Maxistentialism

Philosophy and Music by Max Temkin and Arreon Harley

Here’s the lecture/demo that Arreon Harley and I gave as the final for our independent study in Philosophy and Music with Prof. John Rose.

This was filmed by Ayelet Oser, who did a great job except for about 9 minutes in, when the camera cuts out for 20 seconds or so. I think we all know whose fault that is.

All the stuff about art history is from Prof. Steve DeCaroli’s Philosophy and Art course, as well as from my conversations with Professors DeCaroli and Rose.

Things we quote from include: Hegel’s “Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics,” Kant’s “Critique of Judgment,” Daniel J. Levitin’s “This Is Your Brain on Music,” Steven Pinker’s “How the Mind Works,” and “The Language Instinct,” Gadamer’s “Dialogue and Dialectic,” Boethius’s “The Consolation of Philosophy,” as well as a lot of primary source material on the relationship to ancient philosophy and harmony, Pythagoras and sonata form, etc.

HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:

• We tell you what the most-heard song in the history of the world is.
• Arreon loses his notes and plays a Mozart sonata from memory.
• I am sick and have a weird nasaly voice going on.
• Several weeks of painstaking editing to insert all of the 4×3 slides into the 16×9 video at the appropriate times.

I made the presentation in Keynote. It took about a month to get all the media together and organize it into the slideshow. I’m presenting from my MacBook Pro, which is plugged into the sound system and projector of the auditorium, and which I am controlling with Apple’s amazing “Remote” app for Keynote.