks participate. (shrink)

What's aesthetically interesting or significant about electronic dance music? The first answer I consider here is that dancing is significant. Using literature on groove, dance and expression, I sketch an account of club dancing as expressive activity. I next consider the aesthetic achievements of DJs, introducing two conceptions of what they do. These thoughts lead to discussions of dance music's ontology. I suggest that the fundamental work of dance music is the mix and that mixes require their own ontology, distinct (...) from ontologies of recordings or improvisations. Finally, I explore two aspects of dance music's aesthetics: its connection with repetition and repetitiveness and its use of electronic sounds and technologies. I conclude with some speculative thoughts about the unique relation dance music bears to repetition and electronics. This article is Part II of two; in Part I, I consider the problem of defining dance music, via the framing question of authenticity. I explore history, genre, scenes and subcultures, and blackness. (shrink)

This paper argues that contemporary analytic philosophy of music has characterized historically informed performance practice as compliance-focused, impersonal, and work-centered. The first part of the paper gathers evidence in support of this claim from the works of Julian Dodd, Peter Kivy, James O. Young, Aron Edidin, and Stephen Davies. In the second part of the paper, I reject this received view. Evidence from actual performance practice, as well as from the practitioners’ reflection on their activity, belies the received view outlined (...) in the first part of the paper. I conclude by drawing three methodological lessons from the oversights I attempt to rectify. (shrink)

In this paper I defend a contextualist interpretation of authenticity in musical performance: we judge a performance as authentic not in respect of a stable set of requirements but according to contextually determined factors. This solution is the natural outcome of an independently supported ontological account of musical works: Musical Stage Theory. The aim of the paper is to give new momentum to the debate concerning the notion of authenticity and to challenge a monistic interpretation of authenticity: there is not (...) one authenticity but many. (shrink)

An impressive variety of theories of ontology of musical works has been offered in the last fifty years. Recently, the ontologists have been paying more attention to methodological issues, in particular, the problem of determining criteria of a good theory. Although different methodological approaches involve different views on the importance and exact role of intuitiveness of a theory, most philosophers writing on the ontology of music agree that intuitiveness and compliance with musical practice play an important part when judging theories. (...) A multitude of diverse claims exist regarding folk intuitions and matters of musical practice in the literature on the ontology of musical works. In this review paper, a systematized collection of about one hundred empirical claims extracted from the theoretical literature is presented. All of the empirical claims are categorized thematically. The paper also includes a short discussion on the role of appeals to common intuitions in methodological literature, as well as some suggestions for future research. (shrink)

In a recent article, Caterina Moruzzi (2018) develops and defends her musical stage theory. This discussion response supposes that Moruzzi's development and def.

It is difficult to place jazz within a philosophy of music dominated by the concepts and practices of classical music. One key puzzle concerns the nature and role, if any, of musical works in jazz. I briefly describe the debate between those who deny that there are musical works in jazz (Kania) and those who affirm that there are such (Dodd and others). I argue that musical works are performed in jazz but that jazz performance of works is very different (...) from performance of classical music works. The first step toward resolving the puzzle is to embrace the descriptive concept of a musical work and reject inappropriate normative concepts of a musical work. In particular, I argue against the accounts of musical works by Kania and Goehr, each of which implies a no-works thesis for jazz performance. I contrast the norms governing work performance in classical music with the practices governing performances of works in jazz, which I call realization or staging. Finally, I propose a model of jazz appreciation that incorporates a role for jazz works and that differs from the appreciation of classical music. (shrink)

This is an overview of analytic philosophy of music. It is in five sections, as follows: 1. What Is Music? 2. Musical Ontology 3. Music and the Emotions 4. Understanding Music 5. Music and Value.

The relationship between 1. recipes, 2. ingredients and 3. dishes may be understood in analogy to the relationship between elements in the performing arts: for example, in music, 1. musical works, 2. ‘musical ingredients’ and 3. performances. The recipe’s inventor is a ‘composer’ and the cook is a ‘performer’. As I will argue, both in musical performances and in the preparation of dishes, the application of norms requires ‘creative’ adaptation to the concrete specific situation and the final product emerges from (...) practical interactions that involve transformations of their own normative bases. Hence, both in culinary practices and performing arts like music, the improvisational case is paramount for understanding how their normativity, as paradigmatic of the normativity of human practices in general, works. (shrink)