Music and Philosophy Blog Entry 3

I know my blogs tend to have nothing to do with the readings and if they do, it is something obscure, but my Q/A’s focus more on the readings and I do not want to be repeating myself. I already repeat myself saying class what is also in my Q/A. I would hate to repeat myself three times.

This week, after watching Dance of the Dead with some friends, I started thinking about the phrase “music soothes the savage beast” In the movie, zombies cease attacking when a band plays their music. I went looking online for the origins of the phrase and here is what I came up with: The phrase is from a 1697 poem, The Mourning Bride by William Congreve. Here is the poem:

Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Beast (in some translations it is ‘breast’),
To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.
I've read, that things inanimate have mov'd,
And, as with living Souls, have been inform'd,
By Magick Numbers and persuasive Sound.
What then am I? Am I more senseless grown
Than Trees, or Flint? O force of constant Woe!
'Tis not in Harmony to calm my Griefs.
Anselmo sleeps, and is at Peace; last Night
The silent Tomb receiv'd the good Old King;
He and his Sorrows now are safely lodg'd
Within its cold, but hospitable Bosom.
Why am not I at Peace?

It is a very deep and well-written poem. In the original context, the phrase has an entirely different meaning but this poem still has a lot to say about music. Clearly, the Congreve is speaking of music as a mystical thing that is hard to define (and seeing how we have this class, we are still defining). He feels music is metaphysical and full of power. The power to heal, to change the world, and he feels he has no music in his soul. (This just gave me an idea for another blog).

Clearly Congreve is depressed and heartbroken and music the power to fix these problems.

But why do we still say the music can soothe any monster, animal, or damaged person?

Is there any truth to this?

I think there is. And here is where the blog ties in with my Q/A:

If we take the definition of absolute music as discussed in class as interpreted from Hamilton, music loses most of the powers and capabilities roughly sketched out in this poem. I fully reject this theory of music. I could on about it here but I will elaborate in my Q/A. Essentially though, I believe the point of music is to feel something human, to connect to something else, to have images created in one’s head due to the nature of the piece, and to send messages of soci-political, philosophical, or otherwise significant messages to people. And in doing so, listening to music in this way, one will contemplate on the nature of the piece, what it wants to express. Breaking it down to tones and notes entirely misses the point.

We have this idea, of music soothing the hurt and the cruel because we feel so strongly about music and the effects it can have on anyone or anything. Music can unite a nation, start or stop a war, heal a broken heart, paint wonderful pictures in our minds, and do so much more. And a message of the poem: without music we are nothing, we are broken, and unable to cope, basically, music makes us human.