Once Music is mystical

Music seems to be very mystical. I'm always astounded by the way it can fill an otherwise still room with the most vivid, nearly tangible emotions. Depending on which emotion it is, the style of music can transport us to another place, it can cause us to change shape, or even disappear. At its best, it can take the musicians creating it and transform them into one organism.

If we reduce music down to its elements, those being (for our purposes) sound, rhythm, melody and harmony, we can see how it relates right down to the very basics of our humanity. We need life, first and foremost, which is kept thriving by the cycles in nature and governed by the order of the universe. Most every entity is greater than the sum of its parts. This is especially true for human beings. A human being, soulful and alive, is all those processes physical, mental, & emotional working in concert. The pieces are useless alone, and yet something is still missing within the mechanism of the pieces together. Music is still just a theory in this stage. It takes something more transcendent to bring music out of the void.

Creativity.

Something spiritual is necessary here. It is a giving and receiving. Just as I pointed out how music transforms a group of musicians into an entity, they must first create and nourish this thing before it gives back to them. The essence is out there, always. We give it form.

I saw Once for the second time this morning and can certainly say it is another favorite, a new favorite, of mine. It will be hard for any film to top Into the Wild for its depth of meaning as it relates to my life. But Once comes as close to that meaning as I can expect. I love, love, love how John Carney juxtaposes the down-and-out natures of the lives of both Guy & Girl with the purity and heights reached by the music they make together. This is an example of sublimation at its finest. Girl, while incredibly well-adjusted, is the picture of functional destitution. She is very poor but makes enough to feed her daughter & mother. Guy, while quite secure financially, is bereft of all social graces and romanticism. He has everything he needs, save for a crucial kick in the pants that is now necessary after losing his lover. Together in music, the Girl and the Guy live out their ideal selves in their ideal lives.

What is art, anyway?

I am not sure what it is, myself. I know that it's not even agreed upon in a fundamental way. Many people I respect have said art is inherently political. I think art should be apolitcal. Art ascends and transcends at its best, and I think very lowly of politics. I do, however, admit that my opinion of art is not yet streamlined or refined. These thoughts are just the beginning. It seems that more modern movements in both art and aesthetics have phased out the importance of Beauty while redefining themselves. I'm not sure this is correct. It seems to me that Beauty has been connected to that which is gratifying, always pleasing to the aesthetic sense, and the absence of pain of any sort. Perhaps Beauty should be redefined.

I learned and agreed with the holes in the structure of truth-traditional beauty. But I don't think that the truth-beauty structure must be completely abandoned, especially if beauty is reconsidered. Music is full of ranges that interchange moments of harmony with moments of dissonance. Dissonance, taken alone, is depressing, but harmony, unbroken, is boring. The piece of music is complete for the listener when taken as a whole. It is the entire spectrum of dissonance and harmony combined that lends beauty to music. Let us apply this idea to all of art.

Beauty does not culminate in the pleasure of an idea or aesthetic. It does so arriving at some greater truth. It brings about awareness and realization. This can't happen with a one-sided view of only goodness, pleasure, and conventional forms. There must be a more complete version that also includes pain & suffering, difference, and challenge within the broader picture. With that, there is at least a greater appreciation or greater understanding of that which is pleasing. Beyond that, it may also inspire new forms and new ideas. This is Beauty. If this is correct, then art & aesthetics can be described once again as pursuits of beauty, which is the awareness and realization of some greater truth. And so, we have art. Or at the very least, that is my idea of my art.