This post over at Scita > Scienda has me thinking of CS Lewis. How one pleasant morning, John was spurred to a Pilgrim’s Regress by an otherworldly musical call– a call that embodied his deepest, innermost desires. John soon discovered that while the world mimics this calls in various, multifaceted ways, it never fulfills them. Lewis henceforth postulated that we all have these unfilled desires, and that nature would not plant within us a desire that could not be satisfied. After all, how could it, naturally. Thus, the desire must derive from regions beyond, perhaps that great undiscovered country in which we must all ultimately find ourselves.
As a supplicant of the pentatonic minor, that bane of piano players throughout history, this intuition on the part of Lewis rings true. Sure, we can scientifically explain the tonal qualities of sound, how the sound waves travel through space, how our inner ears receive the signal, process it, and transmit the signal to the brain. We can also describe wholly in terms of natural causation how the brain chemically and electrically interprets the signal and presents it to our minds. Alas, equations and engineering diagrams are not music, however.
To lapse into philosophy, music seems to present us with qualia. But even then, lapsing into philosophy does not seem to do our perception justice. There’s just nothing quite like the sensation produced by bending a G-string at the fifth fret. Ah yes, bending–another bane of piano players throughout the ages. Pianists of the world unite, though your keytars will not save you! There’s also nothing quite like power chords, the mixolydian, phrygian, for the minoric among us, 80’s glam band hair (huh?), or turning amps to 11, not to mention a thousand other deliverances of music. Pick the one that does it for you.
Philosophy, science, technology, engineering…they explain the physical, but not the experience. The experience of music, the way it feels to you, the way it moves you, the magic that is in your mind: that’s the real thing…the thing that somehow transcends the physical strike of the string and the sound wave it produces. We allow the skeptic to tell us it’s the sound wave that’s real, the rest is merely human, when all along we know it’s somehow more than that. Firsthand.
So we find ourselves again at that mystical crossroad where we are forced to choose a path if we wish to move forward. It’s a junction of the physical and the mystical, the natural and the supernatural, the mind and the body. Some of us will choose to turn and follow the austere path of the naturalist: a path paved with matter alone, where the sounds of joy are melded into ultimate nothingness. Others will choose a different path: one where the sounds of joy are somehow more real than the road of matter that brings them to us.
Choose the second road. it’s not a dead end, and the further you walk along, the clearer the sounds of joy become, for you are nearing their source.
Then I looked and heard the voices of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they sang:
Worthy is the lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!”
Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them singing:
To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power for ever and ever!”
Hm. (smiling) Mixolydian has been my favourite mode since I was 12. I wonder if that reflects on a personality type? But I know very little formal theory, I’ve just always gone and done it…getting marked down for intuitively correcting the flaws in basic Common Practice theory was a big part of why I dropped out of university.
As far as qualia, I’m synesthetic, which actually screws with the technical side of composition if you rely too much on the colour wheel of the song. I only realized that a few months ago, due to never having talked about it much. It’s just part of why I love music. It’s visually attractive.
Neither engineering nor philosophy explain the ability to consistently and repeatedly experience something that literally isn’t there…and synesthetics do sign off as sane in all other respects…
I’ll take Revelation 5:11-13 and “turn it up to 11” for 500, please.
Interestingly enough, it wasn’t until God taught me who gave me musical talent, for whom that musical talent was to be used, and for whose glory, that my love for music reached its greatest, most intense appreciation.
Schoenberg played with his twelve-tone technique, composing in an atonal manner that mirrors the rise in relativism. However, Bach will always be correct in affixing SDG to his manuscripts: Soli Deo Gloria.
Listen to the difference between the works of the two composers. In my opinion, the former leads toward confusion while the latter strives for beauty. An intriguing–and revealing–juxtaposition.
Kind of off topic, quixote, but thanks for letting me pipe a bit. 🙂
Question: Would it be safe to say that I’m a qualophile unless the keytar comes into play? At that point, I become a qualophobe. 🙂
Also, would you please better explain the zombie argument mentioned in the wiki link? :p
“Schoenberg played with his twelve-tone technique, composing in an atonal manner that mirrors the rise in relativism. However, Bach will always be correct in affixing SDG to his manuscripts: Soli Deo Gloria.”
So true. My composition teacher began me on 12-tone when I was 12 (the irony), and it never did make sense to me, and now I think there’s a good reason for it.
“At that point, I become a qualophobe.”
Hear hear…or, I should say, let’s not please…
Happy Sunday, Shema… 🙂
Yes, I’m in over my head here with you keystrokers, but pipe away, Shema. Yo ho…just log in to wiki and put my picture on the zombie link.
“As far as qualia, I’m synesthetic, which actually screws with the technical side of composition if you rely too much on the colour wheel of the song.”
How interesting. Dorann is as well, and once won a year long football pot picking solely by the colors that came up with the team names. And, yes, reporting sanity in all other respects.
P-Zed and Ray…Quixote? Do introduce me to the relatives. 🙂
Just music for me, not text. I’ve heard text auras can be very distracting…then again, one of my university buddies also saw abstract shapes in music. Talk about building a whole other world.
Hey, zombies? Where? Cool!
Hey Cat,
The effervescent Shema is my sister. Shema, Cathi-Lyn…Cat, Shema.
