How does music convey meaning? The answer, known to Plato 2400 years ago, is all but forgotten. His insight, simple yet penetrating, hiding in plain sight, is almost never discussed today. In this book, the secret Plato perceived is revealed anew alongside the author's related ideas about why music moves us so deeply. Why should we explore "how music means"? - to listen more perceptively,
- to accommodate multiple
perspectives as we listen,
- to understand more richly an art
we love, and
- to perform music more expressively.
Reflective yet unsettling, instructive yet amusing, How Music Means reveals secrets of music discovered in the author's fifty years of composing.