“Men vent great passions by breaking into song, as we observe in the most grief-stricken and the most joyful”
-Vico, The New Science, LIX
The history of music is perhaps the most complex and compelling history we have, both as a species and as a planet. It is inextricably linked to life and death, sorrow and joy, that which we think of when we think of our existence. Man has used song for a very long time, perhaps even before spoken language. Other animals, such as birds and whales, use it as their language when, as far as we can tell, they have no actual words. In the Aboriginal culture, this potential of music is realized, with the entire existence of the universe hanging on the notes of the songlines.
Man’s first written songs were religious chants, and this directly ties into one of the most important uses of music. The songs were religious tribute to the world around them, acknowledgement of a spiritual connection above the confines of the physical. Aboriginals use song in much the same way: each song is a tribute to a certain trail of land, a certain ancestor, and a certain species. These trails of song, called songlines, run throughout the entirety of Australia, creating an infinitely complex web of different ideas. As Bruce Chatwin notes on page 13 of Songlines, “In theory, at least, the whole of Australia could be read as a musical score […] One should perhaps visualize the Songlines as a spaghetti of Iliads and Odysseys, writhing this way and that, in which every ‘episode’ was readable in terms of geology.” Each songline has its own distinct melody, relating to the story of the ancestor, so each member of the clan, while not knowing the whole story, can recognize his song even if the words are different. In this way, every person in Australia is tied together through clan relations, the links between maintainers of specific songlines, and tribe relations, the people that the person lives and travels with.
These multi-layered webs very much reflect the effects of music on our lives today. We all are deeply connected with song: it can take us on journeys very few other endeavors can, even within the arts. We are defensive of the music we feel attached to, as evidenced in the heated battles between students over which musicians and songs are better that others that go on in the halls of high schools every day. This is closely related to the Aboriginal idea of the songline: we feel like certain pieces of music are our own, under our watchful eye, and we must protect their integrity from all intruders. We feel an instant connection with others who share our musical interests, much like an Aboriginal would feel connected to his clan mate. This is the purpose of religious hymns and national anthems: to link the people through common song. And these pieces that we call our own are profoundly blended into our minds and hearts. There are songs that bring tears to my eyes every time I hear them: they can communicate on so many levels that our conscious mind cannot begin to understand.
Even with the study of music, one never can really find why certain melodies and harmonies affect certain people so deeply; why Sibelius’s Karelia suite is more moving to me than even the most complex arrangements of Hot Cross Buns. What is this driving force behind music that entangles itself within us? From the purely physical view, all music is simply rapid changes in pressure of air, which moves our eardrums in extremely fast pulses. These pulses are converted to streams of electric signals and sent to our brains. What can we derive from this? What knowledge can we gain from it? It brings to mind the question of all our experiences: they are all electrical impulses interpreted by our brains. The most interesting of paintings is, on the most simplistic level, just a certain pattern of atoms that release light waves with different frequencies. However, something in there, some certain arrangement touches us, moves us.
One of the first things that totalitarian societies ban is music and the arts. Behind the Iron Curtain, jazz and rock were not allowed to be performed. In the 1800s, slave owners disallowed the slaves from owning musical instruments. To have a drum or be seen beating a drum was punishable by beating or death. This need for control is in fact just a backhanded recognition of the power of the human spirit of creativity. To control the masses, the leaders must ban all individuality and expression, to the point where the people have no will to fight back. Music is a huge player in this aspect of human consciousness, and is punished accordingly. However, the need for song is often so great that the oppressed will rise above the restrictions, breaking this law more than most others, to make music. The spirituals sung by the slaves are still with us today, and the jazz and blues of New Orleans live on. Through control, the slave owners simply made the spirit all the more desperate to break out, to pull song from the mind and heart into being. These hymns are some of the most powerful harmonies of all, for they were created in the heat of struggle. They can speak to us much more than through their words alone.
My compositional teacher has a severely autistic son by the name of Michael. Michael cannot speak, can barely move, and is confined to his room for the majority of the day. However, he is amazingly responsive to music. When the speakers start to vibrate with the sounds of Holst or Liszt, he often cries out, reacting to the harsher harmonies and rhythms. He can sense changes in the music before they occur, as if hidden in each tone is a story of what is to come. However, when you put on some of his favorite songs, he instantly is pacified. He will begin nodding and humming along, seemingly without a care in the world.
This essentially sums up what we all find in music: a sense of escape, while at the same time, a sense of connection. We are taken on journeys, yet reminded of the web we have between each and every thing around us. Every person, whether a composer or not, has song inside them. As Saul Williams states in his song “Black Stacey”, “I plan to have a whole army by the time that I'm through; to load their guns with songs they haven't sung.” He also states in “Fearless” that, “I am a poet who composes what the world proses, and proses what the world composes.” This is what we all are, whether we do it through song, dance, painting, writing, or even just thinking. Each of us has that history of creation deep inside of us, waiting to burst through the earth into being.
0 remarks:
Post a Comment