Music and Philosophy 5: Rhythm

Hi all. Over the long weekend, I stopped blogging due to several unforeseen factors. However, I am back and I plan to try to make an entry in every category today so wish me luck. I have so much to talk about but I wanted to start with this one since it is really the only section I’m required to do and I had ideas for it a few days ago and don’t want to forget any more than I already have.

Rhythm. Hamilton is right about this. Rhythm is in everything we do and it is even inherent in our biology, our DNA gives us rhythm. He even goes as far to say that music and biology/evolution are entwined. I can really see what he means. First, I wanted to show you all a clip that I did not link to last time that is about rhythm. It has a Christmas theme to it and I know it is not even Thanksgiving yet but it is very relevant to what Hamilton speaks of:

Ok so I could not find the clip it’s self so just click on this link and skip to 7:20 in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zF4e4dATsQ&feature=related

Now most of you have probably seen this movie and remember this but I thought it was funny thinking about what Hamilton writes. Music is so connected to our existence and even to our physiology that for mystical beings like Santa Claus, the rhythm of his heartbeat is Christmas related. This also reminds me of another Christmas movie, (this is a tangent) where Santa is arrested and when they finger print him, his fingerprints look like snowflakes, so why wouldn’t his heartbeat synchronize up to Jingle Bells?

My point is we even recognize that rhythm and music are so related to our being that in our fiction we joke about this phenomenon making puns out of it!

The real question goes back to the chicken and the egg: Are we musical because it is in our biology, or since we love music and rhythm, we can recognize it in our biology. To put it more simply which came first, Santa or Jingle Bells? Well in that example, it is of course Santa. However, it makes you think did we notice the rhythm of our hearts and then make music, or make music then notice it has a similar beat to our hearts? I know I just repeated myself several times and I apologize, I am just trying to find the best way to phrase it. However, I am sure you all get the point.

We admit that we are musical biologically, not just our heart beats, but as Griffin said in class, our brains are designed to recognize patterns such as beats, our breathing has rhythm which is consistent with our activities, meaning the rhythm changes depending on what we are doing but it is still rhythmic, we blink rhythmically, we need, crave, and desire music in our daily lives so much that at times we will find music where there is none, like Tires in the clip from Spaced I had in my last blog. We put in our music to escape from reality, but could it be we are actually trying to connect further with reality, if we stipulate that reality is music? Some of us would love life to be even more musical, like some of us wish to live in a musical where everything that goes on is explained with a song and dance that everyone somehow knows the words to.

Music picks us up when we are depressed, humbles us when we need perspective, angers us when we need to vent, and frightens us when we need to remember life is not always safe. Music can stop wars, start revolutions, get people assassinated or knighted, and because of all this, we do not just ascribe biology with music, but spirituality with music. We use music to meditate, Neo-Platonists would argue music connects us closer to the world of being, we use music in our religious ceremonies to pray to our higher power, we use music to connect to the human condition and we create phrases and clichés about how mystical music is. That music has so much power, it could be false power we give to it or real power we have discovered in it but either way we believe that music is essential to life, the universe, and everything.