# Does music reflect life?



## demiangel (Sep 15, 2010)

I was thinking about music and I began to think about how music reflects reality? Is there some kind of pattern in what we perceive as pleasing to the ear which has correspondences in other parts of reality, such as nature? Our brains and senses are all made up of natural patterns which have been tested over time, such as double helixes, spheres, and other forms that have proven useful for the continuance of life through untold eons of not dying off but turning into something else. These same natural patterns surely must factor into our appreciation of beauty and art, since they make up who we are on a certain fundamental level. Does consonance reflect life, with waveforms that frequently meet each other, and does dissonance reflect entropy, with opposing patterns that do not meet each other and work together but remain independent, as if they were cells in a structure that only cares for itself, and not the whole? Over time more and more dissonance has been incorporated into music, as if the individual notes of the piece may not meet and work together harmoniously as frequently, which would reflect life in a modern republican or democratic form of government, with individuals being more and more different than each other, but nevertheless making up the society as a whole, just as the dissonant disagreeable notes make up the musical composition? Does music adapt to more and more chaos, just as humans must do, continuously evolving in a more and more chaotic world? I think that in the best pieces, all the dissonance must be incorporated somehow into representations of the forms that make up life, as if a trickster god (the composer) pits individual notes against each other, toward some hidden goal the individual notes are not aware of, just as a God (or perhaps, a Devil) may do to human beings.


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

Music (sound) is a part of life (everything).

The question is too philosophical (pointless) to go any further.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Aha! I finally found someone who wonders about the same questions as me! Music Philosophy! My special hobby.

It depends if you're a Christian whether or not you will understand what I'm about to tell you. Then again, it may still be a huge enlightenment. Personally, I do not claim to know all the answers, and I honestly feel ignorant about certain aspects. But this is what conclusion I have come to. This also can be applicable to other forms of art.

Music does indeed reflect life, because our lives are a part of a larger story. There are many points about music which are subjective, like the question of whether something is "good" or "bad," but technically those adjectives can't count anymore. The real question we need to ask for a piece of music is "Does this work, or not work?" What works IS subjective. You commented on how the brain is attracted to certain things that make it stimulated, and that indeed is proof for it.

In all of time, we are a part of God's story, it is the ultimate version of anything we humans can create from our own minds and hearts. Fairytales, beautiful sunsets, the intricacy of a life, and even death and destruction point to the theme of this Perfect Story. Music is one aspect. In this Story, the story of our lives, there must be good and evil. Good is anything that God has created. Period. Evil is the corruption of good by sin, and the devil. God didn't create evil the same way he created anything else. Yet, God uses evil, since the beginning of time, to state a greater plot: Good overcomes evil, light destroys darkness, and God is all the more glorified when there is _conflict _and _triumph_. We were created in the image of God, and I'll prove it: We all know ourselves that a story is worthless if only nice, pleasant things happen, and we often call it dullness, lack of plot or motion, etc. because we know something could be better. What does it need? A conflict.

Music is one medium of this Story. This sole purpose has never been removed from music, our style/taste has only changed. For Bach, his idea of good vs. evil was consonant chords vs. suspensions and V7 chords with tritones, etc. Nowadays, we consider that rather a simplistic idea of dissonance, and find all his music even more consonant the anything we know today, using parallel 5ths and 2nds, and tritones are ubiquitous. Music over the last few hundred years has had a move towards liberality, the breaking of rules, the creating of new ideas and mediums for thought. Who knows where it will go next! Yet, we still have this idea of "good" vs. "evil." Even the most dissonant music by composers still have this idea, in different measures.

Therefore, what constitutes "good" music essentially comes to this: there is a conflict between consonance(which represents good, pleasant emotions, even God himself), and dissonance (which represents evil, sin, unpleasant emotions, and the devil), and the result of this conflict is the resolution of dissonance into consonance (Good triumphs over evil, we all live happily ever after). It often reaches to more complexer ideas, such as minor/major, tempos, development, etc. Yet if a piece of music can do this, it becomes more than good, it becomes a _classic_. There are too many classical works for me to name that follow this pattern.

A big reason Music has deteriorated into lots of dissonance in contemporary music, starting from the late 19th to 20th cent. is not only because of experimentation, but the motives behind it, the fact that people DON'T believe this truth. They say, "This is folly! Nothing ends happily ever after, life is all pain, and we life to survive while we can until horrible death takes us. After that there is nothing." So, those people make music that doesn't resolve, that fails to uplift us, and that mocks all other kinds of music. Relativism and Post-Modernism was the worse tragedy in the History of Music. We all believe "what's good for you is good for you, and what's good for me is good for me" but in the end we are fooling ourselves and making us deaf to the real truth. I believe that although there is much pain and suffering in this world, it _will _end one day! And I'm not just a crazy optimist. I'm not alone. I think if musicians were to see this pattern in music, that God is ultimately glorified using dissonance and consonance together, they would never look at music the same way ever again. It has for me.

