Chapter 5. Values of Music

In this chapter I survey the kinds of value that music can have, or the variety of ways in which music can be valued, and the relationships and correlations among those values or ways of valuing. First and foremost is music’s musical value, or the value of music as music, which is a species of artistic value, itself closely related to but not identical with aesthetic value. Yet music clearly has value beyond its purely musical value. Music obviously has economic value, whether as a commodity, a service, or a skill. More generally, music has, or can have, various sorts of practical value. Notable among the practical values of music would be social value, entertainment value, therapeutic value, functioning-enhancement value, and self-affirmation value. The relation between the practical or instrumental values that a piece of music can possess and its musical or artistic value is complicated, and will vary from case to case.