Remarks on the Significance of Rules of Musical Style

The present study explores the principles governing rules of musical style with respect to types of experiences derived from the different styles. The assumption is that the rules and experiences are related to each other on some universal level and that the types of experiences reflect aesthetic ideals of extra-musical frameworks (culture, era, region, etc.). Some of these ideals are related to other arts belonging to the same framework, where they are manifested in the same principles of stylistic rules, although the rules pertain to different media, depending on the specific art. The overall goal is to gain a deeper understanding of the principles and significance of musical rules—“learned” and “natural”—and of rules in other arts, as well as the significance of the specific choice of rules (whether conscious or unconscious) in different cultures and eras, and thereby to contribute to a precise formulation of stylistic rules in future studies, taking into account the many factors involved in shaping a style.