music , mind , thought and emotion

Oz, maybe I misunderstood detlof myself, because I agree with everything you just said, which, I thought, was what I just said!! Oh well...

I read detlof's comment, "silence, where music happens" to mean that music, impliedly, does not occur where silence is absent, namely, when notes are going on (or words). In conjuction with his negative take on "talking", this seemed to be a reasonable interpretation. Maybe I didn't get it, though (wouldn't be the first time...)

Maybe what he was saying was that the "way" we were using words was "enslaving" the Truth (the analogy: discordant notes getting in the way of falling into the beauty of Music).

OK, I can get that, but here's something interesting...

I'm always rattling on about solid state, saying it has distortive aspects that keep you from falling into the music. Now, if detlof was saying the same thing about how we were talking - our distortive "Jesus in pocket" talk was getting in the way of talking about the Silence - then that means that while I've been decrying SS distorions in components I've actually been creating more here on threads!!

Seemingly ironic, until you consider....

This thread was DEAD. Yes, Oz had said some beautiful things about the surf and patterns, but notwithstanding detlof's many questions, the responses went dead for four days - usually terminal on a subject like this. So, unless detlof meant his questions to be answered in the silence he talks of - highly doubtful given the number of probing questions posed - that means that the recent allegedly discordant words have actually been catalyzing dialogue. Because, if I'm not mistaken...

detlof is back, Oz is here, 6ch is happy and behaving himself, Gregm has just said some penetrating words, and

we are together, again, talking about the music that we love (and love to share the thought-words on)and the thread is going on, like the notes of Music...

So, effectively, were the words "discordant"? As we are apt to say, isn't the proof in the pudding (or, listening?)

Hmmmm.

Friends, sorry, didn't mean to offend. Life is too noisy at them moment, all thoughts get drowned in the din.

I really must get back to the silence for awhile, but let me seek return back to detlof (now that we are all here...)

What is the purpose of music?

We've had some interesting discussions above about where it might have originated as far as patterning in our cultural/primordial past, but, here, in our present, why are we drawn to music and not just sound?

What is "in" music that causes us to feel that it is a meaningful activity? Is it just because it makes me calm - its own sort of pleasure (absense of thinking pain) - or is there something else that is happening? Just an emotional tonic?

If our listening is more than just listening to sound patterns - that we derive meaning from the experience - then what is that meaning?

Why does it happen at all?

What is the purpose of Music?

Detlof asked many questions, but before we can answer some of the others, maybe we need to answer his question: "What is music and what does it do to us?"

Be well.

Be well, detlof.

To me music can be as a catalyst, which opens my mind, which silences thought and all wanting and in the openess it can afford, and in what rushes in, there is a taste sometimes of the essence of our existence. Words here are nothing but a clumsy translation, hypostasising a myriad of emotions of all hues, images and flashes of insight, which come and go. What remains often however, is a deep gratefulness of simply being alive. Music (and rythm )touch me more, than anything else ever could. I've had this since earliest childhood and it has never been otherwise. When someone very close to me died and I was raging in anger and despair, in the night after she died, I dreamt that I myself was dead and in some "other place", where I suddenly met Bach and we both played four handed on an organ. We made the most swinging and beautiful Jazz I had ever heard in my life, before or afterwards, dreaming or not, and when I woke up, I was still sad and bereaved but calm in my loss. The rage was gone and never came back.... Music...my questions still stand.