Introduction

This collection of essays asks a basic question: What is this thing called horn playing?

By exploring the different underlying logics and tensions between them we will discover interesting philosophical issues.

The answer might seem obvious; accordingly, the question irrelevant. However:

Too often we take for granted the things that require the most explanation. After all, it’s easier to assume we know what something means than it is to explain or define it. ¹

We seem to know what horn playing is either (1) because we are exposed to so much of it or (2) we have preconceptions about it. But horn playing is a different thing to different people.

In this part we will:

• Survey several distinct ways of understanding what horn playing is
• Explore the tensions with between different understandings
• Investigate the reasons why different views exist
• Explore ways of harmonizing and integrating the understandings.
  • Can the different views co-exist?
  • What conflicts arise when we change the perspectives?

Prerequisites

Along the way, we’ll be cautious about:

• We tend to oversimplify: It’s easy to commit to one view at the expense of others.
• Each view has its own logic
• tensions between the different logics present challenges for a constructive discussion
• we need a particular attitude

In this part we will describe the different views. These descriptions construct “representations” of the phenomena we are describing. “Representations” are different things the phenomena themselves, from their essence.

Our starting point: horn playing is a phenomenon that has social, cultural, historical and physical dimensions. Engaging with the phenomenon puts us “inside” of it. Being entangled inside a phenomenon (horn playing) is an enacted, embodied, lived act. Said differently: we will distinguish between the 3rd-person and the 1st-person outlook on the world and its phenomena. We will explore what this means in Part 2.

As such it is a human practice that is

• embedded in and gives life to the world of things (physical)
• enacts the conceptual, cognitive and emotional world
• steered by value systems, cultural practices, expectations

Words: Phenomenon, practice, logics, understandings, descriptions, activities of the practice Analogy, metaphor, comparison

Since we define Horn Playing as a practice, we will investigate how it differ, and how it is similar, to other practices.

The sources for this investigation are:

• literature on horn
• literature on brass/wind
• literature on other instruments
• literature on instrumental practicing

This shows that most of the perspectives are not exclusive to horn playing. Similar ideas are present in the broader context of music making.

This is an invitation to play with ideas. The content here is not some definite truths, only ways of seeing that should be able to handle critical inspection.

Two types of analogies:

• idealist
• materialist

Unnecessary dichotomy?

A central assumption of this text is that, while we can bracket out some perspectives, horn playing is always an interplay of all three. This complexity makes horn playing a fascinating subject to study.

We will thus look at the three sides both in isolation and how they interact with one another.

For example, the language we speak influences how we think about a particular topic. How we think affects how we act, and vice versa, which then becomes culture.

• Horn playing is a complex phenomenon.
• Its practical, conceptual and cultural sides are deeply intertwined

So the seemingly simple “practical” questions may not be as trivial as they might seem. This is the main goals of this website:

• acknowledge the three parts

• investigate them in depth

• Practical: playing/creating/imagining,

• Conceptual: reading/theorizing/understanding/conceptual/language/philosophy

• Cultural: listening/participating/

On Certainty

• See Maturana&Varela 1991
• Negative certainties
• an attitude

Materialist vs idealist accounts

Cognitivist vs Sociocultural accounts

What kind of investigation is this?

A more traditional scientific inquiry attempts to focus on a smaller sub-part of the phenomenon. This requires taking for granted

While a pan-vision (seeing everything at once) is impossible, I hope we can let our focus wander freely, while still in a structured manner.

But the practical dimension is only a part of the story. We can also discuss horn playing from a conceptual/philosophic perspective: What kind of thing is horn playing? This is an ontological question. It aims at the nature of horn playing. What kind of thing is it? What distinguishes it from other things? When we apply knowledge from, say, sports does horn playing become a sport?

Another group of philosophic questions is epistemological questions. How do we know horn playing? What kind of knowledge is involved in playing? How do we exercise that knowledge? How do we learn to play? Is playing the horn a purely motoric activity void of any cognition? Is knowledge of playing verbal/discursive or of some different type, i.e. if I can talk about how to play the horn playing, does it entail that I can play the horn?

False dichotomy between practical and conceptual

I make the distinction between the practical and conceptual and say that the reading part is less practical.

In fact, all three parts are both conceptual and practical. By playing we engage in implicit theorizing and lived philosophy. By listening and participating we acquire knowledge about the music that we are listening to and the contexts in which we participate in.

The Reading part is also a very practical endeavour. Reading itself is not some sort of metaphysical activity: its very practical. Making sense of the content is also practical, and requires reflection, discussion, trying out.

What is the goal?

To draw a map of the variety of problems.

Goal

An account that is

• Vygotsky/Engeström - Activity theory
• Husserl/Heidegger/Morleau-Ponty/Dreyfus - Being-in-the-world, tool analysis
• Latour - sociomaterial
• Maturana/Varela

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1. Constructing Social Research. Charles C. Ragin (1994) ↩︎