Spinoza and musical power

In one of the few places in which musical experience is discussed in Spinoza's Ethics, it is used as a means of exemplifying the ways in which an entity, in itself, is not good or evil': it is neither, or both, depending on the relations into which it enters with other bodies. In this article, I consider what a Spinozist theory of musical power might entail. I argue that the particular, immanent and materialist notions of good' and bad' that can be found in Spinoza's work and are exemplified via music enable a departure from both aesthetic moralism' and aesthetic relativism'. With reference to contemporary discourses of musical violence, as well as Pauline Oliveros' praxis of Deep Listening, I assert that Spinoza makes space for music's ethico-affective ambivalence. Drawing attention to Spinoza's citation of deaf experiences of music, I also consider the extent to which a Spinozist model of musical power allows for auraldiversity'. In doing so, I aim to demonstrate the ways in which musical experience might exemplify some of the key tenets of Spinoza's thought.