When trying to investigate the understanding of music, there are a number of epistemologically and methodologically diverse perspectives, and this is associated with the fairly vague definition of music. Firstly, music exists in the form of a waving motion as a physical-acoustic dimension that reaches the listener’s/receiver’s ear. At the time of the »reception« of music, the human neuropsychological mechanism is triggered, which causes the process of semiosis – when we im bue music with meaning strongly exceeding the basic, physical characteristics of music as a sound. In the history of music studies, one can discern the periodical shifting of scientific methodologies that have placed now this and later the other perspective in the center of their research. Meanwhile the author of the article claims that for a holistic understanding of music one needs to employ all the different methodological starting points. Music must be understood as a “two-sided” process: it is possible to investigate the “path” that leads from the creation of music to the emergence of listener’s meaning or to begin with the latter and try to connect it with the intentionality of the author.
