Music holds the enigmatic power to alter the face of our personal and collective experiences, the very perception of ourselves and the surrounding world. It has also played a subtle yet indispensable role in the course of History and human mysticism.
This article is a personal attempt to address the musical experience in the light of its many dimensions and the way it resonates with our innermost desires for freedom, inspiration and transcendence.
Melomaniacs carry within themselves the unwavering belief that the Earth would be a place of no interest, inhospitable and devoid of conditions essential to the prosperity of the human spirit if it could not take refuge in the ineffable pleasure of being able to enjoy the horn and electric synergy of Bitches Brew in out of orbit midnight mind wanderings, the upward beat reverberation of When the Levee Breaks, the warmth of Sinatra and Morrison’s incandescence on winter solstice days, the generation-gap-transcending-groove of’ Waterloo or the coming of age sweetness of Joni Mitchell’s poetry whilst savouring – almost innocently – the strawberries of a lifetime by the windowsill and taking the arrival of the first spring afternoons for the firmament’s descent.
For the fortunately rare people who underestimate the importance of music in our lives, ask yourselves this question: would it be worth living in a world where Gladiator, Blade Runner and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly are displayed without Lisa Gerrard’s ethereal singing, Vangelis’ cutting edge and mesmerising synthesisers and Morricone’s western-spaghetti-flavoured orchestra?
Would it make sense to exist in a world where Life of Brian doesn’t end with the messianic commandment of Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, where Woodstock never happened and Pink Floyd never existed? For melomaniacs, these scenarios are sufficient for leaving no doubt that Nietzsche was right in proposing that, without music, life would not be worth the effort.
And it is certainly not necessary to be acquainted with the unfathomable depths of neuroscience to know, in our hearts, that something very curious, profound and fascinating occurs in the human body each time our ears come into contact with fairy-like sound waves. For this purpose, it is enough to be alive and to come across the sounds that make this existence worthwhile, and without which life would certainly bear an increased disenchantment.
It never ceases to amaze me how combinations of repetitive and rhythmically constant sounds can ignite our souls, profoundly altering our perception of the surrounding world and ourselves, the shape of every day experiences, as well as unleashing ecstasy, poetic introspection, artistic inspiration and the most distressing nostalgia. And although some of these questions can be scientifically met, others may simply be given over to the domain of the mystique.
Research has found [1] that when we are under the influence of that one song that gives us goosebumps, a release of dopamine floods the pleasure centres in the brain as the result of a reward system. What’s even more intriguing is that if you’re a TOOL fan, for instance, the dopamine is not only being released in your system while you’re melting to Adam Jones’ mind-boggling Jambi talk box guitar solo. In fact, it is triggered even before you hit the track, as you anticipate the odd time signatures in all their splendour in the back of your mind. It’s like your brain’s already awarding you for knowing that a killer riff or a bone chilling chorus are about to take you home.
However, beyond simply making us feel good, there’s evidence [2] that music can even benefit and improve one’s health. Research has shown that listening to music is associated with upticks in immunity-boosting antibodies and cells that protect against bacteria and other invaders. Music has also proven to be effective across a variety of treatment scenarios for conditions ranging from premature birth, to depression to Parkinson’s disease. [3]
Many of the beneficial effects of music in the brain are not limited to any single genre. [4] Whether you’re listening to the smooth jazz styling of Billie Holiday on vinyl, the classic country sounds of Johnny Cash on YouTube, or Rush and their prog rock dream catalogue on Spotify, different styles can yield the same results – as long as they align with your musical identity. In this way, it’s the brain’s relationship with familiar and favoured music that is key.
According to a study [5] published on the European Journal of Neuroscience, in spite of our idiosyncrasies in the listening experience, our brains are all somewhat in tune, in the sense that the brain experiences music in a very conventional way across subjects, which implies that, to a pure chemical extent, listening either to Black Sabbath’s ‘War Pigs’, John Coltrane’s ‘Alabama’ or Celine Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’ is all the same from a mere human brain standpoint, as long as your heart is grooving and your soul is vibing and thriving.
