The relation between Music and Emotion

I guess I found what I wrote earlier. You can consider this a the first version


In the previous post I wrote about the physics of music. But today, I am in a more pondering mood, so a non-emotional piece of writing would do me no good, so I shall continue about the previous stuff later.

Music has a very emotional content to it. It is one of the few things in this world, one of the few art forms which can truely stir your soul. Music as contrast to Poetry, Prose or Drama does not need the clothing of words to appeal, pure musical notes can either throw you up in joy or reduce you to tears. However, Music goes well with either of these forms, besides Dance of course. Dance is an independent art form, but has a great dependence on music and how well they support each other.

I personally prefer the kind of music without words, words of course do add value to some odd combinations of notes, but personally, I do not need words to understand something n music. Infact I feel that words constrict ones imagination in a music piece. When I listen to a piece, I can imagine different things at different times. I can just close my eyes and think of something beautiful, something ugly, something red, something blue, something warm, something cold, something soft, something rough, something smelling like the ripe mangoes or something else.....I can go wild, imagining things.

Again, music is a fantastic means for me to express my inner most feelings, without being specific. I can say so many things without saying anything. I can vent out my feelings, any, all kinds of them. The most complex inter-twined, unspeakable of them I can ease out of my mind. The volcano, the flower, the sea, the space, anything in the world, anything out of this world is nothing for music. It is beyond seeing, beyond hearing, beyond feeling. It is the heart that music plays with, or it it the music that the heart plays?

Music has been my sole soulmate for all my years. It has been my companion through my sorrows and joys. I just have to open my hands, strum my fingers, and my music is with me. But not always!!! Music is worse than a girl friend sometimes. She does not just come to you just the way you want her to come. She makes a lot of tantrums, if you do not keep in touch with her. You have to caress her, play with her, make her yours and all this needs a lot of practice!!!

Music gives me the release that nothing in the world gives me. However of late, I have not been able to give sufficent time for my music. I hope to come back to it soon.

Music and Emotions

Man I am really pissed with this site.. I wrote an entire blog, and these guys made some error while publishing it.. So I have to re-type the whole thing. Non-sense!!! Anyway, I have to write anyway, even though the words may not flow in the same way as before. So, today, I wanted to talk about the emotional aspect of music. Lets see if I can say the same things again.

Music is one those art forms, which does not need the garb of words as against Poetry, Prose or Drama, to appeal to anyone. Just a few sequence of notes of the violin, or few beats of the Drums can either make anyone go over the top with joy or sorrow. However, music blends extremely well with the afore mentioned art forms, besides Dance of course. Dance as we all know is an art form almost totally dependent on music, but Dance gives a totally different embellisment to music which takes it beyond everything in this world.

Personally I prefer music, without words. I prefer to listen to music and interpret it the way I want, rather than how the lyriscist wanted us to interpret. I can feel anything I want, the sea, the couds, see anything I want, warm, cold, soft, rough, I can hear any colour I want fiery crimson, cool blue, and through music I can smell the ripe early morn, the dew on my toungue, and do anything in the world or anything out of this world.

Similarly, music helps me to express anything which cannot be expressed through the framework of words. I can say so many things without saying anything, I can paint the town red without anyone coming to know, or dvelve into the deepest of sorrows. Only those who understand my music will know what I feel deep inside, the inter-twined emotions can run wild with music. I can express anything I want, the volcano, the ice, the flower, the storm, the creeper and also the rock.

Music has been my soulmate for a long time. Anytime I want to be with her, I just have to open my mouth or stum my fingers, and there she is, enjoying every moment with me. But you have to spend time with her for her to be your own. I have to caress her, feel her and live through her. You have to imbibe every nuance of hers, and then you can own own her, still be her slave. Of late however, I am not feeling her to be mine..I dont meet her everyday and so she goes away from me every day. I hope I can be her slave all over again.

What creates music?

Music has "been" almost as long as man has learn to speak. Almost everybody in this world has a special relationship with music. Some have their favourite songs, some favourite artistes, some favourite groups, some favourite genres of music and some people listen to anything. Some people listen to music when they are alone, some people listen to music when they are working, some spend some part of their day just to listen to some music, some others dance to it.

What is it in Music that is different from a sound? We also hear sounds everyday, but we do not like to listen to the sound of an engine, or a horn or something breaking and so on. What is the inherent quality of music which makes it different from a sound, which makes music so endearing to the listner?

A very simple difference between a musical note and an arbitrary sound is the nature of music sounds to have a longer duration. But a more important property for musical notes is to have a base frequency. In lay mans words, every musical sound has a pitch. All the other sounds (non-musical) also have a base pitch but it is just the sound of a random mixture of different frequencies all together. Out of all these frequecies, the more predominant one could be called the base pitch of a non musical sound. (Ofcourse there are more ways to define the pitch of a non-musical sound)

Musical notes too have different frequencies (besides the base frequency), but it so happens that these frequencies are all multiples of the base frequency (Pitch). Infact a sound with just one frequency does have musical content, but does not sound pleasing to the ears.

Let us first try and interpret what frequency means. Frequency gives us the intuition of something repeating. But what could be repeating in a single musical note?? The answer is ofcourse, its intensity. As we all know, sound is a property of the medium, which in most cases on earth is air. Sound propogates through air through a series of compressions and expansions. These series of compressions and expansions are called waves. Thus, whenever there is a vibrating source, then the air around it undergoes fluctuations in pressure/volume (which we called waves), which gets trasmitted all around in the same frequency of the vibrating source.

These pressure waves when they reach our ears, then are reflected on our ear-drum. Our ear-drum is an excellent sensor for these pressure waves. They are extremely thin, and a small amount of variation in the pressure around it, causes it to vibrate in the same frequency as the source interpreted by the neurons and the brain. Thus we can hear!!!

In reality, no natural vibrating source vibrates with just one frequency, their vibration is actually a sum of many frequencies, and all these frequencies are captured by our ear with great fidelity.

So if the frequency components are arbitrarily related to each other, it does not give a pleasent feeling to our brain. It is only when they are related as multiples of each other, we find some pleasure in listening to it. These frequencies related to the base or fundamental frequency are called Harmonics.

Ofcourse, any non-harmonically related sounds is not totally useless. Our speech is a mixture of both harmonically related (Vowels) and non-harmonically related parts (consonants). Again our brain has the capability to recognise different sounds, like that of an engine, a plane a horn, the cooing of a bird etc.

Let us talk more in detail about musical sound next time.

Why did I start?

I am not too sure why I started blogging. But the first time I came across this concept was with Alok. He told me he had started blogging. The second instance I came across blogging was when I met aradhita online. I decided then that, this might be useful to me. I feel really lonely sometimes, with no one to talk to, or rather no one who will understand, though there may be many people around. So maybe, if I pick up my thoughts and pen it down, at a later date i could read it under a different frame of mind

Again another reason, I found this might be useful for me, is because I wanted to write my tought about music, then it could be useful again.

So, let me write today, about the title of my blog...'What is fusion?' In english, it means to mix and in Physics it means to melt. My life has always been a fusion. I have lived multiple roles all at once and been a jack of all trades, and a master of atleast one of them. I have dabbled in a lot of things, and have done some of them to my satisfaction and some others not so much.

My music also is a good reflection of my lifestyle..It has its swings and incorporates all walks of life and music. I am proud of my compositions, and whenever I listen to them I feel a sense of pride and surprise, that I could have thought of something as good as this!!

Anyway, enough of reflections today...I'll use this space quite often I feel