What is music? Who are we? Where to go? Why to go? What has music to tell us about that?
Where is the limit when music becomes genius and what justifies that? Why is it's message so valuable? Who are those magical invisible creatures in the form of sounds, which fill concert halls and scaffolds of all types with millions and millions of people in ecstatic pleasure? What has this amazing power to lift people on their feet? It is the same power as that one which runs up the blood in the veins, the one that warms the child in his mother's lap, the same as the one with which we – lovers - fly?
If we take just a short look at the glowing evening sun, which casts its warm rays of gold-copper over snowy mountain slopes, incredibly peaceful and glorious in its quiet iced beauty, if we recall the human and non-human creatures, whose movements and music match our planet, our universe in the most beautiful and most organic symphonic poem, it's really not so difficult to realize how ancient, elementary, and how essential is the beauty of all kinds. Even if we tighten the concept of beauty to the art - as human effort to create beauty (for example, work of composer or painter), this facts can not be avoided. The art dates back at least as much as the man himself and his always creative inbeing, descended from endless possibilities and their lucky combinations.
Here stands the music, from ancient yelp to the cramps of synthetic music – as a miracle of all audible, in all its grandeur and silence, undiscribable in it's endless expression and its effect on humans.
It seems quite clear, that composer's everyday life affects his musical ideas, his musical imagination and inner ear. Of course it does, he is also human. He wakes up in the morning, he brushes his teeth, combs the hair and prepears cereals with the warm milk. He has a family and is concerned about his young son smoking weed, he is concerned how small are pension benefits and he feels infinitely warm, when his wife - after a decade of marriage - sends him a warm look ... All the "small" must be reflected somewhere in the music, if even in the most unconscious level.
Life will equally spread on the canvas of a painter or between lines of a poet. We have strong evidences that this always happens. Historians and scholars firmly study lifes of artists, their attitudes, relationships, their happiness, their illnesses - recognizing that their everyday life is largely reflected in their artistic creations. (For example sickish and sensitive Chopin, triumfal Liszt, schizophrenic Schuman or by the war affected Shostakovich).
Facing this facts, we can quickly come to conclusion that music is nothing else than a kind of transfer of life in the sound. And even if (because of the most skeptical readers) I limit myself and say, that music is the transfer of certain images, events, situations or selected sensations of life in the sound, will do for now. After all, this is not that important. It is important for its message. Amazingly important.
So what is the brilliant and genious music, what is it's message, which kind of language does it produce? Complete, perfect. What is complete? Is anything really perfect in this world?
From a complete musical language is evident that all the constituent elements of the musical tissue (rhythm, melody, harmony, polyphony) or. all the musical details (individual tones, motifs, melodies, rhythmic patterns, etc..) are in perfect harmony - they complement each other, they depend on each other and fit to each other to the smallest detail. Each singularity has its substantive meaning, form and expressive power, since it is an organic part of the whole, whole, with a character, adorned with a mood that is alive to breathe! Yes, breathe. What does it mean when someone, something breathes? Life.
MESSAGE WHICH CONTAINS ALL or WHAT MUSIC WANTS TO TELL ABOUT A MAN, NATURE AND THE UNIVERSE
No one has taught me so much about the world, about the sense, about the nature, as music had done. By means of deduction, music led me to several conclusions which have (so far) pleased many of my curiosities.
Let me start with this, from where we come from – with nature. Similarity of musical language with the language of nature is for me on of the greatest personal evidences that music is real life itself. More. Music clearly speaks also about the meaning of our existence, about distant source of our being and our creative essence. I know, bold thinking ... Let me invite you along the path that had opened to me long time ago and which is still so persistent in my thinking aswell feeling.
Heinrich Neuhaus, one of the greatest piano pedagogues of all time about the musical language:
"
Musical language is a language with its
legalities and its
component elements - rhythm, harmony, melody and polyphony. It has a
structure (form) and
emotive poetic content. "
This definition should be enough for now. Let us use some deduction. Deducting from the music (or from what we know about music) let's try to think about nature, about life, about ourselves. Let's compare the musical language with the language of the world.
LegalityMusic has its own laws, which are explained by musical sciences such as music theory, the doctrine of harmony and musical form, counterpoint, etc..
