What it's like
Someone sent me a copy of Seed magazine today. I have to say that I'm really grateful — I'm interested in everything in this May/June 2007 number. Right at the top of the cover is the headline: How Complexity Arises. And, hey, there's a drawing of Lee Smolin on p. 41, and a few words from him about whether the laws of nature evolve: [T]here is never perfection, but always time and change.
But the piece that grabs me is a conversation between David Byrne and Daniel Levitin about music, language, and memory. Oh, it's great. Levitin suggests that “music might be evolutionarily older than language.” Byrne talks about the emotional effects he can intentionally pull off when performing. They both understand that “we use art and music to communicate so many things that language won't.”
Musical experiences take us out of ourselves, Levitin says, and induce a state of half sleep, half wakefulness:
We don't really have the ability to explain how it happens or why. But it does seem to have something to do. . with this balance between seeking order and predictability and violating that order and predictability. And when you have a complex pattern of rhythm or pitch, which is what music is, you relinquish some of your control.
Someone asked me today to use this post to describe what it's like to play music. I think David Byrne and Daniel Levitin are better people to ask, by far (so buy the magazine).
The instrument is always greater than you are, and in a sense there's no magic to it — it seems as if you practice and have the guidance of a good teacher, you'll be a better player. I'm beginning to understand that strength comes from not using that strength, but from instead having an understanding of what you're doing and why, in great (but humble) detail. The Art of Practicing is a good guide to the meditative focus that musicians have. Sometimes I wonder what people do with their time who don't have to practice.
But the real point is to play with other people. The best description I've read of what it's like is in An Equal Music by Vikram Seth. To listen completely to what's going on around you, and to react without time to react, is a tremendous joy. When things are going well, and real music is emerging, there's a collective neurological cascade that can't be described but certainly exists.
Right now I'm working with a singer and a pianist on a program of only delightful music. Not kidding — a bunch of tangos, little Kreisler pieces, Schubert's Shepherd on the Rock, Mozart and Bach duos, songs by Weill and Faure. (Not one of these pieces was originally written for the viola, but I am shamelessly, enthusiastically bending them to my will.) Playing these things with other people, once you're flying along and you've transcended all petty technical difficulties — such as, for me, what clef I'm playing in – is pure happiness. That's what it's like.
Comments
One Response to “What it's like”
Got something to say?
Hm, I find myself wanting to respond to your music posts!
Playing music is one of the only things I can do where my inner monologue stops.