Nature and music

[Hedge90]

As a huge music fan and musicien myself, music is something that I always found to be something transcendental, a real mystery to the materialist (that I used to be). After all, why should a specific pattern of vibrations in the air have such a profound effect on the person perceiving it via their eardrum that they are moved to tears, feel encouraged and emboldened, or have an intimate romantic moment with someone as a result? This really makes no sense at all, especially considering that the fundamentals of music are the same cross-culturally, and everyone, regardless of culture, can recognise which music is sad, which is happy, and so on.
Even as a materialist, I always thought if there is a God, his nature is the nature of music. Now, under idealism, it seems to add up together. After all, if idealism is right, reality is simply a given pattern of excitations or vibrations of mind. Some of these patterns feel sad, some of them feel happy; others feel horrifying, and again others soothing; warlike and raging, or calm and peaceful. And thus music is the only art that aims not to represent reality, but to almost directly express the subjective experience of mind/spirit. The reason why music is so ineffable is the reason why emotions themselves are so ineffable: there's no deeper meaning to define through them because they are themselves the meaning. Music is as close as you can get to just sharing your emotions directly with another person's mind.
One very profound experience I had was when I listened to music (mostly Rachmaninov and Beethoven) while on a heavy dose of psylocybin. What happened there was the world became the music. I wasn't listening to the music, I was the music. In fact the whole universe collapsed into nothing but the music, with some accompanying imagery unfolding parallel with it (though it was more of a synesthesia kind of thing than a "video clip"). And at that point I realised that in a very meaningful sense, this is what everything is. Everything is a dynamically unfolding pattern of states of mind interacting with each other, emotions blossoming and withering within a beautiful symphony of love and hate, hope and despair, rage and serenity, and in the end, a final silence.
I'm very sensitive to music even in a normal state of mind, but at that state of consciousness, it was beyond description. I felt like my chest will burst from the sheer beauty experienced, and I was crying tears of somehow both utter joy and sadness at the same time, feeling like existence is the greatest tragedy, yet also the greatest gift.
I think at a deep level we listen to music because it is a direct symbol of what existence is. Every piece of music is the expression of something for which words cannot suffice, because it exists at a level of reality for which we have no words.
I wanted to make this post for a while. It may not mean as much to you, but I had to share it.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Could it be that Mind makes music via its shroom expressions ?

[AshvinP]

As a huge music fan and musicien myself, music is something that I always found to be something transcendental, a real mystery to the materialist (that I used to be). After all, why should a specific pattern of vibrations in the air have such a profound effect on the person perceiving it via their eardrum that they are moved to tears, feel encouraged and emboldened, or have an intimate romantic moment with someone as a result? This really makes no sense at all, especially considering that the fundamentals of music are the same cross-culturally, and everyone, regardless of culture, can recognise which music is sad, which is happy, and so on.
Even as a materialist, I always thought if there is a God, his nature is the nature of music. Now, under idealism, it seems to add up together. After all, if idealism is right, reality is simply a given pattern of excitations or vibrations of mind. Some of these patterns feel sad, some of them feel happy; others feel horrifying, and again others soothing; warlike and raging, or calm and peaceful. And thus music is the only art that aims not to represent reality, but to almost directly express the subjective experience of mind/spirit. The reason why music is so ineffable is the reason why emotions themselves are so ineffable: there's no deeper meaning to define through them because they are themselves the meaning. Music is as close as you can get to just sharing your emotions directly with another person's mind.

Hedge,

You may be interested in these essays I wrote (two parts) on the "Soulful Aesthetics" of music. I tried to incorporate music clips which highlight the various soulful-spiritual activities associated with different tones, tempo, instruments, etc. There is a deep qualitative connection between the Zodiac and physical sense-life processes, musical notes, and intervals as well. I think that numerological connection with music is pretty obvious to most. That is explored briefly in Part II.


viewtopic.php?f=5&t=419 (Part I)

"There is geometry in the humming of the strings. There is music in the spacing of the spheres."
― Pythagoras


We discussed the primal Word which permeates Nature in the previous essay installments, The Rebirth of Poetry (Part I and Part II). It is the divine Word which imbues all words with their original meaning. That includes the forms of Nature, which are words written in a language we have simply forgotten how to read. The Word ceaselessly renews that meaning as it fades from word-forms over time so that both Nature and human souls can remain in ongoing communication with each other. These things should be taken in the most literal sense - they are not mere metaphors for the "psychological" influence of speech. That ongoing communication through the shared meaning of words is also not something guaranteed in our age - each individual must now continuously work to incarnate the Word within her speech so that the only alternative to ongoing communication - perpetual war - is averted.

