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With “Nietzsche, Birth of Tragedy, Sections 1-2,” we continue our multi-episode exploration of the thinking of Friedrich Nietzsche and its application to music. In this episode, we broach the generative antagonism Nietzsche believes is embodied in the interactions between what he terms the Apollinian and the Dionysian. These are not concepts; they are drives or instincts. They are as caught up in nature and the body as they are in philosophy and the mind. Indeed, for Nietzsche there is no easy distinction between mind and body. The Apollinian deals with beauty, clarity, individuation, bounded knowledge, and representation. The Dionysian addresses the sublime, ambiguity, self-forgetting, boundless feeling, and the Schopenhauerian Will. I conclude the episode by examining meter/rhythm and pitch/tone as manifestations of the relationship between the Apollinian and the Dionysian. 

Here is the Table I refer to in the episode.

“Level” of Comparison	Apollo	Dionysus
Artistic Production	Plastic Arts (Sculpture)	Music (nonimagistic)
Corporeal	Dreams	Intoxication
Metaphysical/ Philosophical (role of philosopher)	Phenomena (Kant/Schopenhauer)	Noumena (Kant/Schopenhauer)
Characteristics associated with knowledge	Calm, Sun-like (Light), Bounded	Stormy, Watery (Dark), Unbound
The Self	Principium individuationis (Individual)	Self-Forgetting (Immersion in the group and nature)
Aesthetics	Beautiful	Sublime
Clarity	The veil (of maya)	Rending of the veil
Ontology	Being (Distance from work)	Becoming (Becoming the Work of Art)
Life/Death	Freudian Eros	Freudian Thanatos

The newest episode (005–Sousa, Nationalism, and Masculinity) is now available. This episode explores the rise to prominence of brass bands or marching bands after the U.S. Civil War. We discuss the shift in ideals of patriotism that follows the war,  the emergence of the brass bands as an emblem of middlebrow nationalism, and the rejection of highbrow music at the Columbian Exposition of 1893. We then discuss John Phillip Sousa’s contributions to the arguments surrounding copyright and his qualms about recorded music. We then examine Sousa’s approach to march composition and the way in which it combines images of “barbaric splendor” and elements of the parlor song to give rise to a new vision of masculinity and its role in nationalism. 

Check out the latest episode of my podcast, Sound Philosophy. This episode is entitled “The 19th-Century Parlor Ballad.” It examines the 19th-century parlor ballad as a genre that helped to define shifting notions of the family and womanhood in the United States. I start by reviewing the prerequisites for a robust music industry (necessary to support a prolific production of song) and then discuss changes the family underwent in the early 19th century with the shift from an agrarian lifestyle to a more modern, urbane mode of living. I then discuss the role of nostalgia and the idealization of women in the parlor ballad. Examples are drawn from Thomas Moore, Stephen Foster, and George Frederick Root. 

The performances are by me and Kelly Inskeep. Enjoy!

This is the inaugural post to my website. I am Chadwick Jenkins, a professor of music at the City College of New York City. The site will host materials related to my courses at CCNY, links to my writings available on the web (especially my film writing hosted at PopMatters), information about and access to my podcast Sound Philosophy, as well as other materials related to music, philosophy, and other matters. The site will probably be under constant construction for the foreseeable future, so please return when you can and continue to explore.