Hypnotised by Coldplay

Serenity

"Such is this steep ascent,

That it is ever difficult at first.

But more a man proceeds, less evil grows.

When pleasant it shall seem to thee, so much

That upward going shall be easy to thee

As in a vessel to go down the tide,

Then of this path thou wilt have reach'd the end.

There hope to rest thee from thy toil."

                                          Dante, in Divine Comedy

The Beginning of a New Chapter

Serving the People.

Romance sans Paroles

Impromptu

The Sound of Reassurance

On Brahms' Intermezzo in A major

The first time I paid attention to this beautiful piano piece was on a mid-autumn late afternoon, travelling home from work. I had it on my mp3 player along with other classical pieces in a compilation album of the 'Best Classical Music' I downloaded from the internet. I fell in love with it instantly as I heard the pristine chorus. 

But before we talk about the chorus, first let's listen to this piece from its very beginning.

...

The opening theme is rather modest. In fact this opening statement is repeated three times, before, a circular, series of upgoing and downgoing notes are played. This dizzying array of notes that follow the repetitive opening melody may be uninteresting to the listener. But this is why we can take it as a test of the listener's endurance to pay attention to this piece, despite its apparent dullness in this section. This becomes more challenging as a further series of downgoing dissonance follow.

It is not long, however, before a comforting, most beautiful chorus is introduced - and the listener's patience is finally redeemed. This is when we can feel that the music is telling us that "everything is alright."

Then, the piece takes us to its problematic theme. This fast-paced theme is played twice and each time it ends with a 'question mark' - before moving on to the next theme of temporary comfort. The slow changing notes of this soothing theme, are then followed by the restless problematic theme again. This time, however, the problematic theme is eventually merged to the recapitulation of the opening section. The merge is cleverly achieved by the upgoing 'question mark' repeated until the opening melody is finally reached.

After the opening theme is repeated again, it is followed by the circular theme, now already familiar on repeated hearing. And not long after, we hear the wonderful chorus that ends the piece. Here again, we are reminded by the chorus, poetically repeated at the end, that "everything will be alright."

(This is my rendition of this brilliant composition by Brahms. Enjoy)

The Buildup

Art as a Mirror

1. The analogy

What makes art? What makes music? 

When we speak, we produce sound waves that can have varying pitch and rhythm, and yet our speech is not considered music. So why do we consider Beethoven's fifth to be a piece of music, when it is also essentially made of sound waves produced by an orchestra? Also, if we can write an essay, or draw a picture, both using pen and paper, why must we distinguish one scribbling from the other?

I think the reason we discriminate speech from music, written passage from drawing, lies in the analogy of the mirror. And the analogy is, that art (which includes music as one of its forms) is anything that can act as a mirror to our soul.  


2. The mirror

A mirror, as we learn at school, works by reflecting light. We can say that it is usually made of two layers. It has a transparent layer made of glass. And behind the glass there is an opaque layer of coating, that can be made of substances such as silver or aluminum.

The glass in itself will not reflect much light, although it can act as a two way mirror if we place it between two rooms with different lighting levels. The glass between the two rooms will reflect images of people in the brighter room, whilst making them visible to those people in the dark room.

Of course, when a glass is coated with an opaque substance, including shiny ones like silver or aluminum, the coating layer acts as a dark room. When we look into this glass mirror, we stand in the brighter room, so to speak, and so we can see our reflection in the mirror.


3. The music

Speech is simply a tool for communication. No one would argue otherwise. But who can tell what is music?

If music is simply an art form, then we can probably test our analogy and compare it to a mirror. Like a mirror, a musical piece must also be composed of two layers. It must have a 'transparent' component, and an 'opaque' layer. 

Its 'transparent' component is made of the features that music share with speech, or the features that make music easily understood. These include the explicit information that a piece of music may carry, such as its mood, and the literal interpretation of the lyrics that may accompany the music. Just like when we listen to somebody speak, we can immediately get the tone of his speech (happy, angry, formal, playful) and the information the speaker is trying to convey to us; so in music, when we listen to a song, we can tell whether it is a happy, or sad song, and what the lyrics may literally mean. (Thus, music can be transparent)

However, by being merely 'transparent', a piece of music can only carry a certain meaning, or rigid interpretation, and so we can no longer appreciate it as an art form. This is how we perceive our national anthem and ringtone, to give some examples. These have a direct and literal meaning to them - a national identity, or a call alert.

