The Pleasures of Music May Seem a Rather Elemen Mains As Inexplicable As Ever
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ADVENTU RES OF THE M IN D 30 . • By AARON COPLAND hat music gives pleasure is axiomatic. IX-cause this is ('non or music as an expressive, communicative agcncy re so, the pleasures of music may seem a rather elemen mains as inexplicable as ever. \Vc musicians don't ask ror tary subject for discussion. Yel the source of that much. All we want is to have one investigator tell us why this pleasure, our musical instinct. is not at all elementary-it is. you ng rellow seated in row A is firmly held by the musical in fact, one of the prime puzzles of consciousness. "Vh y is it sounds he hears, while hi s girl rriend gets lillie or nothing out tha t sound waves, when they strike the car. cauS(:, as a British or them, or vice versa. T hink how Illany mill ions or useless critic describes it, "voll eys of nerve impulses to How up into practi ce hours migh t have been saved ir some alert proressor the brain," resulting in a pleasurable sensa tion? More tha n or geneti cs had developed a test ror musical sensibility. that, why is it that we arc able {Q make sense out of these nerve The rasci nati on or music rOf some human be ings was curi signals so that we emerge from engulfment in the orderl y ously illustrated ror me once during a visit I made to the presentation of sound stimuli as if we had lived through a showrooms or a manuracturcf or electronic organs. As part or simulacrum of life? And why. when s.:, rcJy scated and merely my tour I was taken to see the practice room. There, to my listening. should our hean s beat raster, our toes start tapping. surprise. I round not one but eight aspiring organists, all our minds start racing arter the Illusic, hoping it will go one busil y practici ng simultaneously on eight organs. 1\lol'e sur way and watching it go another, deceived and disgruntled prising still was the raCl tha t not a sound was audible, ror all when we arc ullconvinced ; elated and gratdul when we eight pcrrorrners were lis tening through earphones to their in acquiesce? dividual instrument. I t was an uncanny sight , even ror a rellow \Ve have a part answer. I su ppose. in that the physical na musician. to wa lch these grown m('n mesmerized, as it were, tUfe or sound has been thorout:"hly ex plored: but the phenom- by .1 ~ilc nt and in\'i <;;iblc genic. CO.\'TI.\'Cf:n 0 ,\ P.IC£ J8 - Aaron Copland has been acclaimcd thc " Dcan of from folk sources. notably the b.1llets Rodeo. Dilly American Composers." Born in I3 rooklyn fifty-cight the Kid. and Appalachian Spring. The laner score years ago. hc was the firs t American 10 study com won a I ~ulitle r Prize in 1945. He is also a compelling ~ About the Author position .... ith Nadia Boulanger, who later taught so Iccturer and writer on music. This artic1cwasoriginaUY many o f his musically gifted compatriots. Some of presented as a lecture last April al the University of his best-known compositions draw their inspiration New Hampshire. Photograph by Arnold Newman 38 THE SATURDA Y e VEN!N"O POST stopping of time itself. incredible and in Tone color is another basic clement in The P leas ures of Music (Continued from Page 19) conceivable. music that may be enjoyed on various To the enlightened listener this time levels of perception from the most naive On that day I fully realized how mes our judgment as to the artistic stature of filling forward drive has fullest meaning to the most cultivated. Even children merized we car-minded creatures must any extended composition. only whcn accompanied by some con have no difficulty in recognizi ng the dif seem to OUT less musically inclined Everyone is aware that so-called se ception as to where it is heading. what ference between the tonal profile of a friends. rious music has made great strides in gen musico-psychological clements arc help flute and a trombone. The color of cer If music has impact for the mere lis eral public acceptance in recent years, ing to move it to its destination, and tain instruments holds an especial attrac tener, it follows thai it will have much but the term itself still connotes some what formal architectural satisfactions tion fo r certain people. I myself have al greater impact for those who sing it or thing forbidding and hermetic 10 the wi ll have been achieved on its arriving ways had a wea kness for the sound of play it themselves with some degrcc of mass audience. T hey atlribute 10 the pro chere. eight French horns playing in unison. proficiency. Any