2006 01 Philosophy of Music

Philosophy of Music

When I was a boy of about four, my mother obtained a small violin and presented it to me. As she handed it to me she asked, “Frank, what instrument do you want to play?” Perhaps the incident is apocryphal, but it’s fun to imagine that she would think a four year old capable of saying no to such a suggestion. Whatever really happened, I did take to the violin and over the years have played it pretty well. I ultimately obtained an advanced degree in Music from the University of Illinois, took up a career as a professional musician and developed strong opinions about the role of music in our society.

Please understand that I don’t enjoy writing about music as much as I enjoy playing it. I find most critics dull. And most criticism of music is unwarranted since to criticize is frequently to find fault. What music needs is encouragement, not complaint. However, on the road to excellence in music, constructive criticism is required. Sometimes the pen is an important way to advocate for something easily neglected, so here I go…

♪ Playing music should be enjoyed with all it’s imperfections.
Never have I performed a piece in which I was totally satisfied with the artistic result. Always, there is another way to turn a phrase, add vibrato, take a little more time, nuance a rubato, correct a pitch or articulate a bowing. The joy of music is in trying to make it perfect, not in the perfection itself.

♪ Listening to music affects mood. Have you ever been a bit in the doldrums only to listen to or play a quick Mozart or Scarlatti movement or even an upbeat popular tune? It is really pretty hard to stay down when that bright cheery melody comes wafting through your brain. By the same token, I can remember playing in the pit orchestra of Puccini’s La Bohème and actually having tears come down my cheeks as young Mimi dies on stage.

♪ Music has at least seven basic components from which we derive an infinite variety of sound. They are Pitch, Harmony, Meter, Rhythm, Tempo, Dynamics and Timbre. They are equal in importance when a composer creates a musical work.
Pitch is the first. Pitch leads to melody from which we derive the solidity of the bass or mystery of the soprano. But pitch by itself doesn’t evoke strong emotions unless it is combined with other elements. For example a monotone is pretty dull.
Harmony determines the major and minor modes and helps to establish the mood. Harmony also allows pitch to be integrated simultaneously instead of arpeggiated over time. Harmony can be dissonant or consonant according to the laws of Pythagoras.
Meter is crucial to establish regular repetitive patterns which makes music pleasing. Some more recent composers have tried to write music without meter as an experiment in something new. To my ear, pieces lacking meter are difficult to listen to and difficult to play as well. Being difficult by itself is not the whole objection, either. I have played some fiendishly difficult pieces which were immensely satisfying. Music with meter adds a dimension which is more easily assimilated by our brains by giving a more organized musical effect.
Rhythm also sets the mood as much as any of the other components of music. Just think of the native African or American drumbeat and compare that to the 6/8 Salterello of Mendelssohn in his Fourth Symphony or the insidious percussion in Ravel’s Bolero.
Tempo is another key ingredient to our emotional response to music. A slow tempo can put us to sleep and quick time can stimulate our thoughts.
Dynamics add an element of surprise and can build suspense or finality to a phrase. If the music is too soft, it won’t be heard. If it is too loud, it can damage our hearing.
Timbre is the fundamental nature of a sound. It is a function of harmonics and overtones which our ears hear as different types of sound. For example, the clarinet is missing some overtones which gives it a smooth quality. With computer generated waveforms, virtually any type of sound can be created and broadcast through an electronic speaker. Not all sounds which can be thus formed are pleasing to hear. The sine waveform is considered pure and actually has a pleasing, if penetrating quality. The violin is complex with lots of sympathetic vibrations adding to it’s tone quality. Closely related to timbre is articulation of musical sound. The quality of tone can be varied by the attack of the bow on a string or with a mallet or the vibration of the lips in brass or woodwind instruments.

♪ The joke is that if you can play every note on an instrument, you can play any piece of music. After all, composers only rearrange the notes into different sequences! So why is it that learning an instrument or training your voice to sound good takes at least six years of hard work? Simply put, it’s complicated. For example, to play the violin, you have to be able to do two independent motions simultaneously; bowing and fingering:
Drawing the bow across the string is by itself complicated. Most amateurs erroneously think that you bow to the side. Actually, it’s more in front, since the violin doesn’t come directly in front of the player, but to the left side. Playing at the frog (the lower part of the bow near your hand) requires a downward counterbalance of your elbow, otherwise the hand (being heavy) will dig into the string too much creating a crunching noise. Volumes have been written to perfect bowing technique from a fine spicatto to a long drawn out sustained legato. Playing nearer or farther from the bridge also changes the timbre.
Fingering a violin is tricky too, since there are no points of reference except your ear to tell whether or not a note is in tune. Add the possibility of playing two or more notes at once (double, triple or quadruple stops) and you can see why it takes six or more years of consistent work to make music sound good.
The third component is the music itself. Making your eye cross the page of music and translate that into physical motion is perhaps the biggest challenge of all.

♪ Now I’ll turn to my philosophy of music education. The above observations set the stage as to why I think our legislators do not understand child development very well.
In California and many other states, great emphasis is placed on test scores. I believe testing stifles creativity. Of course we want our children to do well in life. Education is part of that preparation. But ask any six year old…would they rather try lots of different things and be stimulated in many ways or focus on one thing until it becomes tedious? With their shorter attention span, it’s clear to me that they need a wide variety of experiences to succeed. Not just reading, writing and arithmetic. Jokingly, some people refer to a balanced education as the three “R’s”…reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic. I have always believed that it should be referred to as the three “A’s”…academics, athletics and the arts. If we are to properly prepare our young people to succeed in a wide variety of possible occupations, they need to start early.
Not all students will become engineers, teachers, writers, philosophers, doctors, scientists or business men and women. Some of them will want to become artists and musicians, and yes, even laborers. So do we teach everyone only to become engineers? Of course not. Therefore, I conclude that other important subjects should be taught from the age at which their development is appropriate.

Why do I say from the age their development is appropriate? Because of the six year learning curve. Think of it this way. How well you perform music is very transparent. By listening to a few notes, you can tell the difference between a really fine musician and a beginner. To a child, there is no such discrimination of excellence. The notes are simply what they are. If you start music at age six, you frankly don’t care if it sounds good or not…you simply do what you’re told. If you stick with it, by age 12 you’re going to sound pretty good.

What happens at age 12 or 13? You really care what your peers think of you. In a musically excellent twelve year old, everyone ooh’s and ahh’s over an excellent “talent”. That is very encouraging. If, on the other hand, if you start playing an instrument at age nine, the age at which our curriculum planners and legislators think it is appropriate to start music (if they offer it at all), you only have two or three years to get good enough to be appreciated by your peers. Since learning an instrument in three years is not likely, you’re destined to failure. The solution is to start earlier.

♪ Many don’t view music as an academic subject. That attitude comes from a position of ignorance. In high school, chorus was considered “Mickey Mouse”. In reality, music is just like a foreign language or science studies. The language of music is it’s own. The history of music is integrally tied to politics and economics. Try reading alto clef without instruction. Interpret a score without study. You’ll quickly see that music is indeed academic.

♪ Will we be able to sustain our Western music culture? I believe only if we give it the attention it deserves. Too often, music is traded without compensation for it’s creators (by downloading files). Too often, it is thought that music is played on a small machine. Our engineers can now store a thousand tunes on a tiny chip. But creative acts or the re-creative acts take years to develop. If we’re not careful, our whole society will not be able to enjoy the fruits of creative musical genius because we tried too hard to capture music in a box and not hard enough to keep it alive in our next generation.

©Frank Bliss 2006 All rights reserved
January, 2006