The Second Sense: Language, Music, and Hearing

In a visual culture, hearing is the second sense, and music is the art of hearing. Kandinsky believed that music transcended painting and visual representation because it had the power to act directly and invisibly on the human spirit. Because it is the only art to deal unequivocally with the real world of sound and its attendant perceptions of time, motion, and human mortality, music remains a powerful and often controversial influence on human behavior. Defining music in the broadest sense …