Why Music Works

This morning I was talking with some friends about why music works.  I haven't studied a lot of musical theory, so my thoughts on the subject are intuitive and not based on a formal understanding.  But here are a few ideas:

1)  Music brings together differing voices (tones, sounds) that complement or harmonize with each other.  We need to do that in life, too, and it's difficult.  Music shows us it's possible.

2)  Music places moments in sequence in a way that is meaningful and interesting. Our lives, also, are moments in sequence and we want them to be meaningful.  Music demonstrates that they can be.

3)  Music incorporates surprise.  In a song, we're delighted by the new and previously unforeseen thing that arises after other things have led up to it.  In life, we need to handle surprises all the time. Music shows us how we can handle surprises gracefully. 

4) Music is ordered.  It's organized and patterned.  As the the poet Wendell Berry* and others have pointed out, order offers the possibility of rest.  Music makes a convincing case for order, inspiring us to heal chaos. 

5)  Music is balanced.  Music shows us how to balance the lows and highs, the lights and the darks, the points of tension and of release.  We all have both in our personalities and our life stories.  Music shows us the importance of both sides of the spectrum, while revealing the potential for equilibrium. 

6)  Music calls and responds.  There's an ongoing conversation taking place between every song ever written and every previous one, every note that calls to the next, and every singer and every listener.  Music calls us to respond, and we do.  Music teaches us how.

7)  Music brings people together.  Across a room, across time, across cultures.  When our senses are collectively captivated by a song, we feel held within something larger than ourselves. Music surrounds groups of people--not unlike houses, schools and churches--and, in doing so, music helps create community.

8) Music reminds us of our natural, physical rhythms.  Our heartbeats, footfalls and breathing...the regular patterns of night and day, tides, turning seasons, life and death.   Music helps us connect with the elemental facts of human life.

9)  Music moves in a circle.  It takes us somewhere but also leads us back to the starting point.    Though it wanders far from home (say, the starting chord) music tends to come back home in some way.  Much of life is like that.  Music helps us remember. 

10) Music is a gift.  Like the beauty of nature (of which music is a part), human beings did not "make" music, even though, with skill, we can cultivate it for our personal and collective well-being.  In its pure form, music can never be limited or sold.  Music lives wherever there is life.

*The poem "Healing" in What Are People For?