I have touched on this on a few occasions since joining Soma...but it keeps resounding in me the more I 'study' the phenomena of music and 'the muse' in my life. These recent posts excite me to further comment.
I make a broad distinction between what is generally called 'music' (small 'm') and the MUSE of a more considered encounter. {How does one put this in words ? - poetry I suppose}
Anyway -
Small 'm' music is a collection of various sounds in various states of vibrational harmony or deliberate discordance.
Fine; - this almost clinical definition works on on discordance e level of assessment but is decidedly unpalatable for most folk - and the reason for this enthralls many of us!
It is tempting to single out styles of music ie. martial music and assign it to the inorganic end of this lock step mathematical assessment - but it really has little to do with a particular genre - except superficially.
It is something about some form of '_ ficiality' that makes the difference between (lower case) music and (upper case) MUSIC.
[...sometimes when we speak of music we have to invent words and ways of working words - Poetry perhaps]
Moving on...
So...were it not for that exceptional capacity of humans (and other species, like whales) to lend a special attention to these sounds - and indeed, generate specific 'sounds of intent' - we would be marooned in a clamorous clutter of noise. [[[ Now, Sounds like Hell to me ]]]
Which reminds of a little myth I borrowed and re-invented to explain our human predicament. I must write it out and post it some time.
Basically, my version tells of how, when A & E were getting kicked out of the Garden of Eden, the head of the angels Michael knowing we were REALLY Stuffed, slipped our dis-graced little pair of losers a few aids whilst God and the other Cherubs weren't watching. I reckon - one of the gifts was the ability for intentional sounding and listening - or what we now call Music. (The others were [the enjoyment of] sex and the capacity to laugh ).
"If you are going to be humans rather than just Hu's, you better have some of this." said Michael, slipping Adam a small package of humour.
Yeah...I will post my little myth - now i've started writing it here.
Right...
Yep... that special 'attention' is a 'lifeline' of the MUSES - that state, condition or spirit that gave ascension to enable us to heed the heart and to hear through the body. Perhaps why 'hear' and 'heart' are just separated by a cross or 't')
I also note that the word muse has a 'us' within 'ME' - [M-us-E] which is a most suitable artifice to encapsulate the effect of the MUSE - those mythical spirits of creativity. They foster recognition of the total within the singular.
Calliope for example, is the muse of medicinal / magic-itial language.
Be that as it may...language is of course, the bumbling country cousin of music.
Mind you...just what makes 'a piece of music' - into - 'a song' is a story unto itself
- or for that matter, when is; noise > sound and sound > music is a profound study .
Michael / anyone ?
Anyway...I digress;
What I wanted to highlight was the singular wonder of what I call, our human capacity to make moments momentous.
In spite of the general parlance, nobody can actually 'make' music...for after all, we are MADE OF IT - ! However, one exceptional hu-man facility we did manage to nick from the garden, is the capacity to gesture ways of remembrance for this very strange fact of existence. Namely that - MUSIC MAKES US and not the other way around.
And we do that through the _ficiality of 'sterile' physics of sound, rhythm, harmony in neXus with and all those minor (and major) muses. The creatI've in us all.
So in some ways, what we call music - is a celebration or confluence of realities.
Kinda amusing really.
But it does beg the question: who's jamming?
