In the beginning, there was the word, a wave, a frequency, a sound, an utterance, some kind of movement or motion out of a total vacuum or the word is God. Or is it just the way it seems to us humans with limited senses? From a scientific point of view, what is the word but a sound, a vibration, a frequency.

Sound to me is more mysterious when talking about it in relation to music. There is something about music as a language, a conveyance of information or feeling of some sort. This language has structure that can be expressed mathematically in sonic physical terms yet music seems to hold more. More in terms of its philosophical and dare I say spiritual complexity over and above the cold mechanics of mathematics.

A sound can be represented as a sign wave and modulated and combined with other waves thereby creating new waves and sounds of distinct timber.

Chords, melodies, harmonies, beats per minute, the written “word” otherwise known as music theory has continued to enhance  and inspire humanity. A vastly spectacular record of written music has amassed in the past 600 years, and now recorded in the last 100.

That being said … there’s no sound in a vacuum, is there? Just like with light, humans can only pick up a limited range of frequencies which is part the whole grand electromagnetic spectrum. Did you hear the tree fall in the woods?

Some sounds are so high we cannot hear them, conversely some sounds are so low we can’t hear them, yet we sometimes can feel them. Our touch picks up the rumblings that we can only feel but neither see nor hear except with scientific equipment.

 

With some music, you can physically feel it like the sound of an amped 808 drum kick. However, music can convey another usage of the term “feel”. Music can convey the psychological aspect of feeling or feelings. It can mimic complex emotions, it can goad on, it can inspire, it can mesmerize, it can depress, it can conjure. As the saying goes music soothes the savage beast…but it can also rattle the domesticated.

I have always been very sensitive to music ever since childhood and had a wide range of influences. In the beginning I mostly embraced the popular music of the time. I grew up in the album era, so I was listening to long playing albums very early on and found that there were certain songs I would skip. Sometimes I skipped songs out of boredom or sappiness, but other times because the music scared me, it was foreign, in a minor mode or dissonant and discordant to my undeveloped and uncultured ear.

There were boundaries that I at first didn’t cross for many years. As I went on I began to embrace a lot of the music I initially deemed boring, sappy or scary to a fault. I have been accused of now being eccentric in my tastes of music, which is a kind way of saying downright strange or weird.

 

Throughout a lifetime of music I have always been mystified by music and its many features and anomalies. One aspect is the many different perceptions by different “ears” of the same piece of music. The differences in perceptions of meter, pitch, tonality, timber, chord color, expression and overall conveyance by all of us in certain degrees.

I have noticed patterns of people’s predispositions or predilections to certain types of music and types of voices. People stick hard to their boundaries and stay out of certain territories.

These personal musical preferences in music can tell a lot about a person in many ways. There seems to be patterns or stereotypes of people and their likes and dislikes. The stereotypes such as metal headz, disco boys, jazz cats, folkies, funk soul brothers & sisters, etc. but then there are people who like multiple forms of music as well, like me. Another great aspect of music is in its communal nature within and amongst different fan groups.

 

In Quantum physics, time is said to be an illusion yet music cannot exist without the progression of time or is it rather motion. Music cannot make sense without the movement of time, music is a trick of time and yet time is supposedly illusionary on a subatomic level.

From the rhythms of the spheres, the frequencies of their electromagnetic tones and the rhythmic rumblings of the physical tectonic plate shifts. Spheres that are in constant motion, nothing in this universe is standing still there is constant motion. There is no such thing as rest. Music seems to play or is sensed because of this motion.

What is music really? You can’t hold it in your hand, it’s devoid of substance, it’s just vibrations effecting molecules. We all know it exists. Going beyond judging whether a type of sound art is good or bad, we all hear and are affected differently by music which, in some cases, penetrates deep into the psyche. This being said, almost every person is effected by music and these effects are all together different from person to person, whether it’s to turn it up or turn it off.