If music be the food of love, play on…

My idea is that there is music in the air, music all around us, the world is full of it and you simply take as much as you require.

Edward Elgar (1857–1934) (Click for MIDI of Elgar's Imperial March)

Can you imagine a world without music? Shakespeare said music is the food of love. Elgar implies that music is a human requirement, as much as the air that we breathe or the food we eat: without it we might die, or at least go mad. (Click for MIDI of banjos)

Even without a radio, cassette or CD player at home, we are constantly exposed to music in all places, on television, in shops, at the cinema, at church services, even on the telephone.

The music industry is booming, all types and styles are being bought on CDs in their millions. Concerts continue to be popular, especially classical music, which has grown in popularity on a global scale since the early 1980s. Many are drawn to the classics in a belief perhaps that it offers them a spiritual fulfilment of sorts. And not just classical music, New Age music, easy listening and religous and sacred music all have their parts to play in fulfilling the basic emotional needs of many, not forgetting of course the great musicians and their music of today and in recent memory, such as Elvis Presley (pictured). (Click for song by Elvis: I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You)

Good classical music is powerful, beautiful, moving and elusive in a way that other music is not, and it appears to express things that cannot be written in words. Classical music provides, in the same way as religion, a basic mystery and, as Albert Einstein once said, “the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious”.

What is Music?

But, of course, classical music is not the only type of music from which people gain much pleasure. We cannot exclude the great influences that rock, pop, jazz, country, folk and other musical styles have had on cultures, societies, generations and individuals.

Music can be a very difficult concept to describe in words. Hundreds of definitions have been put to paper over the centuries, some of which can be thought-provoking. Some marvel at the heavenly beauty of music, whilst others reduce it to a scientific formula of sorts. It seems appropriate here to quote some of those definitions for the benefit of the reader:

Music: pleasing arrangement of sounds of one or more voices or instruments; written form of this.

Music is said to be the speech of angels: in fact, nothing among the utterances allowed to man is felt to be so divine. It brings us near to the infinite.

Music is the best means we have of digesting time.

Music is the universal language of makind.

Music is the only sensual pleasure without vice.

Music is the art of thinking with sounds.

Music is the eye of the ear.

Obviously we cannot produce a definition that pleases everyone. Music is a subjective experience, and often there are no right or wrong answers. One piece of music may make a person sad, whilst another person may find the same piece very uplifting and happy. Everyone has different tastes in music; reactions to music are highly personal. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and there is no reason why you personally should like or dislike any particular piece or style of music.

We cannot tell you what your favorite music is, nor should you be embarrassed over your musical tastes. There is no such thing as a hierachy of musical greatness. In one sense, all music is created equal, and who are we to judge another’s musical tastes? However, none of us is unbiased when it comes to music, and thus any article or magazine which discusses music will have some bias. Whether you like the musical masterpieces of the classics, or the latest Blur or Oasis CD, that is your personal choice, and we do not want to take that away from you.

Musical Snobbery

For thousands of years people have have been guilty of musical snobbery. Plato believed that only the elite could appreciate music. In 1907 a Japanese man named Jihei Hashigushi wrote to a New York newspaper that the Japanese could not enjoy western classical music, being too complicated for them.

But what if Mr. Hashigushi had lived to see the popularity of western classical music in Japan today? All good music can and should be enjoyed by a variety of peoples and cultures. Although different styles and types have different features, they often also have many in common. But they are to be listened to in different ways.

Pop songs generally have a steady beat, a fairy consistent volume, a relatively simple pattern of chords and melodies, and lyrics telling us what the music is about. Classical music changes rhythm, key, themes, volume, and instrumentation often in many pieces. And what of Gamelan music from Indonesia, or the pan-pipes of South America? And the drums of Africa are very different to the sounds of other cultures.

The point is, music can be many different things to different people, and at different times. Thomas Bisse, an 18th-century English theologian, said in a sermon on 7 Sept 1726:

The music is not in the instrument, nor in the ear. The instruments and their furniture, we see, are mere matter, wood, metal or string, the work of the craftsman; which neither feel, nor hear, nor of themselves move nor send forth any sound. And the ear, though it seems to hear, and is the work of the Divine artifice, is still not an instrument; and though of finer texture and materials than the former, is in itself altogether as insensible. But by the co-operation of both these instruments, natural and artificial, God works in us to hear all we hear and enjoy as music.

We shall continue this study into what music is in the next issue.

Sources: David King; Classical Music: A New Way of Listening by A. Waugh

Click here to return to front page of Good Music Magazine

http://www.goodmusic.cwc.net/music.htm

Updated 26 March 2000. E-mail: goodmusic@cwcom.net