I had an atypical relationship with music for a middle class kid growing up in America in the 60s and 70s in that I never purchased a recording of rock & roll, or any other popular music of the day. My mother tried to get me drawn to music through guitar lessons. I might have made it through two of them. I was too interested in sports. She knew how to play the piano to such an extent that we had a lovely baby grand piano in our house. But I only remember her playing one piece, very rarely, the Chopin – Heroic Polonaise (Op. 53 in A Flat Major). In sum, I just had no passion for music of any kind.
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My interest in music changed drastically during my university years. I fell on a television presentation of Beethoven’s late string quartets on PBS. At some moment during that broadcast I came to the realization that this was music I enjoyed. Moreover, I was enthused to hear more and learn more about music like this; that is, western classical music. I described my music epiphany to a basketball friend who I was surprised to learn liked classical music. He introduced me to a classical music record club. The first record I ever bought was Bach’s Greatest Hits. I can’t begin to estimate the number of hours I spent in the music listening room at the student union. I started to go to concerts. My line became, “I like the music of the 60s . . . the 1760s and the 1860s.”
To put the effects of music into words is not a trivial task. The musical influence on all aspects of the human condition from psychology to physiology have been studied and shown to be significant. Consider what I wrote in a review of a poetry book about “Leo Tolstoy’s exposition ‘What is Art?’. Tolstoy on art is idiosyncratic to say the least. He criticizes virtually all so-called art produced since the Renaissance. He even has deep criticism of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and his own great novels! Tolstoy believed that art is the communication to other people of the artist’s experienced feelings, expressing them in a way that others, really all people everywhere, can understand those feelings. Art should have no technical finery, no complexity, not even beauty or aesthetics of any kind. Art should be universally available, not just for the rich or a particular ethnic group. And the only good art communicates the feelings from religious experiences, feelings that orient people toward what is good.” I certainly disagree with Tolstoy about Beethoven (and his own novels), but the communication to me of the artist’s experienced feelings, expressing them in a way that I can understand those feelings is what I get from classical music. It continually amazes me how this psychological transmission works for what is in fact very abstract instrumental music. A further contradiction of Mr. Tolstoy and the Ninth Symphony is the annual Japanese performance with a chorus of thousands. This is the epitome of universal availability.
My amazement is perhaps more profound at the mechanistic realization of classical music. The skill of great musicians, and even the much lesser ones, is astonishing. By way of illustration, the Chopin piece linked to above is on a Youtube channel called Rousseau that makes unique video representations of piano playing which I find fascinating. I continually ask, how do they do it? How do they remember so much?
Then there is the genius of the composers. There are so many that I can hardly begin to describe a fraction of them. But I will note the version of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos played by the Marlboro Festival Orchestra conducted by Pablo Casals. I have listened to this recording dozens of times for almost 50 years and it still can take my mind to a place of peace no matter what my mood. To imagine just the tune of a single instrument is difficult, but the complex interplay of orchestration between dozens of instruments is mind boggling. A grand orchestra working as one continually mesmerizes me.
Furthermore, the design and construction of the instruments themselves, the materials, and the craftsmanship are out of this world. It is clear that these master craftsmen in intuitive ways, understood the complex physics of sound interacting with solids materials centuries before the physicists.
I have a PhD in mechanical engineering. I have experience with relatively complex notations. But the system for writing and transmitting music is incredible to me. From this brief-history of musical notation we learn:
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But the notes and staves we see today didn’t spring fully formed from one person’s mind. Instead, the notation we see today is the product of centuries of innovation and refinement. So let’s explore a few milestones of its development.
Using notation is about as old as music itself, but for our purposes we’re going to start in the year of 1025. . . . That was around the time a monk named Guido moved to a Tuscan city called Arezzo. Thus history has named him Guido of Arezzo.
. . . . He organized pitches into groups called hexachords (think of them like a scale) and pretty much invented solfege (“do-re-mi-fa…”). And he advanced a method for notating those concepts more accurately. It was huge.
The history of the monk points to the clear Christian roots of Western classical music. Perhaps the highest manifestation of this association is the music of Bach. Jonathan Pageau discusses the musical patterns that reflect the patterns of reality using the example of Clavierübung III “Organ Mass,” Mystical Bach and the Breakdown of Music – with Matthew Wilkinson – The Symbolic World.
In the counter cultural era that I grew up in, listening to classical music could be considered to be the real counter cultural expression. But this was not my intent at all. I was more like the naive child who noticed the emperor’s new clothes were nothing compared to those old clothes. I also realize that I could be naive because of my lack of musical talent. What seems impossible to me is nothing to a pro. Nonetheless, when I feel the emotions, I say to myself that Western classical music seems beyond what I understand humans are capable of. Simply, in sum, to me it is the ultimate in human creation.
Epilogue
Even though I wasn’t interested in music of any kind, I did hear popular music as a passenger on the car radio and from friends. My African American pal Jeff introduced me to The Jackson 5 and James Brown. My older brother loved the Beatles so I liked the Beatles, and still do. Later, as a middle aged adult I did buy artists so far past their prime that they were deceased; such as, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Louis Armstrong and 40s Big Band music. For a long time I have enjoyed listening to jazz, especially with a drink. Recently, despite my lack of interest in popular music and particularly Bob Dylan, I had an emotional response listening to his music in the recent biopic.A Complete Unknown. Thus, I suppose all music is powerful; but if I start listening to hip hop my dementia will have set in.