Just as there is the primal Word, there is also the primal Tone. All speech has some musical tone, holding a dynamic relationship of outer form to inner meaning, respectively. The primal Tone permeates the soul element of Nature which resides in the spiritual realm without any physical form. It deals only in the vowels of speech which express the formless inwardness and feelings of the human soul, as opposed to the consonants which express the formative forces of her will and her thought. We can get a sense for the intimate relationship between speech and tone when considering the seven musical notes of the diatonic scale, from C through B, and the inward 'soul-moods' dynamically associated with them. These connections of sound-tone and soul will remain at a low resolution until we practice often with them, remembering always to approach the realm of spirit and soul with good will, humility, and devotion.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=441

"But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that is illuminated becomes a light itself... speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your hearts..."

- Saint Paul, Ephesians 5

Since at least the time of Pythagoras up to the modern age, the musical aesthetic and numerology had existed together in harmony. Three, Seven, and Twelve - these are the numerical qualities most integral to music's essence. We cannot list these numerical qualitative relations out as we would in a spreadsheet accounting if we want to stimulate our imaginative knowing. Instead, we will allow the relations to naturally take root and blossom from within our soul as we explore their qualities. We already witnessed some of these relations in the previous installment Music of the Spheres (Part I), when exploring the triune essence of rhythm-harmony-melody in connection with spiritual activities of willing-feeling-thinking ("W-F-T"); limbs-chest-head; senses-blood-breath; body-soul-spirit. We also briefly considered the connection between the seven musical notes of the diatonic scale with the seven vowels of speech and their soul-qualities. Readers should try to keep these relations in mind as we move forward.

Those relations, however, are only a sample of music's overall relations with our soul qualities and spiritual activities; they form a foundation from which the entire phenomenal world can be raised up before the questioning soul. Rudolf Steiner - a prolific commentator on all matters spiritual and soulful - concludes, "real aesthetic life in human beings consists in this: that the sense-organs are brought to life, and the life-processes filled with soul." We will clarify the essential meaning of that conclusion and build up our own confidence in its validity by way of imaginative thought as we journey through the rest of this essay. We cannot engage the sort of transfiguration spoken of by Steiner until we first comprehend its basics. It is only through knowledge that all spiritual metamorphoses occur in the current age, whether they be minor or major ones. They can never be gained by chemical substances, ascetic practices, blind obedience to dogma, or anything similar. We should always heed Carl Jung's warning, "beware of unearned wisdom".

[Hedge90]

Thank you, I will read them.

[Eugene I]

It may not mean as much to you, but I had to share it.

Thank you, it does to me
Tribute to Harold Budd

[Soul_of_Shu]

One very profound experience I had was when I listened to music (mostly Rachmaninov and Beethoven) while on a heavy dose of psylocybin.

One wonders what the trip would be if this were the sountrack?

[Hedge90]

One very profound experience I had was when I listened to music (mostly Rachmaninov and Beethoven) while on a heavy dose of psylocybin.

One wonders what the trip would be if this were the sountrack?

I love this album. Not particularly this specific song, but Epitaph and the Court of the Crimson King are great. But you are right there are pieces of music that I wouldn't dare listen to while tripping. Anything that's dissonant or intentionally bleak is a no go.

[Eugene I]

I love this album. Not particularly this specific song, but Epitaph and the Court of the Crimson King are great. But you are right there are pieces of music that I wouldn't dare listen to while tripping. Anything that's dissonant or intentionally bleak is a no go.

My favorite is Discipline