Beyond existence itself there are things even the most brilliant scientific mind cannot explain. There is an endless rythmn, whether it be a blazing fire or an open meadow that sweeps over all the earth like a turbine ever since Creation. Its essence is only simple notes and rythmns, yet it penatrates even the most powerful souls, sweeping them into its sweet aromna taht is beyond explanation. This essence is music, and a powerful essence it is.
If you stand out on an open field, ther is music. Chriping sparrows, or wind are its instruments. Glaze into a blazing fire and find crackles and flames. Those are its instruments. A large sun, in the middle of a perhaps insignificant solar system surrounded by 9 rotating planets is music. The sun is the conductor, leading its players around in a small rythmn, a solar system, and parading the solar system in a legion of more rythmns, only to become a giant mass of parading rythmns, which is music all in itself.
Just as a clock ticks, music lives on. Even in silence, there is always a rythmn to hear. Whether it be far or close, it is playing for ears who are willing to listen for all eternity.
Music is an astonishing thing. It is, arguably, the greatest example of the scientific concept that perceives a system's total as greater than the sum of its parts. Consider the elements of a symphony orchestra: a crowd of people, divided into servral groups, sit together facing pages made up of nothing more than dots and lines. While a man waves a short stick at all of them, one group rubs wands of horse hair against metallic cords; another group blows into tubs of wood; yet another spits into twisted coils of metal; another bangs on a gallery of diverse objects. Sounds like a recipe for chaos, but in truth it yeilds a wondrous creation. It's a construction of part mathematics, part physics; yet its result is pure, consummate emotion, flowing like a river through the soul.
The receding excerpt was from www.classicalrecordings.com/johnwilliams/ in a review for a soundtrack. It is perhaps the most interesting and thought provoking piece ever written in actually explaining the basis of music.
"There's a very basic human, non-verbal aspect to our need to make music and use it as part of our human expression. It doesn't have to do with body movements, it doesn't have to do with articulation of language, but with something spiritual."
Here is a picture of perhaps the most popular and talented composer of our time, John Williams. Winner of 5 Academy Awards with 36 nominations, and mulitple Grammy Awards, he has composed music for many blockbuster films including the Star Wars Trilogy, the majority of the Steven Speilberg films and many others. Conducting world famous groups like the Boston Pops, the London Symphony, and the Boston Symphony, he has earned a respectable place as one of the greatest composers in Hollywood History. Click below to hear some of his music in Real Audio from my own ZSP Tribute to John Williams.
