What is Music?
WHAT
IS MUSIC? Music is pure magic. It is a wonderful gift to humanity. Music moves
us, and soothes us. It stimulates. It makes us want to dance or sing. It makes
us feel happy or sad, inspired or uplifted. It affects our mood in all kinds of
infinite ways. It can be exquisitely subtle or wildly raucous: from a lullaby,
to a war cry for revolution.
WHEN SATISH KUMAR asked me to
guest-edit the special Music For Transformation feature in this issue of
Resurgence, I was delighted, as it gave me the opportunity to reflect once
again on that most profound question, What actually is music?
Music is different things to
different people: to Ian Skelly, author of the article ‘Beauty Speaks’, above
all things music has a transcendental significance that is captured in the
beautiful patterns of Nature and architecture – a kind of ‘frozen music’; to
Mark Kidel, author of ‘Conversations and Crossroads’, music can bridge cultures
in a universal ‘conversation’ that is beyond intellect or reason, but which is
heartfelt; to Brian Eno, music brings the joy of unexpected and beautiful
sound; and to singer/songwriters like myself and Howard Milner, music – and
singing in particular – takes us to a world apart: a world beyond self and ego;
a place of emotion that touches the soul.
I present to you an insightful
glimpse into the world of music: yet it seems to me that the question ‘What is
music?’ has no ultimately fixed answer, because although music can be defined
in mechanistic terms as merely vibrations that are detected by the organ of
Corti and assimilated by the brain’s cortex into what we hear, that is still
only half the story.
It is no accident that the Latin
word for breath – that prerequisite of music – is spiritus, for music invokes
the spiritual in us. It is of the spirit and so is universal, other-worldly,
nebulous and freely evolving. What a wonderful gift to humanity.
EVER SINCE I can remember, music has
been an accompaniment to my life. It would be impossible for me to even try and
conceptualise a world without music. If you have a natural aptitude and
appreciation for it, then music simply draws you to it and connects. Watch a
baby nodding her head, clapping her hands, or bouncing in response to a rhythm
or melody.
Songs in particular contain
something profoundly elemental. The singer actually ‘becomes’ the instrument,
or vehicle of communication and expression. Through the combination of voice,
lyrical content and poetic structure, melody, rhythm, the nuance of combined tonal
qualities and phrasing within the breath, singers can transmit and translate
thoughts and feelings, potentially elevating and transporting both the singer
and the listener to another realm. Music really can lead us into another
dimension.
Music also tells stories, breaks
hearts, reduces us to tears, or seduces us into falling in love, over and over
and over again. Music is a universal language. A human creation from a divine
source… perhaps.
Music is a mystery, a code. A
vehicle of spirit and soul. It is perceived through ‘hearing’ the vibration of
sound, the most sublime resonance – from the eardrum to the brain. Music moves
us beyond intellect to the heart-centre.
I’m not a music ‘expert’. I’m a
music lover... A discoverer, an explorer. Music for me is pure ‘potentiality’.
I can engage with it. I can commune with it. Sometimes, if I’m open to it, it
takes me by surprise, and I step out of myself. Music is a friend, a companion,
a guide and a teacher. A challenge, a landscape, a palette, a texture, a shape.
Music is chord structure, harmony or dissonance.
Music is culture from every origin;
it is identity and belonging. It is history and invention. Music is remembering
and forgetting. Music is symmetry, rebellion, genius, prodigy, mastery,
virtuoso, dazzling, breath-taking, spell-binding, and extraordinary.
PAUSE FOR A moment to ‘think’ of
these sounds: harp, clarinet, kettledrum, xylophone, violin, guitar, trumpet,
saxophone, sitar, oboe, flute... They are all uniquely different yet we can
‘hear’ them in our heads, just by thinking of them. Then think of the
individual styles of various composers – Bach or Debussy, for example. We can
tell the difference between Vivaldi, Couperin and Telemann – and they too have
unique ‘sounds’. But what drew them to compose? How could Mozart play with such
brilliance at the age of four? What made Miles Davis tick? These are the deeper
questions that remain unanswered.
There are other questions that need
to be asked: what does the wind sound like, or a dripping tap? Can this be a
form of music too? A car door slamming, a baby crying, footsteps, whispers, a
log fire crackling, animal sounds, city sounds, bar-room conversations, the
roar of a football crowd, a familiar voice, the ocean, early-morning
birdsong... Are these sounds musical to your ears?
How does music make you feel? Does
it make you nostalgic? Where does it take you in your internal landscape? How
can a snatch of music evoke a certain period in your life?
What does silence sound like? Have
you ever experienced silence? Do you like it? Are your thoughts too loud? Where
is your mind located? Is music located ‘inside’ your mind or ‘outside’ of you?
These are not just random questions;
they are the kinds of question rarely posed when young people start to learn
how to approach an instrument. Yet, I think they need to be asked, because
music is so much more than just going through the motions of producing a sound.
People may be able to play well mechanically – because they have learned to
copy well – but in doing so they do not truly connect with the essence of music
and express themselves.
WE HAVE BECOME so accustomed to
recorded sound that it has become rather facile and formulaic. When you can
literally access any piece of recorded music at the touch of a fingertip, something
valuable gets lost or devalued in the process. Music has become ubiquitous.
It’s in shops, restaurants, bars, airports, waiting rooms – in fact, anywhere
that people gather. Sadly, in a way, music has become just another kind of
social ‘filler’, like small talk or gossip. I get frustrated when I sit down to
eat with a friend and we actually can’t have a conversation because
‘background’ music dominates the situation.
People ask me what kind of music I
listen to, and quite frankly, it’s come down to the sustained resonance of
Tibetan bowls. Why? Because it’s so... so pure and still and utterly beautiful.
It is the essence of music full circle, back to the source, the universal
vibration.
I guess what I’m saying is that as a
music maker and music lover I have become more discerning. I don’t want to
listen to music 24/7 just because it’s available to me and I can.
Sometimes I dip into the thing we
call “music” and it still takes me profoundly by surprise… as if I were hearing
it for the very first time.
