Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, but the beautiful moments in music seem to transcend cultural differences. Some say that music is the ‘universal language.’ That may be true. Perhaps a better way of saying it would be that emotion is the universal language. Music is many things, and emotion is at the top of the list.
When we teach drumming lessons in Midland, Texas we encourage the student to tap into the emotional power within their life-experience to bring forward stirring performances.
When scientists began researching micro-expressions in people’s facial muscles, they discovered that across humanity and culture, people have the same expressions in congruence with their attitudes for various situations. In other words, while languages, ethnicities, and cultural barriers may separate people, what all have in common is emotional responses and emotional awareness.
In fact, most communication is body language. When people meet to discuss a topic or conduct an interview only a small percentage of awareness goes to what is being heard in conversation. Most is picked up through physical expression.
The point is: music’s emotion can transcend barriers, taking us to a point of foundational common truth.
I remember, when I was a music student in New York, hearing people talk about a particular New York Philharmonic concert they had attended at Lincoln Center. (Unfortunately, I wasn’t at the concert.) But, everyone I talked to, who had gone, had the same expression of awe and wonder. This is not normal in New York. There are so many concerts and events, one couldn’t possibly go to all of them. But this one concert was different. Each person, without fail, spoke of what they had experienced the same way. They said things like, “Something happened I can’t explain, and everyone felt it.” It’s like each person was touched deeply and couldn’t explain it. I wondered at the phenomenon, but I have to say, there have been a few instances that I have either attended a concert, or played a concert that this happened. A mass download of beauty was dropped into a single moment in the concert hall that affected everyone to their core.
Was it music, or something beyond music?
During our drumming instruction in Midland, Texas we teach our students to be aware of the beauty of music and how to participate in it.
There is beauty all around us, but few take the opportunity to perceive it. The old phrase is relevant, “Take time to stop and smell the roses.” I had a recent conversation with someone who had gotten tired of being on social media all day, and he said, “I have learned just to go take a walk in the park and enjoy the pond and the flowers. It means so much to me!”
Music is filled with beauty, not only emotionally, but in its patterns and design. I can remember some of my earliest moments of emotional exhilaration with music, but as I have grown to adulthood and as a musician, I have also come to appreciate the patterns and designs of music, when crafted with skillfulness.
We make a big deal of skillfulness in our private drumming lessons in Midland, Texas, because the more skillful the player is, the more they can use that skillfulness to express emotion.
My favorite composer, J.S. Bach, seems to have been operating on a different level of genius than most musicians throughout history. He is perhaps studied more than any other composer, to glean wisdom in the craft in composition. His intuitive use of motivic development and timing in form and structure seemed united with the beauty seen in nature.
The pattern seen throughout nature, with what we discussed in theory class at Juilliard, as we studied Bach, was termed “The Golden Section.” It was the place somewhere between one third and two-thirds through the composition, the high-point of the piece happened, then drew to repose to the end. This mathematically correlates to Pi and Phi. Bach seemed to do this without giving it much thought. His composition skills were so quick and intuitive that they were like improvision to him. And his improvisational skills were so well-founded in technique that they could be analyzed for their structural depth. The two worlds of improvisation and composition were the same to him!
We hope to teach students in our drum lessons in Midland, Texas how to simultaneously play skillfully, while interacting with the music in a meaningful way.
There is a famous social experiment where Joshua Bell played J.S. Bach Unaccompanied Sonatas and Partitas in a New York subway station on his Stradivarius violin, to see if anyone took the time to appreciate it during rush hour. The majority of people were so caught up in making their commute to work that they didn’t give the moment even a second thought.
How many moments in life do we let slip by, without truly appreciating the gift? Moments with family or friends. A little extra effort to go visit someone that got put on the back-burner, not prioritized, and at the end of the day forgotten. Relationships taken for granted, then too late to say what could have been said.
My father was a symphony conductor for many years, then he was an active participant in a local university’s music department. Many times, in both of those positions, he was invited to go to a musician’s recital and other events. Of course, he admitted that many times he was tired and didn’t always want to attend. But he told me one day that in each of these instances, when he made himself go, “I was never disappointed that I went, something of value always came out of it.”
During our drumming instruction in Midland, Texas we value each moment and encourage our students to do the same.
When we make the time for the intangibles of life, the reward is always rich.
I have some peach trees in my yard. Each year, we look forward to when they are ready to harvest. But it happens fast! You wait all season, patiently, and you’re in such a habit of waiting, when they are ready to pick, you can miss it. The other day I went out and noticed some had already fallen to the ground.
When the moment of harvest comes, it is quick and fleeting. You have to be not only be looking for it, but active to capture it when it comes. And that particular moment will never come again, and can easily be missed.
During our drumming instruction in Midland, Texas we are constantly looking for that ‘aha’ moment, where the student has a revelation of understanding. When this happens, we park there and make a big deal of it, as these moments are the building blocks of their growth.
Here in West Texas, my most favorite time of day is at dusk, when the sun is setting and the vast, wide-open sky has multiple layers of clouds of a variety of colors. As the sun moves to its setting, the panorama gradually changes hues and new patterns and shapes of clouds that are blowing at different speeds in the stratosphere. When I stand there, taking it in, I wonder if I’m the only one seeing it, if this picture was painted for me alone. And in five minutes, it’s all changed. In another few minutes, it’s all gone.
Music can be captured and recorded, but real music is in the moment. It is now. And the moment will never come again. Oh, there will be another opportunity…will you take hold of it, will you receive it and be changed forever?