An exercise

You are driving in your car, and you pull up to a stoplight. Just before the light changes, another car pulls up next to you. You look over a look at that person as your sheltered, automobiled lives cross each other for an instant. It may be a man, maybe a woman - it doesn't really matter. Make it anyone you want for the purpose of this exercise. The light changes and you both zoom off on your individual ways. Maybe you'll see that person again, maybe you won't.

Now imagine being with that person in their car. Have a conversation with them. Who are they? What are their fears, hopes, dreams? Where are they going? What are they feeling? Do you like them? Does it matter? What do you see when you look over at your car from their perspective?

We live in a complex society. We all fly about in our own lives, driving like the devil, worrying about our schedule and our pocketbook, not thinking about the people like us in the car next to us, only three feet away. In the movie Crash, the Los Angeles lifestyle is given a brutally honest (and depressingly tragic) treatment where people are forced out of the comfort zone of their automobiles and into an uncomfortable relationship with the drivers next to them.

Our lives form a cross-connecting polyphony of different arcs and trajectories, different keys and rhythms, different modes of expression. And yet we really all share a very similar story, rooted in a common culture, with similar fears, goals, and the realization that - when all is said and done - this musical journey we call life will someday come to and end.

This is why Bach is important. There is no simplicity in Bach. His music is the music of complexity and interconnectivity. If we allow ourselves to get inside of Bach's music, he can show us the weaving fabrics of our lives' melodies. And we can begin to understand that the resulting harmony and texture of those melodies is the music of the cosmos, a glorious consonance and dissonance that exists for one reason only: in Bach's words: Soli Dei Gloria. "Only for the glory of God."

So why blog?

As I have ruminated over my first two posts, I have thought, "so what?" Why would anyone care about my thoughts about music or my Mom, or anything else for that matter?

Here is my question: is there anything that I have learned about music that may help other musicians, or people trying to seek some truth in music? My thoughts on this dwell in two areas: the things that I've studied a lot or taught on a lot. For instance, the importance of Beethoven's symphonies or Bach's fugues on Western civilization. The second area is the stuff that I can't quantify, haven't expressed with words, don't know quite how to say:

Why does music affect us the way it does?

What are the keys for a musician to be able to tap into the emotional power of music?

These are the things I think this blog is here for. This is what I'm going to use this blog to try and answer. I'm not a scientist, I'm not a psychologist. If you want a perspective from either of those places, read Oliver Sachs, or anyone else who has a better idea of the physiology of sound waves reaching the ear, or the psychology of how they affect the brain.

I'm a musician. I'm a musician with a particular insight (not unique to me) from my own experience into the spiritual nature of music and the soul. This is my starting place; this is the approach I will take in trying to open up hearts on these topics. I hope they give you something to think about, and I hope they provide something of interest.

Happy New Year!