Something that happened to another person today has set me thinking about the power of music to resonate with emotions and events again. This seems to be particularly true of music that one has performed oneself, as certain pieces of music have been running through my head constantly tonight.
One instance which comes to mind in which this experience occurred happened when I was studying abroad in London last semester. We were walking through the halls of Westminster Abbey, in the company of monuments to some of the most amazing people in British history. Of course, as we walked through the area with monuments to musicians, seeing the graves and/or markers to Britten, Elgar, and Handel filled me with complex emotions. When I turned and faced the other wall, however, a large monument to Henry Purcell was staring me in the face, and immediately, without prompting, Dido's Lament ran from start to finish in my head, filling me with thoughts of death, of being remembered, and of the power of Purcell's music that it should be so utterly relevant 400 years after his life.
Tonight, I am listening to music as a way to sort of calm my emotions, as thoughts of death, remembrance, and the meaning of life are circulating in my head. Once again,I went straight to Purcell, and also to Mozart. Right now, listening to the Rex Tremendae from Mozart's requiem, I think about whether there really is a rex tremendae (great king), a meaning to life, or are we all confutatis (silenced, or condemned)? Music is able to explore these questions so much more of a deeply emotional and satisfying manner.
What I've been listening to today
Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell
Requiem in D minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Showing posts with label Resonance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Resonance. Show all posts
Monday, September 13, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
Ruminating about Resonance
I've been thinking a lot this evening about resonance. Resonance can have many meanings in terms of music; a note can have a certain resonance or amount of vibration, or a piece can have a resonance with a person, among other meanings. When a piece has resonance with me, I feel like it speaks to me, as though it is accessing some subconscious part of me that has been built up through the years to prefer some styles of music over others, to prefer instruments over others, and to prefer certain performance practices over others.
What I've been thinking about is how this same concept that we experience in terms of our musical preference applies to our relationships with other people. As we grow and learn about ourselves over the years, we have built up a set of notions and ideas that comprise not only our self awareness, but also our comfortability with new thoughts and ideas. In the same way that Stravinsky's Rite of Spring or a Schoenberg string quartet can prove to be an uncomfortable experience in someone who has only been exposed to tonal music, our various exposures personally provide a system of comfort, love, and friendship that provides a basis for our interactions with new people. Thus, for some, a person may provide a deep resonance with what is present and absent in their life, and for others the person may seem completely void of interest.
I think, however, that the concept of resonance goes deeper than this, however, because often the piece of music that is most resonant is not the one that conforms to the rules that one is used to, but rather the one that expands the boundaries of one's imagination in a new direction. This way in which a piece can provide resonance through expanding one's imagination of music, I believe, runs parallel to the way that a person can, by expanding one's experience and imagination of life, provide a deeply resonant presence in another's life.
Anyhow, my name is Ethan, and I am a student in Portland, OR. I plan to use this blog to explore classical and popular music, perception, and whatever I happen to be thinking about as I sit down to write the blog. I hope you find it interesting!
What I've been listening to today:
Frederic Chopin's 4th and 5th Nocturnes
Maurice Ravel's Miroirs
Johann Sebastian Bach's Wohltempierte Klavier Book 2
Sufjan Stevens' All Delighted People EP
What I've been thinking about is how this same concept that we experience in terms of our musical preference applies to our relationships with other people. As we grow and learn about ourselves over the years, we have built up a set of notions and ideas that comprise not only our self awareness, but also our comfortability with new thoughts and ideas. In the same way that Stravinsky's Rite of Spring or a Schoenberg string quartet can prove to be an uncomfortable experience in someone who has only been exposed to tonal music, our various exposures personally provide a system of comfort, love, and friendship that provides a basis for our interactions with new people. Thus, for some, a person may provide a deep resonance with what is present and absent in their life, and for others the person may seem completely void of interest.
I think, however, that the concept of resonance goes deeper than this, however, because often the piece of music that is most resonant is not the one that conforms to the rules that one is used to, but rather the one that expands the boundaries of one's imagination in a new direction. This way in which a piece can provide resonance through expanding one's imagination of music, I believe, runs parallel to the way that a person can, by expanding one's experience and imagination of life, provide a deeply resonant presence in another's life.
Anyhow, my name is Ethan, and I am a student in Portland, OR. I plan to use this blog to explore classical and popular music, perception, and whatever I happen to be thinking about as I sit down to write the blog. I hope you find it interesting!
What I've been listening to today:
Frederic Chopin's 4th and 5th Nocturnes
Maurice Ravel's Miroirs
Johann Sebastian Bach's Wohltempierte Klavier Book 2
Sufjan Stevens' All Delighted People EP
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