Our brains develop rapidly between the ages of twelve and twenty-two years old – reason why they call it the “formative years”. So, when we make a connection to a song from that period, a powerful neurological event largely known as ‘melancholy’, ‘longing’ or ‘nostalgia’ will potentially occur. A song which we came across with at some point in the past is powerful enough to trigger reminiscences of hardship and times well-lived or even to carry us back to a time when life was elusive enough to seem simple, when we were naïve and innocent in the cocoon of youth. But why do those songs have such a strong hold on our emotional core?
Inevitably, we also tend to print our emotions, sensations and experiences in the invisible fabric of the songs we hear over time. Once our mark is settled, music is no longer just a sequence of sound waves pleasant to our ears; it forms a subtle, yet intimate bond, with our sense of identity, with the imaginary of ourselves, the very crystallised perception we have of the world at a certain moment in our lives. By evoking in the mind of the listener the phantom of his experiences, sometimes even the experiences themselves in their full force, listening to music is also an exercise in memory and self-reflection, of looking at ourselves in the mirrors of the past from a more clear-sighted angle.
When we intone a national anthem in unison with our compatriots, we channel the energy of the coalescing effect that music prompts in the patriotic sense of our collective consciousness, an exacerbated pride in the mythology of the nation and the enormous rejoicing of belonging to the motherland. Commonly we witness, in the scope of international sporting events, the fulfilment of the tradition of listening to the national anthems of each country in contention prior to the match. This ceremony is part of the protocol but it is far from being a mere formality. It is, in fact, one of the key and often overlooked highlights of the match — the warlike moment in which the crowd exults the nation’s hymn, invoking the deeds, myths, legends and its most biblical heroes of yore to watch them reincarnate in an army of athletes imbued with adrenaline in the center of the field, thirsty for victory in the ultimate battle for the glory of the country.
But music’s ability to generate unity among men is lavish with transcending stubbornly interposed boundaries standing between them. Music is a fundamental attribute of Humanity. Virtually all cultures, from the most primitive to the most sophisticated, make music. It is inherent to who we are as a species and one of the few languages capable of transposing the Babylonian frontiers built upon political, religious and cultural dissensions and even help shape the fabric of a new world.
In May 6th 2005, Audioslave (a.k.a. Rage Against the Machine with Chris Cornell on vocals) performed for an audience of 70,000 people at Havana’s Plaza Anti-Imperialista, in Cuba, in an historic event that marked one of the very few times that American musicians were permitted to play in the northern Caribbean archipelago due to decades of political, military and economic tensions between the two neighbours stemming from the Cold War days. On this day, music pierced through the walls of divisiveness and for a couple hours Cubans were allowed to eclipse years of enduring resentments as they watched America’s most peaceful ambassador in action.
Of all the symbols that revolve around “the dream of reason” of the French Revolution, such as the guillotine, the Phrygian cap or the tricolor cockade, La Marsellaise is perhaps the most popular. The ultimate hymn of defiance and resistance, whose message has proved incredibly potent in key moments in France’s history (invasion during World War I and occupation during World War II) became the unofficial anthem of the revolution, and soon after the abolition of the Monarchy, it became the official anthem of the new French Republic.