Do the nature and human society have its laws aswell? They have. Interpreted by technological, social, humanistic sciences of all kinds. Just remember some of the basic physical, chemical legalities, from the gravitational force, centrifugal force, evaporation, freezing, remember the sun rising and falling, the myriad laws that govern our body (the red blood cells, purification, breathing, blood circulation) etc.. With a little memory, we can come to the enormous number of legalities, regulations and laws on our planet. Why are there legalities in music? To edit, and merge it into a whole. Why are there legalities on the earth? To edit, and merge it into a whole. Thus, in music as in nature all fits with each other and forms a whole? Yes indeed. In genious music every sound is placed exactly there where is the best place for it. Even rationaly - with an integrated music analysis – it is possible to prove that. There is no exit from the whole, that would disturb us. Is it the same in the nature? Even in nature, each flower grows there, where is the best for it and for the orgnisms that rely on it. Even if artificially planted by human hands, flower assimilates into the environment at the best possible way. All colors greet each other. At the same time we can see green trees and vast sky, quiet, calm river and hungry calls of heron, little frogg and strong ray of sun, which tries to find a way through the sad willow tree. So much individuality, but only one scene.
Do the
musical elements have anything to do with the nature and life?
RhythmRhythm, the first and the most primal musical element. Everything in this world, even in the universe, is circulating in the established pattern; from the planets, water in nature and all to the blood in the veins. Creatures on the ground are walking in tempered step, the wings of birds flickering, the fins of fish distorting in measured rhythms, and finally our big golden sun, which greets us and leaves us everyday. In Western classical music there are two basic rhythmic ways. Bipartite and tripartite rhythmic way. In other words, the first is divided into 2 beats (or two main beats), the second is devided in 3. Furthermore, we should not overlook the analogy with the human body, where the bipartite and tripartite rhythms are principal rhythmic modes: two-part heart rate (compressure, release) or. three-part process of breathing (inhalation, chemical reactions, exhale). Fundamental processes that allow life on earth are thus clearly recognizable also in western classical (and especially popular) music.
HarmonyHarmony in music represents chord of tones. Given the different tones in a certain harmony, we can produce different harmonies, which have a specific color, meaning or even represent a base of the character. Each tone in chord has its own specific location, intensity, color, and all tones depend on each other. Harmonies are connected to each other under certain rules (which are all too often violated by exceptions) in the major musical ideas, including melody, etc..
In nature "harmony" is represented in innumerable forms at numerous levels. One of them could be the meadow, the other forest, third river, fourth a cave. Each "harmony" contains its own elements, which have their own characteristics, which are interdependent and together form a whole (continuing the practical example:the spacious lawn with its colorful image of the flora and fauna, small fragrant pine forest, swift river with river vegetation and small aquatic creatures, cold cave with a hard, heavy moisture and growing stalactites ...). Harmonies link to greater harmony (in the latter example in the Karst landscape), and so on and so on… until ... until we are able to hold the edge of the space.
MelodyI will not speak too much about a melody, because its relationship with the world it's too obvious for all of us. Every phenomenon, every thing, every creature on this planet sings its own unique song (even if it is almost inaudible). The song, that talks about life and love, about joy and celebration, the sorrow and pains, a song that talks about individuum, which is so special, there is no equal to it. Heinrich Neuhaus says it like this: "The foundation of all music is singing. Pre-element of all instrumental music are sounds of nature, from the birds singing, rustling leaves, murmuring of streams and all until the yearning of the mad Sea, an avalanche of thunder and the turning of the hurricane... But what is there to compare to the expressiveness and the stimuli of the human voice? It is impossible to forget to vote on this "pre-sound", on humans and all human. As a kind of mysterious God, voice lives in every music, it all comes from the voice and even back into it. "
PolyphonyIn music, polyphony is the term for conglomerate of voices, in which every voice is of equal importance and rhythmically, melodically independent, yet they are all in mutual harmony and in function to create a whole of musical piece. One of the best examples of polyphony in classical music can certainly be found in Bach's works.
And what would now imply polyphony in everyday life? Nothing more than that, what humanists and scholars are stressing for centuries and centuries: the unreplacability and importance of each individual on this planet. As the voices in the polyphony, each of us is singing a song at our own pace, none more worthy than another, because the absence of one would upset the balance of the entire song called "The world" and in the same moment we would collapse into universal dust, as genius Bach's fugue would collapse, if only one voice had been removed from it. (already removing one sound would do horrific effect). Next, the polyphony could also be administered to the movement of planets around the sun (in its orbits, with its speeds, all working for the same idea - to maintain the solar system, crucial to human existence)and much more and more ... "The polyphony is the best possible way to create the artistic uniqueness of the individual and general-folk, the man and the universe," says our teacher Neuhaus.
