TAKE MUSIC
INSTEAD OF A
MILTOWN
by George R. Marek
------------------
THAT MORNING, I was sure the end of the world had come. My boss
had fired me; and, with the pessimism of youth, I was convinced
that I would never find another job. I was marked for failure.
(I was 19 years old.)
That evening I had a date to meet a friend at Lewisohn
Stadium, to hear the New York Philharmonic. Job or no job, I
decided to go.
At first, as I sat there, the music merely lapped against
the stone wall of my anxiety. But with the final number of the
program, the "First Symphony" of Brahms, I began to listen in
earnest. As the music reached me, I reflected that I had heard
the symphony often before, that I was probably to hear it often
again under different conditions--and that it always had been,
and would be in the future, the same satisfying music. It did
not change; only I did. I was impermanent; the symphony was
permanent. I drew comfort from this.
I measured the event of the day more calmly. Was it as
important as all that? Couldn't I do something about it? As I
walked home, the dull blanket of despondency weighed less.
Somehow I would manage to find another job.
Since then, I have often marvelled at the power that lies
in music to raise the spirits, to comfort shaken nerves, to serve
as rope on which hope can lift itself. I am, of course, not the
first to marvel. Most of us remember Congreve's "Music hath
charms to soothe the savage beast." Horace spoke of music as
"the healing balm of troubles." "I feel physically refreshed and
strengthened by it," said Coleridge. Even Goethe, who was not
particularly musical, said that music made him unfold "like the
fingers of a threatening fist which straighten, amicably."
Music may be used in two different ways.
The first way is the road taken by the music lover. He need
not be able to tell a fugue from a fandango. But to him, the
hearing of music is an experience that grips his mind and tears
at his heart. He cannot remain indifferent.
How does one become a music lover? There is but one way:
listen to music! Only direct experience, not study or
explanations or any sort of prop, will lead you to music.
I have two suggestions for the beginner. First, listen to
the same composition often, until you can respond to it
emotionally. Do not expect to encompass a symphony at first
hearing. And do not be discouraged or fell guilty if, while
listening to an unfamiliar symphony, your attention wanders.
Initially, absorb from it as much as you can--and coast through
the rest. There will come a time when the clouds roll away and
the landscape lies clearly before you. In music, the familiar
is the enjoyable. Don't dart from one composition to the next.
Stay with it!
Second, choose--in the beginning, at least--romantic music.
This is repertoire that begins with Beethoven and ends with
Sibelius and that, in its wide orbit, includes the most popular
works--those of Schubert, Brahms, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Verdi,
Wagner, Berlioz and a dozen other composers of the 19th century.
Such music, with its rich colouring, its exuberance, its
sweetness, its exciting oratory, makes an immediate appeal.
But it is not safe to predict what you will like. We do
know that people tend to respond more easily to Chopin and
Puccini than to Handel or Haydn. Yet your experience may differ.
I know one woman whose enthusiasm for music flared when she
became acquainted with Scarlatti and Vivaldi. She happens to be
very modern in her tastes, and possibly these early-18th-century
products furnish a counterbalance.
Of all the arts, music is the freest. Most music does not
"mean" anything--except in its own world and on its own terms.
But because it has little to do with what we call real life,
because it is free of the weekday, it can effectively take us
away from our lives, from our nine-to-five worries. Because
music travels on winged feet, it can make us forget where the
shoe pinches.
The other way of using music is as background accompaniment-
-like a tepid bath in which you induce a drowsy reverie. You
hardly listen to what you hear, any more than you consciously
listen to the surf of the sea. Almost any kind of music can be
used for such a purpose, though most people prefer a smooth blend
of sound. We meet such music in the most unlikely places--in the
dentist's office, in the airport and the bus depot, at the meat
market.
In factories, such music helps to relieve the boredom of
routine labour. So, too, in the home, people mix the sound of
violins with the sound of the dishwasher. But mental processes--
creative or calculating--seem to be aided as well. El Greco
hired musicians to play for him as he painted. Many men,
thinking their problems through, like to have the radio or the
phonograph going. many background-music records--"Music for
Dining," "Music for Reading" and the like--help to calm nerves
and assuage fatigue.
John Oldham, England's favourite satirist of the 17th
century, dropped his doubts when he wrote:
Music's the cordial of a troubled
breast,
The softest remedy that grief
can find,
The gentle spell that charms our
care to rest
And calms the ruffled passions
of the mind. (30)
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Under construction but accessible too.
(Recommended)
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Specially adapted short stories for young people of all ages, from all over the world, by Amy Friedman.
(Very good fables.)
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Heavy stuff that were lifted by several decades to its present location, ZDS' third floor.
You can't find writers who can still keep their distance from their topics like these two.
(Highly recommended for the philosophical. Not too easy to digest in one sitting. Anyway, it's better than tons of history and anthropology books.)
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