In The Mood
How ya feelin’ today?
When I wake up, the first sounds I hear are usually birds..from the parakeets who rent space in my home, as well as the free spirited ones that reside in the trees. A beautiful way to start the day, I must say. To me, it signifies the beginning of another cycle of life..a sweet and light-hearted celebration of a new dawn.
Archaeologists believe that man’s (and woman’s, of course) first instruments were flutes made from wing bones. A new report by The Wall Street Journal tells of the discovery of such instruments dating back 35,000 years. (See link below).
I find it so interesting that the flutes, made from aviary skeletons, mimicked the sound produced by the very bird whose bones they were using! It must have been a pleasing sound, because according to the report, they uncovered a stash of fifteen of them! I wish we had early recordings of the Neanderthal Wind Ensemble – but alas, the tape recorder came a little later.
So, early humans found it pleasurable to reproduce the sounds in nature that made them feel good. Following through on this thought, birds sing in the morning and flutes sound like birds, it is quite possible that the “Cavemen” may have used these flutes to conjure up thoughts of a peaceful, easy morning – as they relaxed in the cave after a hard day of filming GEICO commercials.
Jump ahead 35,000 years.
Warner Bros has invented Looney Tunes. Open on a beautiful Spring Sunrise. We hear bird sound effects. AND, we hear music… Below is a link to a performance of Edvard Grieg’s “Morning Mood” from the Peer Gynt Suite.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAMLCDnCLzs
Seems we’re still at it.
A Quick Note
I received two comments questioning my statement that music is not produced naturally in our world… that it must be devised by us humans.
Well, as I stated in my first post, I believe that RHYTHM not only occurs naturally but is absolutely essential to our survival.
But here’s the dilema: How do we categorize the beautiful sounds that creatures produce to communicate? I love the sounds of my parakeets chirping, crickets cricketing and cicadas doing whatever it is they do like clock-work in late July.. So maybe you are quite correct – that this IS music – produced by crickets for crickets, by Jiminy!! – but, yes, enjoyed by humans on some level. I must say that hearing my daughters’ laughter is certainly “music to my ears”! I also LOVE the sound of thunder.. I can feel the rumble in my body. But do we consider these pleasing sounds to be music? If you do, fantastic! Herein lies the beauty of individual thought.. and the idea of music being indefinable.
I think the issue at hand is that the attempt to describe the elements of music in the traditional framework of “Structured Melody, Harmony and Form” as a means of human expression, excludes these other beautiful sounds of nature. I do find the repetitiveness of many natural sounds to be the basis of rhythm.. and that the human race has taken this, and created a form of expression that is unique in the world and as individual as the person who chooses to use it.
Crickets can only cricket.
Mission Impossible: Define Music
When I was in college, I was charged with the task of reading “The Art of Loving” by Erich Fromm. From the beginning, I was taken by the fact that Fromm was desperately trying to define love. When I finished the book, I thought “What an exercise in futility! How can anyone define such a feeling???”
You either feel love, or not.
Define “Blue”.
Define the odor of a garbage pail.
Stimuli received by our sensory organs can be described, but not defined in an emotional context. Words fall way short of allowing us to actually FEEL how these things affect us. To experience a color or a foul smell is the ONLY way to really know.
We can define the elements, components, structure and physics of “music”. But music to you may be a horrible noise to me. At best, any description of the word is arbitrary. Music is in the brain of the beholder. Sound can be described in physics as vibrations which are transmitted through the air, received by the ear, transmitted to the brain etc. But only our personal experiences allow us to “define” it as music or just a door slam. It is a cognitive process as individual as you.
Traditionally, music is described as specific combinations of sound attributes as embedded into six structural elements: Rhythm, Melody, Harmony, Timbre, Dynamics and Form. Given these parameters, music must be artificially produced – i.e. not occurring in the natural world..configured by human beings. I agree with that premise. On a purely scientific plane, physics tells us that there are mathematical and energy properties to these components. Fine. My computer can be programmed to generate a controlled system of sound that might meet these requirements. BORING!
What makes “music” indefinable, are the human attributes infused into such structure. In my mind, there is a direct correlation between these elements and the basic aspects of its creator’s emotions, impulses, motivations, intentions and abstract ideas. On the receiving end, after the structured sounds are transmitted to the brain, there is a cognitive process of interpretation based on another unique set of human experiences.
I like the music of Neil Young. My kids hate it.
Today on The Music Programme, We’re Going To Talk About Music.
Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved music.. but I never knew why. I’ve had a fascination with tape recorders and phonograph records from a very young age because I marveled at how it could repeat my favorite songs back to me.. as often as I wished. This was magic.
Arguably, however, the sense of hearing is the least developed of the human senses.. We see or sense danger more than we hear it. While my dogs can detect the sound of my return home when I am a block away, they cannot enjoy The Beatles or Beethoven’s Fifth as I do. My birds sing when I play a CD – any CD – clearly they enjoy the environment of sound.. but they even sing when I turn on the vacuum! What’s the difference here? Well, humans take “music” (which I will TRY to put in perspective by some form of definition) to a higher level through cognitive processes. We create music and feel emotion. We hear music and feel emotion. But all that comes after the, “Rhythm” (and other components of what we consider to be music) has been input as a sensory stimulus directly to the brain… causing an involuntary reaction such as foot tapping – or the singing of my parakeets or the wagging of my dog’s tails.
Melody, Harmony and Musical Structure rarely occur innately in our lives.. but RHYTHM does. Patterns and repetition are all around us.. biology, our physical processes and life itself is indeed built on it.. without it.. nada. Your heart beat, walking, eating, breathing, using the lavatory and sleeping all occur in patterns and regularity.. with variations that accommodate your specific environment. Night and day, the seasons, planetary movements, the rippling of water.. can you see a pattern here?? We respond to repetition because our very survival instinct is built on it. Our bodies are deeply in tune to these patterns and undergo physiological changes in response to them.
Rhythm. Plug in your iPod and Dance Baby! So, this is my introduction to the exploration of why we love music.
So much to say, define and explore. Your turn.
