The Power of Music

This morning I woke up before the sun and rode my bike down to the Belle Haven Marina. The morning was crisp and quiet. It was just me, my bike, and a quiet Mt. Vernon trail. It's been kind of a long week and I just felt this need to get away for a moment, farther and faster (and frankly with less effort) than running could take me. The marina at sunrise was the perfect place. I composed the perfect relaxing playlist for my outing. When I arrived at the marina, my playlist finally arrived at a song a friend introduced to me the other night: a Cambodian lullaby, part of a collection of lullabies from around the world. When I first heard it, the feelings were similar to what I felt upon listening to it again this morning. I don't know that I entirely understand it and therefore am having difficulty explaining it, but I was deeply touched. How is it that a song with words I don't understand and a tune I don't recognize is able touch me that way? What is it about music that makes it so transcendent?

Music has been a part of my life ever since I can remember. Since I'm on the younger end of my family, the music started in my house long before I entered. Almost all my older siblings played a musical instrument of one sort or another and we usually spent Sunday afternoons around the piano singing or playing those instruments as a family. My own training was primarily classical in nature but I've always been drawn to all types of music. I've had many spiritual experiences through the preparation, performance, and observation of music, and, over the last couple of years or so, I have stopped to think about why that is. I don't know that I've come up with a good, concrete answer. I have lots of theories and ideas, but I won't outline them all here. I will, however, make this very general and obvious statement: I think music means more than we think it does.

Sure, you can give scientific explanations of places in the brain that are stimulated when one listens to a piece of music, thus creating a sense of pleasure, but I'm talking about something more. I'm talking about music on a spiritual level--not necessarily spiritual music, but music of all kinds, tempos, beats, etc., that awakens something dormant, that causes you to be surprised by the joy you find welling up and spilling over. D&C 25:12 tells us that God considers the song of the righteous to be prayer. Prayer has the power to heal, to move mountains, to call upon the power of God through our faith. It would follow then, that music could have the same power. It's interesting to stop and think about that. What is it about music that gives it so much power?

Thoughts?

Some side notes/afterthoughts:

(1) If the song of the righteous is like a prayer, then what is the song of the unrighteous?

(2) I think Tolkien may have had more insight than he realized when he wrote the Ainulindale, "The Music of the Ainur" (first chapter of The Silmarillion). It's worth a read; don't let yourself get bogged down in the names; unless you're a serious Tolkien reader you don't need to keep many straight. All you need to know is that Iluvatar is God, Melkor is the dissenter (a Lucifer figure), and the Ainur are like demi-gods (Michael and others, if you will). It's one of the coolest creation stories I've read, mainly because it deals with creation and visions through music.

(3) Another thing about music I have considered a bit in the last year or so is its place in "one eternal round." Music's relationship to mathematics and the components of famous and timeless pieces are fascinating to consider. The thing that really spurred on this particular thought process was this NPR segment: http://www.wnyc.org/music/articles/27256. It's fascinating (the parts about motives and mathematics, etc., not the crazy Wagnerians, though they are fascinating in their own right), especially if you like Wagner and/or the humanities in general.