Story told by music (Part III)

Cause and effect


Another indicator of how musical language coincides with the language of the world.
In our world, all happening is very clearly based on the relation of cause and effect, all what happens, occurs, all what has been done (as well Chagall's picture on the right), represents an effect of some specific cause (or more causes). Starting with the nature, evaporation of water represents the cause of rainfall, warm spring sun and rain are one of the causes for the colourful awakening of the flora. There are reasons for the physical (as well intangible) creation of man, we know that we can get skin-burned if we get to close to the fire-place, we know that we cry because we are sad (or very happy or sometimes both). Nevertheless, everything what man feels, is the result of something, that has happened in the outside world or deeper inside the soul. We are familiar with the fact, that all diseases have their cause (and how our beloved medicine, to which we run in the moments of helplessness, treats only its consequences). Nothing, nothing, therefore, does not happen by pure chance (although at the first glance we could speculate that the world is all full of coincidences). If we look at events with greater temporal perspective, we find out, that even those most "naked" coincidences have their cause hiden somewhere (and usually it's a very strong one). Such a "coincidence" could reflect in the funny event, like this: One rainy spring morning you sadly found out, that you have run out of stamps. Despite the bad weather, you have concluded that you have to go to the post, why in two weeks you are playing a concert in an important cultural center and there are still some vital invitations to be sent. In front of the post, somebody in a big hurry bumps into you (it appears like he came from nowhere), and beats you to the ground, that you land in a large filthy pre-postal puddle. With a dirty face, trying to draw aside your darkened curls (attentive observer might even notice there is a piece of squashy cigarette stucked in your ear), you look up and see a person ... the person which might stay with you until the rest of your life. Another incredibly beautiful story for a new luscious Hollywood film, with the sweet candy of happy coincidence on the top. However, when we think better ... Haven't you thought many times already how much would you want someone, with whom you could share your "little life happinesses"? Well, then all this funny story didn't happen by some unknown coincidence, but due to your long-smoldering desire...
Furthermore, if we are noticing that everything in life has its cause, then the music has to tell us the same thing, why, as I have been trying to proove consistently, music and life speak in very similar languages. How can we notice this term of "cause-effect" in music?
Have you ever heard of a worn phrase, that we learn from childhood and what represents one of most oftenly used (if not abused) teaching tools in musical education: "Question-answer". This means nothing else then the term "cause-effect". Music contains countless examples of this kind ... For example 4-bar motive consists of two-bar musical thought (cause), which in the two succeeding bars evokes new thought which is dependent on the first (and represents its consequence). There are numerous musical ideas in countless extentions built in such a context (ranging from simple melodies through to more complex musical ideas, such as the contrasting themes of sonata form, etc..). Then there is harmony and eternal game of dissonance (cause), which dissolutes its power in consonance (effect). Ultimately, overall musical perspective (or perspectives of individual musical elements such as rhythm, harmony, melody, polyphony, structure) may suggest the following (perhaps most important) causes - design, organization and integration of musical elements, what results in creation of a whole . It seems that this causes are also most important causes in human life (designing, organization of life, bringing people together to create a general state of good and beauty).
Very clearly, causal link can be distilled likewise from playing of an instrument, which works on the following principle: mind(thought) - movement of the hand - production of the sound. So, the thought (idea) causes a hand gesture, hand gesture is further responsible for the production of certain sounds, which may ultimately give rise to human emotions, which will then again evoke a new mental connections, etc.).
I could be playing with causeses and their effects much more, but there is no need. Quite clearly, each tone is placed in a specific place because it is logical successor to the previous ones. Mentioned tone in the same time represents a new cause (or part of the the cause) that will produce a new consequence (new sounds) ect.
Finally, isn't it the same in life - that everything what we do, everything that happens , is the logical consequence of our previous thoughts, actions and feelings?
There is one more thing bothering me. What exactly is "the cause"? "Encounter of contrasts"?

Some other day...



Good day for you all! ;)

Story told by music (part II)

The Goodness - driver of Art, driver of Life?