I'm happy because I note with great certainty that the component elements of music are the same as principal elements of life on the Earth. Let us consider briefly: Rhythm: Physical activity critical to the development and existence of beings (heart rate, breath, blood circulation, water cycle on Earth, the Earth cicruling around the sun, etc.). Harmony: Combining elements into larger groups and their symbiosis (nature: groups of flora and fauna, human: society, civilization, organizations, space: solar systems). Melody: A symbol of the emotional note of life; a voice from which all arises and into which all returns, countless songs of flora, fauna and man. Polyphony: irreplaceable importance and creative power of the individual in a great circle of life - crown and purpose of being.
Structure (form)Any priceless piece of music has its own form (structure) - it may be already widely used and has certain rules (eg Sonata, Rondo, etc..) or represents simply a new idea of form. The principal is, that all the musical elements are organized into a whole, creating a specific form. Thus, as in architecture (with the help of organization and modeling) elements of material, imagination, phisical laws grow together into a beautiful palace, or as in film-making elements of camera, acting and text join into a great movie, the rest of the world is builded equally. Starting with nature. Each creature in this world is constructed until the slightest detail - with the most sophisticated apparatus and a maximum degree of creative imagination. Just think of the number of all of the various creatures and their specialty, their unique function, their colors and patterns in the skin, their instincts and habits ... billions and billions of them, and each, including humans, has a specific shape. Structure is common also to all companies, societies (animal and human). Even each human product has a specific form - from baking the cake, arranging the garden, cutting nails, hair styles and all to the great artistic creations. It seems like it is deep in human beings, it seems as if it were part of all of us, that we are so attracted to designing, that we want to organize and model the things. Clearly! Everything in this world has its shape and once the appropriate design offers beauty! Beauty, along which we are always so enthusiastic. Why?
Emotive poetic contentHere we have the last and most important component of classical music. The only one which is not in keeping with the spoken language, the only one who can only be felt with an open heart. Emotive lyrical subject matter. This is what crowns the brilliant palaces of genious architects and canvases of great painters. This is what drives the rhythm of music that it can start to live at all. This is what drives us that we can begin to live. This is what is between the lines and what is sometimes so hard to find. However, when this is found, all efforts rewarded. When we find, we find the right beauty. Clean, unique. And it must be, that it is so important, obviously, beauty inspires good feelings, happyness. Why?
There is another important fact, that the music is so consistently communicating, but it seems that all too seldom we realize it : the beauty of music is able to embellish, to make sense of and to overcome sorrow and suffering. Even if music (or any other art) speaks of sadness and grief, it always wrappes the content in a unique beauty. All what complete music speaks about, is therefore always beautiful. And you will say, "Well, sometimes the artist would like to show some uglyness aswell." Indeed. Music (as derived from life) sometimes requires also an ugly face, even more than that, brutal scenes of war (Schostakovitch: Leningrad Symphony), etc. But nevertheless, eventhough its content is something bad, its function will be that we immediately realize that and react with emotion: "Oh dear, this is really ugly, dark, terrible." And then: "I wish it would be beautiful and good." So, even if artist brings to effect aesthetics of uglyness, this exercise in order to remind us of the consequences of bad or even more importantly, fills us with desire for beauty and well. Beauty and Good - no doubt true art drivers. Did I dare say, Good and Beauty - spiritus agens of life? Did I dare say, Good have done the world?!
Best wishes! ;)
Let me do (for a change) some good promotion for the Portugues culture and its social enviroment. Let me share with you something beautiful that happened in the night from 23th to 24th of June in Porto, something that is so unique, that probably doesn't have any equivalent in the whole wolrd - the so called Night of Saint John is one of the most beautiful holidays I have ever experienced in my life. In the honor of the saint, who favours lovers, all the city goes down to the river, sharing joy and compassion in a very special way;
People (thousand and thousands of them) gently hit eachother's heads with the plastic hammers, which create thin and sizzling sound. The hammers can be replaced with the pink garlic flowers on long stalks (but these are a bit more disturbing then the first:)) Evening magic is complemented by beautiful coloured burning paper ballons, which are ascending (assumably together with the wishes and prayers) towards the spacious black sky, and magnificent long-lasting fire-works, launched from the three river boats anchored in the middle of River Douro. 
