Listen to the Music

The following question is not a no-brainer: have you ever listened to music? Really sat down and focused your attention on the music you heard in a room? Did it make you want to dance or swell with emotion?

I had a creative music coordinator in my LDS stake in Logan. It's a very musical town because of USU's music department nearby, so the coordinator knew enough people to organize a string quartet--two violins, viola (a larger violin that plays a little lower), and a cello (Looks like a violin but is so big it is cradled between a sitting player's legs). Providing prelude music for a conference, they played hymns straight from our Hymnal, conveniently written in four parts. I was in the choir that conference so I sat behind the podium and soaked in this rare treat.

Then I looked into the congregation. Any Mormon keyboardist knows what I'm talking about. Congregations tend to view prelude like party music: pretty background for conversations with friends. Don't get me wrong, I love when friends greet me at church. And strings are often used as ambiance in movies and social gatherings. But how many church services in the world begin with a string quartet playing at the front of the church?

Most of us like music for different reasons. My friends used to like music with a "good bass" or "good beat." Some notice the songs with clever lyrics. Others are aware of the mood a song can put them in. I had a roommate that collected movie and video game soundtracks. He liked them not necessarily for their intrinsic qualities, but because they reminded him of the movies or games. He claimed that music didn't really mean much to him. I wondered how that worked, because he played a trumpet and even performed a solo once on sight in high school.

Many of us are a little practically-minded like that, and we enjoy music for extra-musical reasons. The words make us laugh, or it came from a great movie, or an old girlfriend liked the song (this happens a lot more than you think). A clarinet professor at college once said that when he hears a clarinet playing he focuses so much on the technique of the performer that he doesn't even listen to the music itself.

The most extreme case I've learned about comes from the book Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks. An anonymous case has amusia, a type of sonic color-blindness. Any music sounds like chaos to the patient. Her mind cannot make sense of the patterns of melody, harmony or rhythm. The only way she tolerates listening to it is in family gatherings. Her family is very musical, and when they gather they play together. Seeing the joy her family gets from playing together and enjoying the music together is satisfying enough for her. That's as close as she ever comes to enjoying music.

I think some of us are afraid to really listen to music. It's often in the background of an event, not the focus. To pay attention to it is a little unsettling at first because nobody's talking. But that's the point sometimes. Nobody to distract you from letting the music affect you, teach you, express something beyond words. Or, if it's appropriate, stop conversing with your posse and move to the rhythm of the music the DJ or band throws down. Tap your foot if that's all you can do. It can affect your soul for good. Listeners don't realize what an important roll they play in music. Without the audience, there is no art.

A few years ago I bought a DVD of a Christmas concert with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and The King's Singers. The definite highlight was Mack Wilberg's arrangement of "O Holy Night." I cannot accurately describe the piece except for what I felt. The song usually sounds very static to me because the notes in the melody hold their place for long stretches. But Wilberg added counterpoints and harmonies that gave motion and emotion to the music. Add the singer's and orchestra's performance, and nothing else in the world mattered. My mother was preparing Christmas desserts in the kitchen, not really paying attention. Just overhearing the music coming from the living room she had to stop baking and come sit. We both needed to rewind the song when it finished. That's what music can do.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this: If a tree makes music in the forest and there's nobody around to listen to it, does the music even exist?