There’s also Stiffneck, my mother, but she doesn’t come around too often. Stiffneck, Cat…Cat, Stiffneck.
That’s cooler than zombies. It appears you have some blessed relationships.
Hi, family, I just wandered in from Canada one day. Must’ve taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque…Y’all are welcome to stop in on me for tea and crumpets anytime.
There’s a lot of terms in there that if I read this to my dad he’d probably totally understand. He’s a retired Air Force Band member that played in the joint forces Bicentennial band of 1976. His instrument is the clarinet, but he also has played the saxophone, flute, and piano over the years I’ve known him and experimented with other instruments I can’t remember. Although he and I have disagreed over styles in music, one thing about both of us is true: When we hear something that is good we recognize it. And when we hear something terrible, we know that too. The difference is I just can’t stand it, but he’ll go into detail as to why this part is bad, and that part is bad and how if this person had been in a different band (we listen to big band/orchestral when we listen to things together) they would have sounded great, but being with this one…and so on and so forth. In his retirement from the Air Force, he’s sent numerous students to Julliard with first chair positioning. He was trained in four totally different techniques by four very different teachers over the years of his own life, so he has a unique viewpoint of things that allows him to teach kids in a way that impressed parents when compared to the other private teachers they had taken their kids to, and when he’s practiced up and plays for people, folks tend to say that it is the most beautiful clarinet music they have ever heard. Now he’s older and focusing on other things, but I sure do remember the times I lived with him in my twenties and he would be practicing his instrument to get ready for a church performance. Again, I may not understand all the terms and words thrown out in the above article, but I know good music when I hear it, and so do other people.
A band’s music project I listen to that he grudgingly acknowledged (since he’s not at all into rock ‘n’ roll of any kind, let alone metal) and that is my absolute favorite is Saviour Machine’s Legend project (you can find it on Amazon). The song writer/lead singer had spent a heavy period of his life studying the Book of Revelation and all the scriptures found throughout the Bible about the endtimes and wrote the songs of this project which tell the tale of the rise of the AntiChrist, the Rapture, and beyond with music and song. There is still one more disc to be put out with this project, but even with it incomplete as of now, I highly recommend anyone that likes a mix of styles of music with strong metal influence to get these albums and start listening to them with Part I. It comes across like a soundtrack and was even dubbed as “The Unofficial Soundtrack to the End of the World” when Part I came out over a decade ago. I have listened to it over and over and over and over again. It is my favorite music project to listen to and it was one of the first pieces of Christian modern music let me know that there really were some great things to listen to out there that wasn’t found on Christian radio yet was entirely Christian in nature. These albums just blew my mind. The music is so rich that every time I listen to it, I hear something new. Especially when I switch players, there’s something about different speakers that highlights different instruments and sounds better. If you decide to get them, I hope you enjoy them too.
You said, “So we find ourselves again at that mystical crossroad where we are forced to choose a path if we wish to move forward.”
I think of this often. I know many atheists would vehemently object to what I’m about to say, but to me, atheism is analogous to an intellectual shrugging of one’s shoulders. In skateboarding, you have to at least try a trick before you could possibly make it, and that analogy holds to most things. I honestly think that at least some subset of atheists must be people who have been hurt – or seen others hurt – by believing in that which turned out to be false. This observation seems borne out by the large number of atheists who deconvert from fundamentalist religions. For all but the mentally strongest of them – who probably wouldn’t have gotten duped in the first place – it would necessarily entail a rather significant degree of cognitive dissonance for these deconverts to remain theists of any sort, as the sting of believing in the previous lies becomes a strong motivator to adopt a belief system which has the least possible potential of being hurt by believing in similar lies. In the deconverted fundamentalist’s eyes, that choice is atheism, for, if we don’t believe in any God(s) at all, then we can’t be duped by any of them – unless of course one of them is duping us into atheism. Also, this also explains why so many atheists are quite literally “inverse fundamentalists.” What can happen is that these folks who were attracted to fundamentalist worldviews in the first place don’t realize the personality traits they possess which influence that tendency. So when they deconvert, they simply bring the “old man” – these old habits and old fundamentalist attitudes – to atheism. And Voila! Instant creation of an atheist dogmatist, simply repainting their fundamentalism with Scarlet Red.
But as you say, if we wish to move forward, we have to do something. Sorry to gas on, but you inspired me. My verbosity is your fault!
cl, my friend, your verbosity is always welcome, and frankly, it’s astounding. I’m a writer and can not nearly approach your continual high quality, high volume output.
“I honestly think that at least some subset of atheists must be people who have been hurt – or seen others hurt – by believing in that which turned out to be false.”
Very common, in my experience, and this is extremely difficult to deal with on a personal level, away from all this internet arguing. There’s way more pain out there than that which appears on the internet surface.
I think you’re spot on all the way through, but especially with rereference to atheist fundamentalism, but I’ve rarely seen an atheist willing to admit to fundamentalism from their side of the fence.
Just a little introduction: cl’s a rationalist freethinker of the first order, and maintains a very unique and interesting blog entitled “The Warfare is Mental”. He’s currently fleshing out an interesting argument for the existence of God based on Aristotle–currently in two parts–at this link that’s well worth the time invested to check it out:
http://www.thewarfareismental.info/the_warfare_is_mental/2009/09/argument-from-change-1.html