Music is sound, and sound is vibrations moving through space, resonating with some part of the body which then sends electrical messages to our brains. Our brains then interpret these messages. We either recognize the sound relative to something we have a prior experience of, or it is a new experience.

It is much the same with sight. Blind people and deaf people learn to compensate for their imperfect eyes and ears by listening with other parts of their bodies, yes, but what they can do is actually much much more than that. They can help the rest of us learn to see and hear more completely.

A blind or deaf person can learn to compensate for weak or nonexistent eye-sight or ear-hearing by fine tuning their other senses. Maybe more importantly, they show us that eyes and ears are just a part of our cognition. They show us that we allow our other senses, the rest of our bodies, to atrophy through lack of use.

I have said repeatedly that, while mp3 players do allow us to take music anywhere and everywhere, they are no replacement for listening to well-produced music from high-quality speakers or, better yet, listening to a concert in a concert hall.

Again, the intention and execution of both composer and musician come into play, as well as the specific acoustics of a particular concert hall. A musician reads the music and translates it via technique into sound. But then there is interpretation, not only of the written music, but of the instrument as well, and also interpretation of the musician’s own life experience.

For musicians and other artists, the senses bleed into and enhance one another quite naturally; we speak of the thickness of the air in a concert hall, the sound colors of a particular piece of music, and the spatial qualities of music.

Listening to music is like tasting an excellent wine, only with the entire body. You need to open your entire body to the layers and textures of sounds, savoring the overtones and undertones, the multi-faceted qualities that give it so much more complexity, depth and life as if it is a living, breathing, three-dimensional entity. Smell the music, taste the music, feel it in your bones and in your heart.

As I’ve mentioned before, music is not just to be listened to with the ears. Our entire bodies resonate to sound vibrations. Our hollow bones, our skin, our organs and muscles, our hair, our fingers and toes, our noses.

A concert hall fills with prospective listeners. Each one brings their own experiences, personality, emotions and unique physical body into the hall. Each one hears something slightly different depending on all this plus where they are actually seated in the hall.

An aware musician adapts his or her performance to the particular hall, but it is the listener who has to adapt as well. As you listen to my music, I invite you to open yourselves, body, mind and spirit, to really hear the music.

My music is an expression of my interpretation, experience and intent, what you hear is your interpretation, experience and intent. Together we take music off the page, out of the instrument, and into our bodies, hearts and minds.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 2:07 pm and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.