Diotima: The Marist Undergraduate Philosophy Journal
playing a new organ they were previously unfamiliar with, needing an hour of practice to perform on the instrument without ever learning the positions of each pedal in objective space. Habit here expresses the power we have of altering our existence through the incorporation of new “instruments,” such as unfamiliar organ pedals. 12 At this point, Merleau-Ponty’s example of the organist raises no concerns regarding his account of habit and therefore his foundational concept of the body schema. Moving onwards, Merleau-Ponty highlights the relationship between the musical essence contained within a score and the sound of music which “actually resonates around the organ.” 13 In the direct relationship between the musical components of score and sound, there is necessarily a “passage” from a score’s notation to its aural realization. 14 Where does the passage between the score’s musical essence and creation of actual sound “reside,” then? For Merleau-Ponty, the body of the organist and their instrument are nothing other than the “place of passage of this relationship.” 15 In other words, “A musical score provides the form by which music itself is realized in the interaction between body and instrument.” 16 Again, “passage” designates the movement from the score’s musical essence to its audible realization. Music here is “brought into being through the embodied actions of performers in the moment, necessarily involving the body and an instrument. The habituated organist’s gestures here create an “expressive space”
12 Merleau-Ponty, 145. 13 Merleau-Ponty, 147. 14 Merleau-Ponty, 147. 15 Merleau-Ponty, 147. 16 Michael R. Kearney, “The Phenomenology of the Pipe Organ,” Phenomenology & Practice 15, no. 2 (2020), 31-32.
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