- Sit down at the piano.
- Close your eyes.
- Notice your breathing.
- Put your hand on your chest and notice your heart beating.
- Feel the pulse of your inhale & exhale.
- Feel the tempo (time) or your heartbeat pulsing.
- Become aware of the regular pulsations.
- After some time has passed, and when you are ready, allow your right hand to touch a note.
- Hold that note and listen to it. Listen to the vibrations of the tone. Notice it without judging it.
- Next, turn your focus to your inhale & exhale or to your heartbeat. Hold down any note and count how many times your heart beats or you inhale & exhale before the tone on the piano disappears.
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| Jackson Pollock -Autumn Rhythm No. 30 (1950). |
In 1952, an American composer named John Cage wrote a piece of music in which the pianist sat in silence for over four minutes (4'33"). The piece was a performance that brings to our attention that music is happening all around us. Music happens in context -in relationship to other things.
Next, try this experiment:
- Close your eyes and focus on your inhale & exhale.
- After some time, and when you are ready, using just one finger on each hand, let your left hand and right hand each play a note simultaneously.
- Listen to the two tones together.
- Focus on hearing the lower note.
- Focus on hearing the higher note.
- Striking the two notes again, be aware of how many inhales & exhales take place until the two notes decay into silence. Did one last longer than the other?
- Playing the two notes again, become aware of any vibrations you can hear between the two notes.
- Does the interval sound at rest, or like it wants to move on or resolve to some other tone?
- Be aware of any emotional feeling that occurs while you listen to the interval you are playing.
Ideas on what music is
No one really knows what music is. There are many ideas about what music is, and we can explore some that may or may not be interesting or satisfying to you. It is up to you to discover or create an idea of what music is to you. Or you can simply experience music without thinking about what it is. This is up to you.
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| Tang Yin (147-1523) |
Many ideas about what music is have emerged since ancient times. In Eastern cultures, Chinese thinkers have understood music as a representation of cosmic life, universal energy, and ultimate reality. For example, the traditional Chinese way of understanding music involved categorizing sounds into three categories: sheng, which are sounds found in nature; yin, which are notes made by humans; and yue, which are emotionally sincere notes organized in relation to nature. The teachings of Confucius describe music as a force that influences and shapes a person's moral character and the harmony or disharmony of society. Confucianism teaches that music shapes character and society. Do you feel that music influences how you feel & think? Have you noticed if music can affect large groups of people gathered together? These are the kinds of questions that Confucianism explores.
Another philosophical view from China is called Daoism or Taoism. The teacher of the Dao, Lao Tzu, was less interested in how music shaped society or the person, and more interested in what it was. He saw music as the spontaneous flow of energy, called Qi. Lao Tzu felt that "the greatest music is silent," and that human composition is an attempt to align with the music of nature. Listening is essential before "speaking" in the Daoist philosophy of music.
Here is an experiment based on Daoist philosophy of music:
- Go into the forest or sit along a stream of water or the ocean.
- Listen to the rhythms of nature as they vibrate in the wind and the water.
- Notice the underlying tempo (time) and the rhythmic dancing of a leaf in the breeze, or a branch in the water.
- Can you hear the rhythm in your imaginative mind's ear?
- Can you hear a melody in the vibrational movements of nature?
- Try to clap the rhythm and sing the melody that nature is making.
- When you are at your piano, try to transform the rhythm and melody you heard in nature into piano rhythm and melody.
Hindu Philosophy of Music
In India and other areas of South Asia, music is understood to be an activity of meditative transcendence and connection with the universe. Sound is understood to be the basic constutent of the the cosmos, and through making music, we are able to connect with the metaphysical universe. The raga is a framework for improvised music making that is associated with specific emotional states called rasas. Through music meditation called Nada Yoga, we become unified with an emotional state and with the cosmos. We can explore Indian classical music theory and allow it to influence our creative process at the piano.
Here is an experiment that is inspired by Indian classical music.
Buddhist Philosophy of Music
In the Zen Buddhist tradition, we focus on the silence between the tones. In Tibetan Buddhism, we focus on the physical experience of vibrations while listening, singing (chanting), or playing. Absorption into the sound waves is a form of meditation, as is the experience of the silence between the notes.
