If Music is the language to use when words fail, Music must be the language used to wonder about the deepest philosophical questions. So, if I want to discuss my deepest philosophical questions, it would be an exchange of music. Wouldn’t it?
This summer, I started studying ‘The matter with things’ by I. Mcgilchrist and it started a new way of musical thinking.
the whole process of change started with suggestions I recieved to improved ‘Hush‘. Suggestions that are actual improvements of the score, made by professionals, no question about that.
But I’ve always had trouble making changes in a composition that are after-thoughts. When I start working from an idea, a ‘Gestalt’, the suggested cuts and additions by others are not part of the flow in which the ‘Gestalt’ was perceived. These improvements from a Crafts perspective can interfere with the Art within the work. It can work contra-productive because they some-how disrupt the flow of the compostion and the flow in which you need to be to work on a piece of music.
I say it again: Even though the suggestions are real improvements of that particular piece of music, they kind of don’t fit in, they stand out, they seem to have a different meaning.
I already experimented with adding silences in ‘Voor Welmoet‘, the effect of the added silences was not good, though the suggestion was excellent. This particular piece lacks a certain Craft, but something else is going on too.
This summer I started reading the books of Mcgilchrist and I might be able to shed a different light onto this subject.
I think the above happens because changes in a score change a lot more than’just the notes’, if the music is part of a philosophy, a personal message or a ‘Gestalt’ / Vision. It’s different to unravel what you SEE, than to write a composition chronologically from A to Z. When you do the last, you can change your mind along the way, it has a flow in which you can freely experiment and listen to hear if it’s interesting what you hear. You can actually write music this way without knowing what it will be in the end and start without any artistic idea what so ever. For starting a creative process, this is very helpfull.
But you cannot do that when you want to portray a Vision, because a Vision itself can’t change. You can only try to express it better, to improve the outlines, the counterpoints, so that you bring the Gestalt out better. I find it also different because once you get it right, it teaches you something, somehow. Writing chronologically without some kind of idea, might do that, but you can avoid the painful moments of writing by changing routes. You cannot do that when you write a Gestalt, it stares you in the face.
‘There is no moment I think, let’s write some unimportant notes now’ (S. Melillo)
I’m often adding unimportant notes when I try to make a score more enjoyable, I add jewelry instead of redesigning the dress. Nothing is ‘wrong’, but a message won’t come out of you’re not precise in notes, orchestration, articulation etc.
If you use music as a language to express philosphical thoughts, changes have to improve hearing the philosophy or personal message. Music must make the message clearer to the listener/composer. Improvements carve the message out, rather then put ‘jewelry on it, to make it prettier, or to hide the blurry passages from the ear.’
I’ve been illustrating for some time now and I find that adding clear lines and bright watercolor mixes add a lot to the expression of the message of that image. It’s an extra layer of attention to detail that help SEE the illustration.
In music it’s more about attention than technique, because Music is only in-betweenness, it’s a relation between people through waves. There is no physical object to relate to, this art-form surrounds you and others like a cloud. There is only the waves to relate to, while together producing the waves. It’s a process of being in the moment. It’s something you can’t escape, not even by walking away from it. Because you decided what not to hear.
If Music is the language to use when words fail, Music must be the language used to wonder about the deepest philosophical questions. So, if I want to discuss my deepest philosophical questions, it would be an exchange of music. Wouldn’t it? Though it would be enlightening for others, to know in words, what my philosophy is, I will never be able to explain it in words, because I already needed to think in music in the first place to understand it myself.
A written philosphy in words will never do, once you decided to take music one step further and you start thinking in music. This is why life can make you a composer, at some point, you just need another language than words, to tell your most intimate story, because there are no words for that.
Music is a more intimate language, unless you like to write seriel, but that not ‘music’ , for example, but I think that is organized sound, not music.
Make a clear line and structure, diversity is important. By that I mean that the orchestration is important: a complex message needs a diverse orchestration, and a complexity in articulation, yet also a clear line and structure (Architecture)
