# [[Scratch Pad]] # Review for Synthese Music ## General comments for Review - https://read.readwise.io/filter/tag%3Arefereeing%20AND%20location%3Alater/read/01jg4eyrywc3jjk5k0m8sg8bfr ### Comments to the editors While there are some interesting ideas in this paper, I found it extremely difficult to make sense of. It makes strong claims [[without justification]]: - "The act of music-making is inherently exploratory, whether it be the performance of a piece by an experienced musician or the initial perceptive contact of an infant. Each performance represents a [[further exploration]] of the instrument by the musician, who devises new possibilities of sound, dynamics, and strategies for executing difficult passages." It is extremely verbose and at times hyperbolic, e.g.: - "beyond every conceivable boundary" - "By transcending the hierarchical structures" - "these avenues facilitate a reinterpretation of phenomena from a radically different perspective" - "beyond every conceivable boundary, first and foremost the corporeal" And at times makes some frankly peculiar statements: - "It is worth considering that constituting themselves as musical beings was not an economically advantageous process for humans from an evolutionary standpoint." Many paragraphs are quite long and attempt to weave together evolutionary points, philosophical arguments, and historical anecdotes. The musical historical examples were much too long. I recommend rejection. ## Comments for [[the Author]] I liked some of the ideas here – thinking about music as an extension of mind in 4E terms is very interesting, I also enjoyed the parts on music history – but the paper in its [[current state]] could be much clearer. I often felt that quite important claims were made but not supported, for example: "The act of music-making is inherently exploratory, whether it be the performance of a piece by an experienced musician or the initial perceptive contact of an infant" or "The ability to interact with the environment by modifying it is in fact a characteristic that can be observed from the appearance of man on Earth to the present day" In neither case is any argument given to back these sorts of claims up – and these are not the only two examples. I found the historical sections interesting but they seemed very long, taking up a good portion of the text. They could also have been connected up to the 4E ideas and the other ideas in the early sections in more detail. Some paragraphs are very long which made the text feel difficult to follow at times. There are quite a few phrases that I found overly hyperbolic (e.g. "beyond every conceivable boundary" or "liberating itself from the control of the res cognitans"), which distracted from the core ideas of the text. A similar issue can be found here at the beginning of 3.1: > "An illustrative example of a perceptual artefact in the musical domain is the Adaptive Digital [[Musical Instruments]] (ADMI), exemplified by Michel Waisfisz's The Hands (Torre et al., 2016) and Laetitia Sonami's Lady's Gloves (Son As evidenced by studies such as those conducted by Ami (2006) and Reid et al. (2018), research in the field of Human-Computer Interaction has led to the emergence of a distinct area of study situated between Wearable Technologies (WT) and Digital [[Musical Instruments]] (DMI)." I could really have done with some more details about what these examples were supposed to be. For that reason they weren't very illustrative. Couple of smaller things: - I would suggest putting an English translation after Latin phrases - One of the key words is misspelt: "engagement" - Occasionally the style drifts between [[first person]] plural and [[first person]] singular: first paragraph of the introduction there is a 'We', but in the second paragraph there is an 'I' Perfect. See you then. I will try and send you something beforehand. If you have time to read anything in advance I am going to put two papers in [[the philosophy]] of psychedelics folder in the repository. The Schelekens paper on [[intellectual pursuits]], and a chapter from a book by Letheby on [[psychedelic experience]].