Michael,
Wow! Thank you my friend!
And we share the same philosophy of music. Very much so! Music indeed, can be incredibly powerful in changing or "growing" hearts and minds. Even more sometimes, than a spoken word. Political and religious leaders as well as philosopers and teachers, tell us VERY important things, but inevitably, someone will have to be offended at there message. Especially when they are right. Because it offends people who probably know the speaker is right, but cannot allow themselves to admit this. When they are offended they can walk away, they can refuse to listen, and it is much easier to block out the message they don't want to hear.
With music this is FAR MORE DIFFICULT, because the literal vibrations of the tones and melodies, actually pass through our bodies when sound is present. We are then, not merely "listening" to the message, but "feeling" the message through our own physical bodies. It is harder to reject something you are "feeling" than something you merely disagree with on an intellectual or spiritual level. You can shut your ears to something spoken, but when the vibrations of a sad melody, are literally passing THROUGH you, and stirring that same feeling inside you, you would have to say "This music is making me feel sad, I'm going to stop this and NOT feel sad." this is far different than saying "I don't like what that guy is saying, he's an idiot!"
And this feeling of tone and vibration through music is powerful also, because it is our FIRST language, no matter where in the world you grew up, or what language, you LATER learned to speak. Researchers have discovered many years ago, that ALL MOTHERS world wide, speak to their children in what they term as "baby speak" which is a melodic tone they use along with their words to the baby. If I had a music staff here, I would show you what it is, but in general, the mother says this sentence for example:
"You are a cute little baby, aren't you... yes you are, yes you are!"
You know how mothers speak to babies, LOL.
But the mother is almost "singing" when she says this.
It starts with lower tone of voice, and then progresses a few words, then her voice raises sharply to a higher pitch, then back down at the end of the sentence. Like a roller coaster. Straight for a moment, then up and back down. What they have discovered, is that babies all over the world respond to this VERY favorably, and get happy when it is spoken (sung) to them. They can put a Russian mother speaking Russian with an English baby, and the baby responds IDENTICALLY to that of it's own English mother. It doesn't matter the culture, the religion, the language, etc... in general ALL MOTHERS speak (sing) to babies in this way, and ALL BABIES respond to any nationality mother speaking this way to them.
There are many important lessons here. One is, that before we understood language, we understood tone, musical tone. Music then, is actually an earlier part of our development and communication process, than even language itself is. We did it longer, and understood it first, so it speaks to something more natural and primitive in us, than language does.
We may disagree on politics or anything else, and we may not understand a language spoken, which we have not learned yet, but MUSIC? It doesn't matter the culture or language or anything else... we KNOW when we are hearing a sad melody or a happy one, or something angry, or excited. We don't have to learn Chinese, to know that the Chinese orchestra is playing a very sad, lilting melody. And it can make us sad, even cry, if it were sad enough, whether we had any idea of the name of the composition or not. It is TRULY a universal language, and more deeply rooted in us, than ANY spoken language.
Which is a second great lesson of music. WE ARE THE SAME where it matters most. Our hearts and souls. We respond, worlwide, to the same "feelings" the music is presenting, because WE ALL HAVE the SAME FEELINGS! Sadly, when we DO learn to speak, we seem to forget this, and then go about finding millions of ways to separate ourselves, from the oneness we were born with.
If you study String Theory, in physics, then we also learn that the entire UNIVERSE and EVERYTHING IN IT, is very possibly made up of "strings" that literally "vibrate" in various and different ways, which end up producing the variations we see in matter itself. As any musician knows, it is "vibrations" which create sound. Without this, there is no sound. So, the universe itself, my friend, may actually be one enormous and beautiful SYMPHONY itself.
We are all "movements" in the greatest symphony ever composed.
Craig Maxim
http://www.myspace.com/craigmaxim
