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MUSICAL EXPERIENCE AND THE PROBLEM OF SENSORY SELF-EVIDENCE: FROM EPIPHANY TO EMPOWERMENT

Abstract
The article develops the problem of musical experience taken from a phenomenological perspective. The specificity of the problem is that the tools of phenomenology depend on the subject framework provided by music psychology and music sciences. This epistemological dependence on positivist approaches is complicated by the intensive processes of radical transformation in the field of music practices. The main goal of the article was to redefine the place of musical experience in the structure of phenomenological knowledge. To achieve it, we turned to the works of the key figures within the field (Mersmann, Schütz, Ihde, Scruton, Schaeffer). In terms of methodology, we applied theoretical tools appealing to the history and genealogy of epistemic models, to phenomenology, and to methods of contemporary culture critical analysis. The study of phenomenological descriptions of musical experience leads us to the problem of its two specific kinds: epiphany and empowerment. The article demonstrates the heuristic potential of these two concepts, as well as the limitations that arise due to their transfer from adjacent areas of social sciences and humanities. The conclusion of the study is the following: the modern listening subject has partially lost the possibilities of “pure” musical experience, having developed the habit of listening for “gaining power” (empowerment). Epiphany, which in the case of music can take the form of acousmatic listening or the experience of the musically sublime, leaves the possibility of retaining objectivity to analyze musical experience from a phenomenological perspective.

Keywords
phenomenology of music, musical experience, H. Mersmann, P. Schaeffer, R. Scruton, E. Husserl, epiphany, empowerment, reduced listening.

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