In the first part of "Story told by music" I had shown (by means of deduction) how musical language coincides with the language of nature and the world, how basic musical elements (rhythm, harmony, melody, polyphony) coincide with essential elements of life on Earth. I concluded my contemplation with thoughts about man and his always creative soul - his attraction to create form (clearly, everything in the world has its form), which provides a whole and the beauty, the beauty which fills us each time with such a good feeling. Why?


Creating something that has a form, something that offers beauty, should be the purpose of human life. This thought is supported by countless creations of each individual on this planet. Everybody is always creating something. Even those who stack boxes on the conveyor belt (and suffer from lack of creativity in the workplace), do create. They create when they come home; baking cookies, governing the garden, cleaning-up the basement, caring for children, etc.. Finally, the crown and the biggest proof that the man is supposed to create is the "creation of a child" (which is a symbol of purity, goodness and beauty). However, it is something that separates creation of a child from the rest of creations. Other creations are of our property, while the child is not. Parents (should) create children from one and only porpouse - to give them precious possibility to live (and of course to help them find their creative goals)... But that's not the point of this discussion.

Let's see the meaning of good feeling. We can point out with surety that beauty inspires good feelings (even the aesthetics of uglyness compel us to recognize the consequences of bad and evokes the desire for good and beautiful). Man is therefore happy when he creates. Even more, creating saves him from the real life complexities. He is happy because he is able to make beauty and produce something useful, he is happy because he feels that the creation is fulfilling his purpose of life. And if the purpose of life is creating, if we feel well when we create, it must be that this is the natural state of man - to be happy. To be looking forward to creating, to be admiring and celebrating the miracle of life, which provides the creative power and freedom to each individual. Departing from this, it is quite clear that the energy (in other words spirit, soul, substance), which keeps a man alive and represents a driver of his live at the same time, is a power of Good (or Good-being), forwhy the natural state of man is that he enjoyes and admires the process of his own creations, creations of others and the collective creation, the natural condition is that he is glad to work well and to feel Good.
Another proof of this is repeatedly revealing to me through music; top musician is always very simple and good man. It never happened to me, that I met a musician who stricked me with his wonderuf playing and that wasn't the same impressive on his humanistic side as well. Hereupon I concluded many times, that the good should be a condition to achieve maximum beauty.
And what is that indescribable beauty, which we can say with certainty, that it's the biggest of all, that is on disposal to everyone, created by a greater Good, that one can imagine? The beauty of nature. Just remember for a moment what nature offers to you: from the rainbow of creatures and their lives (the colourful world of flora and fauna), and up to the mighty mountains, wrapped in a blanket of quiet, great blue ocean and our golden sun that greets us each morning, again and again. That greets us and says: "Look at me, you, who are the creator, look at my golden face, because nothing less golden is your creative power, which calls for completion!" Sun, another thing that always pleases us (and makes us feel warm and optimistic), another thing that represents (maybe most clearly) the energy, crucial for the survival and development of life on our planet - the energy of Good.
Thus it is very likely that once the great Good created the nature, while the nature is full of the latter. Have you already seen trees that would cry, when discarding their leaves in autumn and prepearing for winter-sleep? Have you seen offsprings crying (with the exception of human offsprings) when going alone into a big world, away from the mother? No. Nothing in nature cries. All runs and lives in order to keep the balance, in order to maintain and develop a form and beauty of the world. It seems that all beings instinctively feel that they are creating one whole, for one world - for one beauty of a creation which is in constant development and that there is no equal to it. Why is this so difficult to understand for people? Where and when did we astray?

Anyway ... if you let yourself be sensible for a moment and if you look briefly into the nature, man and into all that is, deep down, you will feel good. The great Good, that was so good to create a miracle of life, unprecedented and indescribable in its beauty and proportions.


Warmest thoughts until next time! ;)

STORY TOLD BY MUSIC

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.

Legality
Music 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?

Rhythm
Rhythm, 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.
Harmony
Harmony 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.
Melody
I 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. "
Polyphony
In 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 content
Here 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! ;)