Music is a subject about which we understand very little. As we tend to analyze it, we miss its beauty; and when we enjoy it, we hardly know how it all happens. Igor Stravinsky, the Russia-born composer once remarked: “I haven’t understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it”.
Music affects our moods, it can work as an anodyne for those who have undergone trauma and emotional upheavals. Music also helps us get rid of miseries as it surrounds and hugs like a mother. Music is an audio-satisfactory presentation of sound. It is often defined as a connected series of sounds (tones) of a definite pitch, not mere noise. It has resonance, the prolongation of sound especially by vibration and rhythm, a pattern produced either by emphasis of duration of notes or stressed and unstressed syllables.
Music is movement. Motion is, therefore, inherent in every form of music. That’s why music has dynamism, found in no other art form. Music is self-contained as it doesn’t need an external medium like clay. With music, the medium, the method adopted and the manner of appreciation of the object which is created all lies in one’s own mind! It is interesting that in music, the subject (of the work) and the object that emerges lose their distinction and merge into each other.
Music infuses freshness and flexibility to our thinking and behaviour. It acts on the mind, making it agile and adaptable. Even if we are not consciously aware of the music around us, we never cease to remain part of it.
Pleasant Sounds
It has been found through observations that any two sound waves with frequencies ratio 2:1 can be separated by an octave, resulting in a pleasant sensation. Similarly, two sounds with frequency ratio 5:4, separated by an interval of third gives a pleasant sensation.
Though music may appear simple, it is actually bewildering as one starts enquiring about it. It is recognized or appreciated, but not amenable to our understanding. Thus, there are inherent contractions in music: local but trans local, focused but blurred, intense but expansive, particular but universal, stable but volatile. These contradictions provide a fertile ground for the philosopher in us so that we can interpret it the way we feel or experience it.
Hegel found that music, unlike any other art form, has no independent existence in space. It cannot be therefore objective in that sense. Frank Zappa, the American rock musician, equated music outperformance as a type of sculpture, in which “the air in the performance is sculpted into something”. French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss called music a language with contrary attributes – intelligible and untranslatable. He acknowledged that the listener experienced a fundamental rhythm within himself -a concept propagated in nada yoga.
According to Roger Scruton, the acoustic realm is separated from the physical world by an impassable metaphysical barrier and that the phenomenal space and phenomenal time of music are matched by the phenomenal causality that orders the musical word. Music is essentially our own experience, thoughts and wisdom. It exhibits certain immediacy, as it touches our soul.
Music and Life
Music is as mystical as life. While both escape any sort of rational definition, they are nevertheless recognisable. Both involve the mind as a state of awareness. They get enlarged into a sense of time and its compartmentalisation into past, present and future. With both, while enjoying the present, one is clouded with the dilemma involved due to the overshadowing past and the suspense of the future. It is, however, the emergency or orderliness from chaos that shows a distinct affinity between life and music. The range of speculation of their origin is also far-reaching: from electromechanical to spiritual.
The beauty about music is its utility value: it lends us as an inexhaustible source of strength, through a continuous assertion. Aristotle said that it was not easy to determine the nature of music. As music leads to some intriguing questions, he was of the view that all music cannot be answered in a rational manner. Musical training, besides enhancing mental imagery and creativity, also makes responsible citizens.
There are reported instances that music has played an effective role. For instance, the introduction of music in the city square at Edmonton, Canada, inculcated orderliness in pedestrians’ behaviour. Music at work improves interpersonal relations, causing more smiles and less frowns. It also gives a sense of patience, tolerance and relaxation, badly needed for civilized interaction among people. Positive behaviour patterns emerge from music and anxiety and violence gets removed. Standing in long queues becomes more tolerable with music.
This article was Published ‘Eternal Solutions’, February 2006, Pages 96, 97
Edited by Geeta Shreedar, June 25, 2021