Dear God, You have given us the gift of music since the beginning of human history. Only You know what those ancient melodies were like and how they were used. Below I am musing about why music is so powerful.
I ponder the power of music in the Old Testament where David was recruited to play the harp for King Saul to soothe his mind. We still use music in that way. But how does it work?
I also ponder that surely some music is “good” for us and other types “bad.” I went to a dentist once who was playing heavy metal as background music. I was disturbed and told him so, but he couldn’t understand what my complaint was! I am also agitated when drivers are travelling with their windows down listening to unbearably loud rap with a bass line that shudders the car. Here, the foul words are just as disturbing as the blasting sounds.
While I have not necessarily come up with any answers to my questions, I knew that both Plato and Albert Einstein had views on music, so I looked them up on the Internet. I want to share what they said:
Plato
Here are some quotes from Plato according to the Internet. Several of them are from The Republic but others were not attributed.
“I would teach children music, physics and philosophy, but most importantly music, for the patterns in music and all the arts are the keys to learning.”
“Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul.” – The Republic
“Musical innovation is full of danger to the State, for when modes of music change, fundamental laws of the State always change with them.” – The Republic
“Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is good and just and beautiful.”
For you trained musicians out there, Plato viewed the Dorian mode as superior to the Phrygian. Do you agree?
And here is what I learned from Peter Kreeft on goodreads.com on March 16, 2023:
Music is more powerful than reason in the soul. That is why Plato made music the very first step in his long educational curriculum: good music was to create the harmony of soul that would be a ripe field for the higher harmony of reason to take root in later. And that is why he said that the decay of the ideal state would begin with a decay in music. In fact, one of your obscure modern scholars has shown that social and political revolutions have usually been preceded by musical revolutions, and why another sage said, “Let me write the songs of a nation and I care not who writes its laws.”
Einstein
The information below comes from Good Vibrations: The Role of Music in Einstein’s Thinking, by Liam Viney, published in theconversation.com on February 14, 2016.
Many may not know how important music was in Einstein’s life. “It is little known that Einstein was an accomplished violinist who said that had he not pursued science, he would have been a musician. ‘I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.’” His favorites were Bach and Mozart, which he described as “tonality in the service of formal structure.”
According to Einstein himself, sound, in the form of music, gave him more pleasure than anything else in life. Far more than a diversion or a hobby, music was such a part of the man that it seems to have played a role in his scientific working processes.
Einstein’s second wife Elsa told the story of him one day appearing totally lost in thought, wandering to the piano and playing for half an hour while intermittently jotting down notes. Disappearing into a room for two weeks (emerging for the odd piano session) he then surfaced with a working draft of the theory of general relativity.
What a guy!!!
As I said above, my online research did not provide answers to my questions, but I do believe that these great minds have discerned more than I can tell. Scientists may some day find what inspired Einstein so profoundly. Perhaps someone will discover the mathematical formula that will explain why music is so powerful.
And Plato seems to confirm my suspicions that music may be potent in both positive and negative ways.
Dear Lord, thank You for the gift of music, even the music of the spheres which we (or at least I) can’t sense. Music can soothe the soul or incite to action, how we do not know. But You do. May we use Your gifts to Your glory, Lord.