Why do we have music? (All About Music)

Member Name: kimgraham

Product:	All About Music
Date:	10/08/02 (74 review reads)
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A few days ago I read a superb review on music in general and what it meant to the writer. As I say, it was jolly good and it really set me thinking.

As a lot of you know, I am a professional musician. This probably means that I come at this from a slightly different angle from most ! or does it?!

I have already written recently about my love for playing the violin, so I am not going to retrace my steps on that one. As a performer I come to music from various angles, as a player/singer whose whole life is surrounded by music, but also as a listener, just the same as any of you. If anything knowing a lot about the finer points can be a distinct disadvantage. Sometimes it is difficult to just enjoy a piece of music for it's own sake. It is second nature to analyse and rip things (and performers, sometimes) to shreds! It is probably because I also teach music, but it can spoil the experience.That is a shame ,really!

So, that is a bit about me and where I was coming from as I thought about writing this op. Incidentally, if you think this is going to be an opinion about classical music, then hang on. Obviously that will come into it, but it is only a small part.

What is music?

Well, music means something to each and every one of us. It means something different, but it means SOMETHING!

From the moment we are born, and sometimes before, we are musically aware. It stays with us until the moment we die. It is the one thing, which we all enjoy throughout our lives, at differing levels. We might play professionally, like me, or perhaps you learned as a child and still tinker about a bit? Maybe you teach it? Most just listen for pleaure. Almost certainly you will listen to music even if it is not intentional!
Why do they continually subject us to a barrage of music in the supermarket for instance? I love to listen to music, but there are times when I just want a bit of peace and quiet, and I don't like music wh
en I am shopping. Perhaps it's just me!I believe there is a great beauty in silence, one reason why I like walking across the fields etc. Nature has a music all of her own!

I just told you that we are musically aware before we are born. There is scientific evidence to prove that is the case. I have a little story to tell you, which for me proved this on a personal level.
Sixteen years ago I was pregnant with my youngest daughter Caroline. I was taking an extra diploma on the piano and needed to do three hours practice a day. One of the pieces I was learning was a short piece by Bartok, called Allegro Barbaro. Basically, this means fast and barbaric! It isn?t to everybody's taste, Bartok, as his music is discordant, rhythmically complex and modern sounding.
Whenever I practised it the baby kicked quite a lot, but I didn't give it much thought.

After the exam, which was before Caroline was born I forgot all about the piece and the music disappeared into the ether of my music room. Some years later, we moved house and the music turned up.
Excitedly I rushed to the piano to give it the once-over. Hardly had I started when Caroline, then aged 9, came running downstairs and into the room. "Shut up, Mummy, stop it! You know how much I hate that piece!?"

I was, as you can imagine, somewhat stunned. I had not played that piece of music since I was 7 months pregnant with her, and yet she knew it, recognised it and had very definite feelings about it!

So, perhaps these seemingly odd ideas about playing Mozart to your bump to increase intelligence aren't as daft as they first appear?!

Music consists of five elements. The first two are the most important and it is those I will briefly discuss.

The first is RHYTHM.

We are all born with an innate sense of rhythm. It is more developed in some than in others, but it is there. You use rhythm even when you are un-aware of it, in every
day life. To walk you have to have rhythm, athletes need rhythm, think about hurdling, or skiing, everything has to be timed just right. You try swinging a golf club un -rhythmically and see how far you get! If you think about it, if you didn?t have some natural rhythm your sex life would not be too great, would it? No, I am not talking about the rhythm method- come to think of it that might make a good op!

Have you ever heard African drumming? It is the most earthy, complicated exciting rhythmic experience. These people have no musical training, they just feel it and use their innate musicality, which we all have, to some extent, and it is just a case of tapping into it!

I was once at a workshop at a top music college, where I had taken some pupils for their viewing day. One of the activities was African Drumming. None of us were very good at all at it, probably because in a classical musical training you become very restricted and restrained! Yet, the Africans do it without knowing anything. Wonderful, isn?t it!

Jazz musicians are very similar with their wonderful improvisations. They have not had their "natural" side trained out of them!

We are born with a natural inbuilt rhythmic metronome- our heart. We all have a pulse, and basically music is all about pulse. We all enjoy a good strong pulse (beat) and a firm bass line. If you go into a pub loo, what bit of the music can you always hear? That's right, the bass line!

So although you may think you don?t know much about music each and every one of us is set up with the facility to "feel" it.

The second element is PITCH:

I'll bet some of you are sitting saying, "I'm tone deaf?".

Hmm. Is there such a thing as tone deafness? I don?t really think so. Let me explain why!

We are all born with an ability to distinguish different pitches. To be truly tone deaf you have to be unable to tell one pitch
(you will notice I am deliberately not saying "note" at this point) from another. I have known profoundly deaf people who, with a little difficulty and the aid of vibrations, can differentiate pitch. Obviously some cannot, sadly. This does not mean you have to be able to sing the note back, that is a different thing altogether.