Therefore, music must also have a 'deeper layer of opacity', to act as a mirror. This is the incomprehensible, obscured part of music. It can be compared to the dark room on the other side of a two way mirror, or the silver coating of a glass mirror. This is the part of music that makes it a mystery to us, and distinguishes it from speech. To illustrate, imagine you calling a friend and then reading him a paragraph from a news website. Then, you suddenly start singing the next paragraph to him.

At first when you read the news to your friend, he would listen and immediately understand what you are talking about. However, when you start singing to him from the same news website, you will almost certainly confuse him, and he may also begin doubting your sanity. Of course, if you can sing well, that paragraph from the news which was originally only a piece of information, can be turned into music quite easily, by the peculiar way you read it aloud.

In other words, singing starts when we cannot be sure why the singer speaks in a certain way. Ironically, even though we could not fully 'understand' his song, we can still very well enjoy it. This is only because music, like a mirror, can show us our reflection. 


4. The reflection

Even after comparing it to a mirror, we may still wonder how music can produce our reflection. The answer lies in how we try to make sense of the peculiarities of music. This is similar to the way we try to make sense of the strangeness and obscurity of other forms of art, including painting, poetry or sculpture.

What we may not have realized is that our interpretation, or the way we make sense of the strangeness of a piece of art is unique to each of us. This is not just about how we differ in our preference of one art over another. In fact, just like how a good mirror can show us a clear reflection, a good piece of art will reveal our reflection clearly.

As mentioned before, our reflection is produced in art when we attempt at an interpretation. This is because our interpretation is inextricably linked to our past experience, knowledge and personality - all of which are unique to each of us. For example, Beethoven's fifth symphony may sound the same to all our ears, but we inevitably will all perceive it differently. Some may say, "It's the sound of Fate". While others may agree with a Youtube commenter who thought, "Star Wars sounds like this". 





By showing us our reflection, art can be a useful way for us to find out more about ourselves. But we must also be careful, as our obsession with art, like an obsession with looking at mirrors, can only be a further proof of our vanity (read: narcissism).

***

The top image is that of Narcissus, by Caravaggio (source: Wikipedia)

A Simple Philosophy

Sunday Love Song

Culture

Adieu

What joy it is to learn a new piece of music. :)

Brahms in B

Borodin's String Quartet

Scherzo

A Short Composition

by yours truly ;)

Madamina!

Noise and Music

What's the difference between baby cries and your favourite song? Both are just made up of sound waves - but why do we hate one and love the other?

I reflected on these thoughts when I was watching a live orchestra the other day. It was one of the best orchestral performance I've seen, probably because they played a number of familiar songs that I listen to everyday when I get to work. There were at least three Tchaikovsky's, thank you maestro!

Anyway, we all get high from listening to our favourite songs, don't we? But aren't these songs just noise essentially (except for John Cage's "4'33", of course!), especially to others who don't enjoy them as much as we do.

When a musician says, "Let's agree on this sound, shall we? And let's give this song a name." 

If the responder says, "Yes, I'll accept that." Then, it becomes music to both of them.

However, if the responder says, "No, I don't like that sound." Then, the musician's song becomes noise to the the responder.

When we get annoyed by a certain sound, we call it noise. In reality, noise is no different from music, but our subjective experience perceive one sound wave as noise, while another as music. We make the value judgement to categorise things we hear into noise or music for ourselves, and in turn, we are the ones who would experience these sounds as noise or music based on our own judgement!

"Of course there is a difference to our ears, between noise and music," you might say. But don't you see my point? It is that we are responsible for our own experience of listening. If we can change our subjective evaluation of a certain sound wave, we can turn it from noise into music - and vice versa!

So don't blame the radio for playing the songs you hate most. Turn it off. And accept that it wasn't the radio's or the singer's fault that we hate their song. Blame it on ourselves. 

...

Meanwhile, let's enjoy this beautiful piece of music that the orchestra played that night.

Aufschwung

This Is My Song

............

This is my song, Oh God of all the nations,

A song of peace for lands afar and mine.

This is my home, the country where my heart is;

Here are my hopes, my dreams, my sacred shrine.

But other hearts in other lands are beating,

With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine

My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,

and sunlight beams on clover leaf and pine.

But other lands have sunlight too and clover,

and skies are everywhere as blue as mine.

This is my song, oh God of all the nations;

a song of peace for their land and for mine.