This might have sounded like a bunch of idiocy, but it's all true. If you don't agree, that's fine. But I'm telling you, it has allowed to be more open minded and tolerant of all music, because even if I don't like a particular style, it doesn't mean it's inherently bad, as long as it _works_. My opinion hardly makes a difference. What I have said here isn't from _me_, it's from a Higher Authority. You may find dissonance by itself just beautiful. But I bet you would prefer it were contrasted with consonance! What is a battle if there is only one side?


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## demiangel (Sep 15, 2010)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> This might have sounded like a bunch of idiocy, but it's all true. If you don't agree, that's fine. But I'm telling you, it has allowed to be more open minded and tolerant of all music, because even if I don't like a particular style, it doesn't mean it's inherently bad, as long as it _works_. My opinion hardly makes a difference. What I have said here isn't from _me_, it's from a Higher Authority. You may find dissonance by itself just beautiful. But I bet you would prefer it were contrasted with consonance! What is a battle if there is only one side?


The thing about consonance and dissonance is that in consonance, notes work together, but with dissonance each note is FIGHTING with the other waveforms to assert _itself_. With consonance, there is a working together with the other notes, but dissonance is like an individual Ego trying to assert its Nietzschean will-to-power.

One interesting thing I've found is that each scale of notes has a shadow: the notes that are not played. When I write music I've used the 12-tone technique with this in mind: play a seven note scale, then it's pentatonic shadow as the second part of the melody. Or harmonize the notes of the 7 note scale with it's shadow, using both simultaneously. The diatonic scale which is so common (and which is heard in so many hymns) interestingly has as its shadow the 5 note pentatonic scale used in rock music. Thus opposite scales work together to create a conflict, and a resolution. Evil is what God is not. Maybe rock and roll really is the Devil's music?


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## Comus (Sep 20, 2010)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Aha! I finally found someone who wonders about the same questions as me! Music Philosophy! My special hobby.
> 
> It depends if you're a Christian whether or not you will understand what I'm about to tell you.....
> ................
> if there is only one side?


Your ideas also reflect those of eastern religous traditions, the concept of duality for instance (Yin Yang). I mean this with respect to your faith, of course. I just find the analogous qualities of various spiritual practices very interesting.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Comus said:


> Your ideas also reflect those of eastern religous traditions, the concept of duality for instance (Yin Yang). I mean this with respect to your faith, of course. I just find the analogous qualities of various spiritual practices very interesting.


Well... perhaps I didn't mention God enough anyway. I don't like to impose my religion on people, but I am Christian, not Buddhist, or believing in Yin-Yang. You could say Yin-Yang came from the much more ancient concept which I talked about.

But it's not like I somehow support evil, I'm completely opposed to it. But I've come to realize that "evil" has a purpose in the greater scheme of things. But I must admit, I love dissonance when it _works_, if you know what I mean.

Take Prokofiev, Piano sonata no.8, something I've studied. First movement is very crazy, angry, painful, sometimes not even making sense to me entirely. 2nd movement is like a dream, after the storm.  And the 3rd movement is a great triumph of tonality and joy. It's like a story, and it's lovely to me.

I once heard a work by Zemlinsky that was very dissonant, and can't say I liked much of it. But, all of a sudden in the last movement, he went into a soaring and tonal melody that really struck me, before going back into dissonance and resolving at the end. That's what made me really admire that work, even for all the dissonance: the fact that there was still contrast.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Aha! I finally found someone who wonders about the same questions as me! Music Philosophy! My special hobby.
> 
> It depends if you're a Christian whether or not you will understand what I'm about to tell you. Then again, it may still be a huge enlightenment. Personally, I do not claim to know all the answers, and I honestly feel ignorant about certain aspects. But this is what conclusion I have come to. This also can be applicable to other forms of art.
> 
> ...


Music, religion and God. I don't ever recall this topic being discussed before here at TalkClassical, or do I? I can't remember ...

Interesting perspective. I do understand what you are saying there. You also suggested that modern dissonant composers, perhaps for example like K. Stockhausen wrote what he did because he did not understand or chose not to believe in what you believe in above? (Second last paragraph " A big reason Music has deteriorated into lots of dissonance in contemporary music, starting from the late 19th to 20th cent... ")

Thanks for sharing.


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## Dont (Oct 3, 2010)

> Does music reflect life?