Two hundred years later, a music festival held at a farm property in Bethel, in upstate New York, gathered half a million people for “three days of peace and music”, setting the ‘flower power’ movement ablaze and sending an unwavering message of harmony, tolerance and love to an America drenched in international and domestic turmoil. Today, Woodstock holds the aura of a myth and the iconic status that makes it an unrepeatable and inimitable achievement. Anchored in the generational voices of Joan Baez, Janis Joplin and Grace Slick, the festival of love and peace became the eye of the hurricane for a new generation who rejected the madness of the Vietnam War, represented in the supreme figure of Nixon’s administration. Perhaps, nothing has ever captured this rejection as loudly and frenetically as Jimi Hendrix, who performed the national anthem on his Strat in a version loaded with feedback, ferocious vibrato lever abuse, distortion and sustain, in an attempt to summon the sounds of air strikes and napalm bombings that plagued Vietnam at the time, making it one of the most beautiful and powerful sonic metaphors that the world has ever witnessed. After this iconographic performance, unmatched and full of political protest, the “Star-Spangled Banner” was never the same. And for those of us who wish we had been there but weren’t even born yet, our best hopes of catching a glimpse of the “Garden” lie on Joni Mitchell’s Woodstock, the song that epitomises a generation’s attempt on attaining the liberation from the smog of creation.
Events like these illustrate the vital and transversal role of music in the course of History and are revealing of its power as a symbol and an instrument for the realisation of our wildest yearnings — hope, unity, change and, above all, our own freedom.
On a spiritual plane, music is Nature’s invitation to transcendence. Many of us are used to listening to music as naturally as drinking coffee or taking a step forward – and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But the instantaneousness with which we can listen to music today often prevents us from listening to it with the intention of listening carefully and enjoying it as the potentially religious experience that it can be.
Every time we listen to music, we are witnesses, whether aware or more oblivious to it, of the spiritual nature that covers the musical experience, which weaves indelible ties in the fabric of mysticism and our ancestry.
In ayahuasca ceremonies, it is very common for the shaman to emit synchronised sounds or songs called “ícaros” (songs that according to the shamans, were taught by the plants and spirits themselves) in order to guide the traveler on his journey of self-discovery. As his mind drifts away into a boundless new plane of being where reality as we know it and the ego slowly start to dissolve and wither away, these sounds are the only reassurance to the traveler that he remains tied to the earthly ground.
In Hinduism and other Indian religious traditions, Om is the primordial sound of the cosmos. By chanting it, one symbolically and physically tunes into that sound and acknowledges its connection to everything in the world and the Universe. The rhythmic pronunciation and vibrations have a calming effect on the body and the nervous system similar to the effects of meditation. In Ancient Indian culture, chanting has been acknowledged as a spiritual practice that urges a rhythmic repetition of a song, prayer, word or sound to unite the practitioner with the divine. Chanting may sound similar to repeating a mantra, but giving the mantra a song-like, vibratory energy can help further unfurl the meditative practice.
However, the presence of music is audible in virtually all religious ceremonies on record. Even today, music seems to remain a very reliable apparatus for putting humans in contact with the celestial spheres.
Since I can remember, music has always been a personal sanctuary where I can seek refuge and purify myself from the upheaval of the world. Over the years, it has grown to become a most precious way for me to dig deeper into who I am, to make amends with my existential angst, to reflect upon the world and to help me unveil the poetry that seeps into the cracks of existence and translate it into my own language; it sets the tone that allows me to create a liaison of dialogue with the tearing absence of answers that we humans must come to terms with.
In his lesser-known book Music at Night and Other Essays, Huxley claims that from pure sensation to the intuition of beauty, from pleasure and pain to love and the mystical ecstasy and death — all the things that are fundamental and profoundly inherent to the human spirit can only be experienced, not expressed. Further, he argues that “that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music”. This fathomless form of expression saves us from the suffering of the world; it truly is the universal language of Mankind’s search for meaning, a common ground we all share equally, where freedom and creativity serve the purpose of healing and transformation. It not only echoes our experience, it also amplifies it. However vast the unknown and what secrets the veil of the world therein conceals, it is music’s essence to help us find a way through the mayhem of life, to mimic the chaos of it all and turn it into solace and ultimately inspire us to swing the spiral of our own divinity.
Let your brain be overflown by the confluence of wavelengths pumping through your eardrums. Pay close attention to its mesmerising effects in your body. When was the last time you surrendered to the solemn moment of the chord?
Transparency disclaimer
Article written by André Oliveira.
Edited by Nuno Tenazinha.
References
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