Here is an experiment based on Buddhist philosophy of music.
- Sit and focus on the in-breath and out-breath.
- Listen to sounds in the right ear.
- Listen to sounds in the left ear.
- Be aware of sounds behind you.
- Listen to sounds happening in front of you.
- Take a deep breath and exhale a tone that resonates in your chest, mouth, and head.
- Hold the tone with each exhale while experiencing the silence of the inhale.
- Feel the physical vibrations of the tone while you sing.
- At the piano, become aware of the physical feeling of the piano keys and the vibrations of the sound in your fingertips and your body.
Western Philosophical Traditions of Music
We begin with the Ancient Greek Pre-Socratics. These are the thinkers who lived before Greece's golden age of philosophy, which was dominated by Socrates, Plato, & Aristotle. The Pre-Socratics mostly viewed music as a systematic manifestation of natural laws that also governed the universe. Most famously, Pythagoras developed the basis of the Western musical scale by describing the ratios of the overtones that can be produced by one string. This means that one string can be repeatedly divided into halves, producing a series of notes that will eventually produce all twelve tones. You can experience the overtone series on an acoustic piano by striking and dampening a low C while allowing the upper notes of the piano to vibrate sympathetically. The followers of Pythagoras felt that the universe is made up of musical frequencies and that the planets emitted a tone on their path through space. This is known as the music of the spheres. Many centuries later, the composer Gustav Holst would compose an orchestral suite based on the ideas of Pythagoras called The Planets. The Pythagoreans also developed the idea that certain scales, known as modes, could be used to treat and restore a suffering soul to harmony. This idea continues today in music therapy and expressive arts therapy. The idea of ratios in music, that is to say that music is geometrical rather than arithmetical, is the basis of Western music theory. A famous composer of the Twentieth Century, Paul Hindemith, wrote a book about music composition that is very much invested in the overtone series as a source for harmony and melody.
Here is an experiment using the overtone series to make music.
- Find the lowest C on your piano and play it while holding down the sustain pedal.
- Next, play the C just one octave (eight notes) higher. That interval is called a perfect octave.
- Now play the G that is five notes above the C that you just played. That interval is called a perfect fifth.
- Next, play the C just four notes above the G you played. This interval, from G to C is called a perfect fourth.
- Finally, play the E three notes above the C you just played. This interval is called a major third.
- Can you use the series of harmonic overtones to write a melody?
- Try playing the lowest C over and over on a regular pulse with your left hand, while mixing up the C, G, & E in the right hand.
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| Josef Albers -Homage to the Square VI (1967) |
We find many variables in music that act in opposition to each other. We can think of the variable of tempo, which can be fast, slow, or moderate. The variable of melody can be smooth (legato), detached (staccato), or something in the middle (tenuto). Dynamics have extreme opposition in forte (loud) and piano (soft), and mezzo forte, which is a little loud. We also have opposites in pitch register: low, middle, and high, with which we create a melody. As we will see when discussing Schopenhauer, harmony contrasts between tension and release, a chain of dissonance followed by consonance.
Here is an experiment that explores the variables of music and how to use contrast to make music live with animation and expression.
- Play a five-note motif on the piano.
- Use contrast to make the motif alive and interesting.
- Play the motif at a fast tempo and then a slow tempo.
- Keeping a steady beat, contrast the five-note motif by composing different rhythms.
- Play the five-note motif and then play it backwards. This contrasts the rhythm and the melody.
- Play the motif loud, then soft, and then loud again.
- Play the motif in the right hand while playing different bass notes in the left hand.
Democritus felt that music was a luxury and had little value other than relaxation and entertainment. What do you think? Do you agree with Democritus that music is mostly for entertainment and relaxation, or do you think it is a serious and thoughtful practice, like philosophy or literature?
The Golden Age of Greece: Socrates, Plato & Aristotle
Arthur Schopenhauer
Friedrich Nietzsche
Psychoanalysis
Gestalt Psychology
Modern Evolutionary Psychology
Neuroscience
The American composer and conductor, Leonard Bernstein, took on the question, What does music mean? in a 1958 New York Philharmonic Young People's Concert. He later explored the issue of musical meaning in his 1973 Harvard Norton Lectures series.