No, life reflect music


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Music, religion and God. I don't ever recall this topic being discussed before here at TalkClassical, or do I? I can't remember ...
> 
> Interesting perspective. I do understand what you are saying there. You also suggested that modern dissonant composers, perhaps for example like K. Stockhausen wrote what he did because he did not understand or chose not to believe in what you believe in above? (Second last paragraph " A big reason Music has deteriorated into lots of dissonance in contemporary music, starting from the late 19th to 20th cent... ")
> 
> Thanks for sharing.


I don't know that composer, but I can give another example, Shostakovich. He said, "Death isn't a beginning, it's the real end, there will be nothing afterwards, nothing." So, no wonder he made rather depressed music, he didn't really have much to be happy about anyway. Personally, I still love Shostakovich, for his positive moments mostly, because he was pretty successful at that too.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I actually find much of the more recent music to have more "democratic" tendencies (if we should use that word?). Composers I can think of are Lutoslawski, Ligeti and Carter. In some of their pieces, each musician is a soloist, what they are doing is not in strict unison as with the more traditional music, but it all fits together (neatly?) as a whole. There are many elements to their music, not only dissonance. Just like traditional composers they use forms of counterpoint, for example. It's certainly not traditional, but it's there if you listen closely. There are also many changes in tempo and in mood, which can be off putting to some people not used to such high contrast. But earlier composers, such as Haydn, also liked to use surprising contrasts - just listen to the _"Surprise" Symphony_, for example. I think that a thing that some listeners miss with the newer music is the sense of a "grand narrative," that the piece is headed in a definite direction (as noted above in that poster's interpretation of the Prokofiev _Sonata No. 8_). With much contemporary music, you don't get as much certainty as you might be used to with pre-1945 styles of music...


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## demiangel (Sep 15, 2010)

I find that living in the modern world as a Christian creates a conflict, one between the desire to create something innovative, but finding that most innovation sounds un-Christian. Therefore I make artwork to expose the work of the master of dissonance, Satan. I ultimately think that chaos and evil are part of the formula that God will use to split the world in two and send the elect to heaven and the rest to, you know, Hell. And in heaven, the noises in my head will finally die into bliss, if I go there.  Faith without works is dead and all that though, so I don't know what God will think of my attempt to expose his Adversary. I sure hope he likes it...if not, I hope I burn well.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I don't really think that music can be described as "good" or "evil." It just is itself, simple as that. We don't have to label it as this or that, all we have to do is listen to it and (hopefully) get something out of it. It can be either a positive or negative experience (or both?), but the heart of that experience resides in us, not necessarily in the music itself...


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## Comus (Sep 20, 2010)

Nice Andre. You're right; music can never represent anything evil. Lyrics can, but that's extra-musical. Paintings, sculptures, film, language, etc. can all present representations of evil, whether that evil be Lucifer, war, politicians, you name it. Music, however, is pristine. Music is untouched by literal meaning.


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## Serge (Mar 25, 2010)

*Alien music? No such thing!*

Of course music reflects life, what else?

And something opposite of music reflects alien life. Just listen to Kontacte by Stockhausen.


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## demiangel (Sep 15, 2010)

Music can be used to communicate things having to do with the non-lingual underlying reality, which hasn't been put through the mental process of translating it into a linguistic understanding of reality. But this reality while initially empty of description can be described as having qualities that are destructive, entropic, chaotic, and can communicate emotions from this non-lingual part of reality like fear, anger, hatred, even arrogance. Or perhaps situations such as deception, ambush, or the uncanny sensation that one is on a downward spiral, falling farther and farther down the wrong path, toward...something. The artist can sense his surroundings, and translate what is described as evil into something that's communicated on a completely pre-lingual level, before it is categorized by language.

The artist can grab a hold of the will of the universe, individual beings, or through divine illumination, metaphysical entities like God or the Devil and translate it on a completely non-linguistic level with music, showing how these things actually are.


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## Serge (Mar 25, 2010)

The means by which music is being communicated to us may be unique and music-specific and the language of music may be abstract, but the levers that are being pulled by music within us must be the same that are being regularly engaged elsewhere in life. But in order to pull these life-related levers music itself must, at the very least, be somewhat reflective of life. Remember, if not for these music would have nothing to play with. That is unless there's some internal mechanism in humans specifically reserved for music, which I don't think is true since music was the human invention and so I doubt very much that it had any foothold on people beforehand.


