Relationships with Music

This is in response to Kyle Innis’ question, “Does anyone have any insight on the negative, positive, and neutral effects to listening to certain genres?”

Like Kyle, there is no genre of music that I would want to exclude from my life. It is the expression of the instrumental music and/or vocal music that creates a positive or negative relationship with me. My personal resonance with, and interpretation of, the vibration of any musical composition creates the effect of my positive, negative, or neutral relationship with it.

I see each being’s body as a unique instrument, with every cell in the body affected by the vibration of sound. The ears act as our primary frequency analyzers, but every cell in the body that is capable of relational experiences with each sound reacts to it. While we may not be consciously aware of the more subtle reactions occurring on the sub-atomic or cellular levels, our body is registering them. The frequencies emanating from a work of music from any genre enter the body, strike a cord/s, creating reverberations, all of which are interpreted by the brain and recorded with the cells. I believe that it is the joint experience between the originating sound with the orchestra of our cells and our conductor brain that interprets this interactive symphonic experience as neutral – imperceptibly dissimilar or vibrationally unaltering; positive – vibrationally expansive; or negative – vibrationally limiting or disruptive.

There are certain pieces of music in every genre that I enjoy, as well as certain pieces of music in every genre that I dislike.

I dislike vulgar lyrics and lyrics which promote the degradation of life.

Musical compositions with considerable discordant melodies create sensations of distress and disease within my core.

Certain expressions of prolonged and overly repetitive high volume percussion and/or electronic instruments hurt my ears and can result in a headache. I do not enjoy the pain resulting from the experience so I say, "I don’t like that music" but in reality, I don't like how the music makes me feel.

I love meditational music, but not when I’m driving on high traffic roads. It is wonderful background for some homework activities, but disruptive for others. Our relationship with music is inconstant, never static, in the moment of every beat.

I see music as a co-creational relationship between individual originator and individual receiver. It is the totality of the experience of vibration/frequency exchange that determines its unique value to the listener.

I do believe that there are certain vibrational building block frequencies that soothe all beings in any genre. Conversely, creating sound patterns that disrupt or dissemble those building block frequencies would be perceived as disharmonious in any genre.

My Question: Do you think all animal life forms and plant forms experience music as positive and/or negative?

When a cat purrs, is it making music?

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to define music. How should we differentiate what constitutes music versus sound – as in what we call noise. The problem as I see it, is that it is all subjective and culturally influenced. How do we contextually structure or frame music to exclude “noise” or “sound” in a way that is inclusive of all cultures and all individuals? Some people would consider the sound produced by a train chugging on its journey as unpleasant noise, others will consider the same sound as rhythmic, comforting, and yes, musical.

I tried looking at purpose as a way to differentiate music from noise. Music, as the sound of our words as language, is meant to communicate something – joy, sadness, patriotism, relaxation – as lyrics in songs, it adds intensity to our stories. Music can be created with the specific intent to elicit a specific response, but so can language and all forms of artistic expression.

Can authorship be used as criteria to distinguish music from sound/noise? Is humankind the only beings capable of creating music? My thoughts immediately flew to birds/ songs, whales’ songs, wolves’ singing – all created beautiful music. Does their purpose for singing make it less musical? This led me to wonder if all living creatures make music. A bee buzzing, a mosquito humming – these are sounds we can hear, and subjectively some people would consider them part of the chorus of nature. So, do worms, clams, or fish produce sounds inaudible to the human ear, or currently beyond our technological ability (or interest) to measure?

What about wind as it rustles the leaves of the trees? What about the cadence of rain falling on a resonating surface? If it falls on an absorbing surface, would we still hear a rhythm? There is the babbling brook, waves crashing against the shore, horses’ hooves on a hard packed surface, a clock ticking.

Is it the created sound that defines it as music, or are the receptors within a being that declare it music?