I love music, you love music, who doesn’t love music?

But what is music? Is it sound? Is it emotion? Is it a kind of thinking without words?

We live in an age where we can dial up almost any musical experience (and
therefore almost any emotion or state of mind)–on demand…iPods, Pandora.com, iTunes, terrestrial and satellite radio–hundreds of thousands of songs are floating through the airways, at our fingertips, and in our earbuds.

It occurred to me recently–if we can invent ways to provide such wide access to songs and sounds, perhaps we can also discover ways to access any musical emotion or state of mind–with or without music–on demand as well. Perhaps we can even skip the medium (in this case, the sound), and go right to the feeling or thought that the music inspires…

John Cage invented methods of composition that result in “musical happenings”–events that invite listeners to open up their ears, take pause, and allow the sounds of each moment to penetrate their minds. He was interested in the transformative power of conscious listening–much more than the particular content of the music or sound.

In 1993, I was fortunate to spend an afternoon with Cage and asked him question after question. One particular question I remember asking was, “If all sounds, natural or artificial, have the same potential to transform people as music does, why listen to human-made music at all? In fact, why should I bother listening to your music?” I asked.

His response was elegant: “There is no reason.”

In my experience, music provides a sort of portal–leading to changes of mental, emotional, even physical states. But once we have accessed, practiced, and mastered any given musical state-of-mind, we can call it up again with or without the music that originally created it, either by imagining and feeling the music in our mind, or by just activating the feeling directly.

Listen to this unusually philosophical SOS episode and explore the relationships between sound, vibration, emotion, and thought.

 

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Are there any areas in your life where you experience an abundance of frustration? 

If not, you might want to skip this podcast. If so, go ahead, take a listen, and get ready to tap into your frustration as fertile source of good material for your next song or composition. Six distinct strategies for turning your difficult emotions into sweet musical ideas are explored and analysed. 

JP not only discusses, but also sits in on the piano to play around with some examples that range from Beethoven to Americana.

 

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