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## Comus (Sep 20, 2010)

demiangel said:


> Music can be used to communicate things having to do with the non-lingual underlying reality, which hasn't been put through the mental process of translating it into a linguistic understanding of reality. But this reality while initially empty of description can be described as having qualities that are destructive, entropic, chaotic, and can communicate emotions from this non-lingual part of reality like fear, anger, hatred, even arrogance. Or perhaps situations such as deception, ambush, or the uncanny sensation that one is on a downward spiral, falling farther and farther down the wrong path, toward...something. The artist can sense his surroundings, and translate what is described as evil into something that's communicated on a completely pre-lingual level, before it is categorized by language.
> 
> The artist can grab a hold of the will of the universe, individual beings, or through divine illumination, metaphysical entities like God or the Devil and translate it on a completely non-linguistic level with music, showing how these things actually are.


I have some opinions concerning this subject; however, the risk of controversy may be great as these opinions involve questionable theories and potential affronts to religious belief. At your behest I will elaborate, but no sooner. I wish not to be thrown to the lions like so many internet trolls. I don't want to make enemies.


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## demiangel (Sep 15, 2010)

Well, I could start with some popular ones.

Divine illumination doesn't exist, it's pure delusion based on wishful thinking, mental disturbances and superstition. Look at God, there is no God. Science has disproven almost every aspect of religion. Religion is just a mechanism of social control, using peoples' fear of death to manipulate them into an illusory afterlife reward. Music is a purely human endeavor, having no input from anything supernatural whatsoever. To think so is pure self-delusion. No, worse than self-delusion, it is utter madness. God is dead. No, God is not dead, God never existed. Man created God. It was just a bunch of Jewish shepherds who figured out that you can use words to herd actual human beings around that created Judeo-Christianity.

That's what I used to think, but utter madness came upon me and made a mockery of my view of reality. I saw that all history, science, philosophy, or what have you was insignificant compared to the Divine. Postmodernism has tried to show us that reality is a mere social construction, but the Roman Catholic Church is the biggest social constructors of them all, having over a billion in their flock. No one else holds a candle...so even from the social constructivist view of reality, the Vatican owns the reality of the most people, which means God is a living, occult reality in our world. And the hiddenness is a shame, created by the web of illusions wielded by...well, Satan, unfortunately for those who can't see through them.


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## Comus (Sep 20, 2010)

Anthropologist Terrence McKenna had a theory that humans evolved from eating psychoactive mushrooms on the African plains. The active alkaloid in these mushrooms is Psilocybin which is remarkably similar in molecular structure to chemicals found in the human brain, namely serotonin and melatonin. The mushrooms supposedly expanded our prehistoric ancestors' minds to novel thought constructs. The psychedelic experience, chiefly in the shamanic context, can invoke glossalia, or speaking in tongues, in the practitioner. It's possible that our hominid ancestors came to experience this same phenomenon, and like babbling babies they gradually, through many generations, formed these incomprehensible mouth noises into functional symbols. Language is, after all, the primary agent for the construction of our reality. Religious fundamentalists are a fine example of this, as you have pointed out.

McKenna ties many of his views on the psychedelic experience with a latent form of consciousness underlying reality. Some may call this God, Brahman, the Absolute, the One (as in we are all one). Whether or not any of these titles is apt is of no importance. McKenna's anthropological speculation would, at the very least, suggest that religion may be an artifact of psychedelic use in early man.

That aside, I wonder if music developed from the use of psychoactive substances as well. I think McKenna touched on this in his book _Food of the Gods_, but I don't remember. He mentioned the benefits of vocalization, however. The resonance of the voice in the skull supposedly helps balance the cerebrospinal fluid or something to that effect. Speaking or singing would, in this context, give an advantange to primitive man. Those who subscribe to the supernatural might take interest in this. If psychedelics were a link to some kind of supernatural (hyperdimensional for the scientific minded) source of information, then music would not be an exclusive invention of humans, but that of the divine (or latent reality for the scientists).


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## demiangel (Sep 15, 2010)

The notion of other worlds existing is true, while we live in a Finite reality, created by consciousness being constricted by language, one can easily deduce the Infinite by seeing all the different possibilities for variation on what is. It is simply TIME that keeps us captive to the Finite, that holds us in place, which is a product of language having a past tense:

John 1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Outside of the Logos (the Word), which became flesh in the person of Christ, there is no Time. Language transformed reality from the Nameless chaos that it was before, there is no beginning, outside the Word, there is no End. Before language, there was NO beginning, there is NO end. The notion of history before language is a mistake, because things were LIMITLESS before language, which is what the Garden of Eden was like: Death is a product of Time as well. THEN the Mesopotamian priests started creating false gods to enslave humans, using language and Time. And we have the situation created in Babylon, which continues until the illusion is destroyed by God.

Music deals with Time as well, a progression of notes selected from infinite possibilities of variation, and placed into Time. A musician selects from the infinite what sounds to bring into the Finite. So did the Mesopotamian priests, so did the shamans (who are Death lords) and so did Christ, as an incarnation of the Logos. To me, music is Divine.


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