educated person in fessional musician :1 kind of init iation Musical flow is la rgcly the result of T heir rich. golden. legendary sonority Elizabethan limes was expected 10 be inlO secrets that arc forever hidden from musical rhythm, and the rhythmic factor transports me. Some present-day Euro able to read musical notation and take the outsider. Nothing could be more mis in music is certainly a key element that pean composers seem to be having a be. his or hcr parI in a madrigal sing, Passive leading. We all lis ten to music. profes has simultaneous attraction on more lated love affair with the vibraphone. An listeners, numhcred in the millions, arc a sionals and nonprofessionals alike, in the than one level. To some African tribes infinitude of possible color combinations comparatively recent innovation. Even same sort of way, in a dumb sort of way, rhythm is music: they have little more. arc available when instruments arc in my own youth, loving music mcant really. because simple or sophisticated But what rhythm it is! Listening to it mixed, especially when combined in that that you either made it yourself or were music attracts all of us, in the first in casually. one might never get beyond the wonderful contraption. the orchestra of forced out of thc house to go hcar it stance. on the primordial level of sheer car-splitting poundings, but actually a syntphonic proportions. The art of or where it was being made, at considerable rhythmic and sonic appeal. Musicians trained musician's car is nceded to dis chestration, needless to say. holds end cost and some inconvenience. Nowadays arc flattered, no doubt, by the deferential engage its polyrhythmic intricacies. Minds less fascination for the practicing com all that has changed. Music has become attitude of the layman in regard to what that conceive such rhythms have their poser. being part science and part in so very accessible that it is almost impos he imagines to be our secret understand own sophistication; it seems incxact spired guesswork. sible to avoid it. Perhaps you don't mind ing of music. But in all honesty we mu and even unfair to call them primi As a composer I get great pleasure cashing a check at the local bank to the sicians know that in the main we listen tive. By comparison our own instinct from cooking up tonal combinations. st rains of a Brahms symphony. but I do. basically as others do. because music hits for rhythmic play seems only mild in Ovcr the years I have noted that no cle Actually. I think I spend as much time us with an immediacy that we recognize interest-needing reinvigoratio n from ment of the composer's art mystifies the avoiding great works as others spend in in the reactions of the most simple time to time. layman more than this ability to con seeking them out. The reason is simple: minded of music listeners. It was because the ebb of rhythmic in ceive mixed instrumenta l colors. Bu t re Meaningful music demands one's un vention was comparatively low in late member that before we mix them we hear divided attention. :md I can give it that I t is part of my thesis that music. un ninetcenth-century European music that them in terms of their component parts. only when I am in a receptive mood and like the other arts. with the possible ex Stravinsky was able to apply what [ once If you cxamine an orchestral score you feel the need for it. The use of music as a ception of dancing. gives pleasure simul termed "a rhythmic hypodermic" to will note that composers place their in kind of ambrosia to titillate the aural taneously on the lowest and highest lev western music. His shocker of 1913, The struments on the page in fa mil y groups: senses while one'S conscious mind is cis of apprehension. All of us. for exam Rite of Spring. a veritable rhythmic mon reading from top to bottom it is custom otherwise occupied is the abomination of ple. can understand and feci the joy of strosity to its firs t hcarers, has now be ary to lis t the woodwinds. the brass, the every composer who takes his work being carried forward by the flow of come a standard item of the concert percussion and the st rings, in that order. seriously. music. Our love of music is bound up repertory. This indicates the progress Modern orchestral practice o rten juxta Thus. the music I have reference to in with its forward motion; noncthcless it is that has been made in the comprchension poses these families one against the o ther this article is designed for your undis precisely the creation of that sense of and enjoyment of rhythmic complexities so that their personalities.