Think about this carefully. If you are truly tone deaf, you cannot hear a change in pitch, so?..how do you change gear on your car? You change because you hear the changing pitch of the engine. Somebody rings on your doorbell. Ding-dong! Avon calling! If you could not hear a difference in pitch then you would only hear ding-ding or perhaps dong-dong! Also, how could you tell the direction of a siren? I must admit these new ones are not as easy to spot as the old nee-naw ones. There are many examples. I could go on, but it would become very boring!

Did you know that even animals have a sense of pitch? I have two cats. One has a very acute sense of pitch. He loves music actually, and I often find him sitting on the piano stool "playing" the piano with his front paws. He also loves to be in the room when I am teaching, even when it is the violin, surprisingly. He does tend to shove off when it is a beginner, though!

We tried a musical experiment with the cats. Peanuts was best at it. He knows his name and always comes when he is called. Have you noticed that whenever pet owners call their cat or dog they always call on exactly the same two notes? This usually applies to whistling as well!

We tried singing La- la to the two notes we use in calling his name and sure enough Peanuts came scampering along in very short order! He recognises the pitch and knows that this is to summons him. We also tried other names to the same pitch, and sure enough, along he came!

Now, if you can relate to any of that you have a sense of pitch.
You might think that some people can sing and others c
an't. That is very true, believe me, I am Head of Vocal Studies in a boarding school so I know some people have a real struggle to sing. I have yet to find anyone that I cannot, with a lot of effort from both of us, get to sing. They might not have a voice like Freddie Mercury, but they can sing a tune that is recognisable. It would make this op far too long to go into how it can be done, but if you want to have a go leave me a message in my Tooyoo guest book and I will tell you what to do. Lessons on line, whatever next!

To finish off pitch, I will tell you that I have perfect pitch. This is the ability to hear a note and to know what it is. People think it is so clever. It isn?t. You either have it or you don't, a bit like a big nose! It is a form of memory, the musical equivalent of a photographic memory. It can be a blithering nuisance. If anything is slightly out pitch wise I find it physically painful. I had real difficulty with some rounds of Pop Idol, I can tell you!
If I have to sing at a wedding and the organ is miles out of tune it gives me real problems with singing at all! So, I would rather not have it!

I would like to move on now, to talk about different musical genres and what they mean to me.

I am of a blessed generation, musically, for which I am eternally grateful. I was a child of the sixties, teenager of the seventies and young Mum of the eighties. This period encompasses some of the finest music ever produced. To have grown up with it all around me was just wonderful.

I can honestly say that there is very little music that I don't like.
I grew up in a background of professional musicians, both my parents are jazz musicians and one set of grandparents were classical musicians.
This did not leave me any choice but to be very aware of music from a very tender age. When I was born my Dad was working for Johnny Dankworth and Cleo Laine. They were the first people to see me after I was born
, other than my parents. Mum was often unwell so I spent a considerable part of my baby and toddler hood in the Lyceum Ballroom in London whilst Dad was working. I often wonder what would have happened if I had cried, but apparently that never occured. I have had a love of big bands ever since!

I don't know about you, but for me music fulfils a variety of different needs. The first is to pay the mortgage!

Putting that to one side, like us, music has different moods. There is mellow, soulful music, in classical, popular and jazz genres) there is upbeat music, heavy meaningful music and music which I would call "audible wallpaper".

Most of us have a need for all these types of music at different times of our lives. I am so glad that I am not a musical snob, like some of my colleagues who will only listen to highbrow classical music or highbrow jazz. They miss out on so much.

I use music for different reasons. If I am cleaning the house I like to do it to Abba, Buddy Holly, the Beatles , Jamiroquoi; gracious there is such a wealth of wonderful music from the late 50's to the eighties it is almost impossible to choose!

For relaxation I find my choice depends on how I am feeling at the time. Sometimes it has to be classical, which for me has a power that isn't reached by any other genre. It can transport me away so that I am encompassed by the music and am barely aware of my own existence. I like to lie on the floor and just float away. The only non-classical album that actually does that for me is Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, for which I have had a lifelong addiction! It is such a wonderful album , but as I intend to include that in another op I won't go into it here.

I have a huge range of musical tastes and I only draw the line at my son's Wu Tang Clan addiction- I have tried, but sorry it leaves me cold! He hates all my music, so that makes it about even, I guess!

>Music can provoke very powerful memories, a bit like smell! I have very vivid memories if I smell Brut, but that?s another story!
I am sure we all have particular songs which we feel we "own". This is usually because they are connected with memories, both good and bad,which we like to tap into from time to time. They can release so much emotion.

There are certain songs which I love, which I will not listen to anymore because they remind me of my ex husband. They are songs related to happy memories, but the emotion in them makes me too sad to bear listening for long! How stupid is that?!

I will conclude by saying that there is no right and wrong in musical taste. Our tastes will evolve and grow as we travel through life and music will always be there as an intrinsic part of our lives. Thank goodness!

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