Music that is not fixed

In my aesthetics class a student asked about musical art, that is, art that is not "physically fixed" (as in stationary)?

How is a musical composition a "work of art?" What is the art?

Is it the arrangements of little black notes on the page that tell the performer what to play? It seems strange to say that the printed notes are the work of art.

Is it the sounds played by the performer? That's more believable; but then, does the musical work of art only "exist" when it is being played?

Is it what we retain of it in our minds? Most of us know Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (the one that goes ta-ta-ta-boom!), or the Beatles' Hey Jude (the one that goes "... take a sad sooooong, and make it bet-ter er er).

(By the way, how do you make a sad song better?).

Anyway, that seems strange too, because what you have in your mind of the Fifth, or of Hey Jude, is no doubt different than what I have in my mind.

I used to teach at Centenary College in northern New Jersey while living in Philadelphia. The drive home was always interminable, so I'd often listen to music. I recall one day I put on Brahms's Fourth Symphony ...

... and an overwhelming sense of boredom came over me:

"I've heard this before," I thought. "I know how it goes." And the drive got more interminable.

Oh for a beauty so alive you don't know how it will go.

Oh for a more beautiful drive home.

Logos2Go

Job 38.4-8 "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone-- while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? ..."