|
|
HOME | CONTENTS | SEARCH | POST
from: WTF?
cache-dtc-ab06.proxy.aol.com
05-01-30
22:15:17
Therefore, at this point we would like to clarify a basic definition of music. So, what is music? According to Webster's II: New Riverside University Dictionary, music is "the art of arranging tones in an orderly sequence so as to produce a unified and continuous composition1“. Therefore, how can one perceive for example “The Messiah” by Handel, George Frideric (1685-1759) with all its passion and creativity in such a dry and calculated classification? Therefore, is there more to music then one note following another to create a tune? It could be argued that music is a multi-levelled entity of expression and creativity, which has been developing and progressing through our human existences. This in turn has permeated almost every discipline used by man such as science, mathematics, languages, history, physical education and the arts. Let us consider science, it is exact, specific; and it demands precise acoustics. A conductor's full score is a chart or a graph, which indicates frequencies, intensities, volume changes, melody, and harmony all at once and with the most precise control of time. Mathematics on the other hand is based on rhythmically subdivisions of time into fractions, which we played in real time, not worked out on paper. The discipline of language is interesting for reasons that most of the terms are in Italian, German or French, and the notation is certainly not in English. However, it is still a highly developed form of shorthand, which uses symbols to represent ideas. As Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said, "Music is the universal language of mankind” because when we play we play together. Hence, language is music itself, which concludes that the semantics of music must be the most complete and universal language to chronicle human kind. In the context of history, music is reflecting the environment within the time it is created, often the country and/or its racial feeling may be recognised. Nevertheless, the ethnicity of music may not always be clear-cut in the ever-expanding English speaking globalisation of western music. Bomb-funk MC from Finland and Ace the bass from Sweden are two good examples of Anglo-American pressure to produce a product for mass consumption in the world market, which of course is in English. Music can be seen also as physical education because it requires fantastic coordination of finger, hands, arms, lip, cheek, and facial muscles. In addition, it requires extraordinary control of the diaphragmatic back, stomach, and chest muscles, which respond instantly to the sounds, we hear and the mind interprets. As you may agree music is all of these areas, but most of all Music is an art form, it allows a human being to take all these dry, technically dull but difficult disciplines and use them to create emotion. As Plato remarked, "Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything. It is the essence of order and leads to all that is good, just and beautiful, of which it is the invisible, but nevertheless dazzling, passionate, and eternal form”. We could argue that Plato is merely defining music as an entity in the purist art form, showing that science cannot duplicate the creative essences of music other than to rely totally on humanism, feeling, emotion and spirit. Nevertheless, the abstractness of such an analogy is true to an extent, but without structure and controlled form, the music losses the essence once constructed by our abstract, social, cultural and emotional creativity.
