General Music Chat

i love it when everything seems connected. i've noticed some relationships between music and creation in literature and was wondering if anyone had something similar to contribute.

throughout the bible, music is emphasized in worship.

c.s.lewis and the creation of narnia, aslan sings the world into being.

j.r.r.tolkien's silmarillion. the ainur sing and the land of middle-earth takes form.

i'm sure other authors have felt so strongly about the power of music. any additions? reflections?

I wonder what Tom Cruise would have to say about this?

what is that supposed to mean?

id have to say that music is more throughtout greek and roman myths more than its in the bible.

an urge to drink alcohol and eat, which the barowners love and we get asked to come back and play more music which creates more drinking and eating which creates more gigs for us and so on and so on...later...your friendly neighborhood bluesman fisherman bob

Yeah, Bob, you're right.
I do agree . . . but . . .
For me, it started more spiritually. Nothing to do with religion, or anything.
It's just that, when I play: everything's ok.
Know what I mean?
I can guide my emotions in any direction I want, by playing the right chords. Music is a kind of emotion that you can listen to . . .
I never play angry-sounding music.
I have a pretty hard life - I'm not going into that; - but I can create music to put me at ease, to cheer me up, and to guide me in a variety of good directions.
I LOVE playing.
And - because emotions can be complex - I had to learn complex chords to re-create the feelings I wanted; the sounds I heard in my head . . .
I LOVE playing.
And other people started hearing me, and asking me why I wasn't playing out. I had someone last week ask me, "How come you're not famous?"
Yeah - right . . . as if . . .
I just like to play, that's all . . .
I never set out to be a star. I'm just another guy . . .
I don't need the floodlights. I just want to pay my bills, and not suffer.
And - maybe, - just maybe, I can leave something good behind, before I eventually die . . .
But my music makes other people feel good, too.
Hey - so - that's a good thing, right?

The ancient Norse peoples believed in and practiced something called "Wyrrding" (literally "wording") which meant using sound to manifest reality, or change things in the physical realm. And yes, if some of you already saw or read "Dune" by Frank Herbert, he stole the idea from the ancients for inclusion into his book. Additionally, the runic alphabet used by the Norse, the physical writing of which is given so much importance for historians and New Age spiritualists, was in fact far down the list from the primary importance - the sound attached to each one. In Norse society, the arguably most powerful member was the "Scaldee" or the Bard, who used sound in both song and magic to effect change for himself or his tribe.

From where I sit, creation begins as a seed in the mind - but sound, especially Music, is a powerful tool to manifest in this, the densest of all worlds.

I've never read anything more eloquent than your posts on this website. I continue to be astounded. Later...

In ancient times, sound was believed to have a magical quality. In some cultures, a person had a name not known to the world in general. To know a person's secret name was to control him. Sounds had power. The tale of Rumplestiltskin is a remnant of this belief.

The same applied to deities. There was a concerted effort to disguise a god's true name. The Romans actively sought the true names of enemy deities so they could cajole them to take Rome's sice. The procedure was known as "elicio".

According to E=MC2, matter might be viewed as a standing wave -- rather like a guitar string vibrating within the constrained parameters of nut and bridge.

Gives a different spin to "God SAID, 'Let there be light.'" Ne c'est pas?

DaveGTD, you said,
"According to E=MC2, matter might be viewed as a standing wave . . ."
Well, that sounds all very scientific and what not - but it's using the wrong formula to back up your point.
.
E=MC squared is broken down thus;
Energy = mass times the speed of light squared.
What it actually means, among other things, is that if you take a particle and speed it up enough, it turns into energy.
For the sake of simplicity: ignore the constituant parts of the atoms, and break it down to the 3 simple parts which everyone is familiar with: the electron, proton, & neutron.
What E=MC squared means is, - if you take an electron, proton, or neutron, and speed it up fast enough, it turns into a photon. Or, more simply, if you take an object and move it fast enough - it turns into light.
It has nothing to do with standing waves.
But, yet, - more apropos to this thread - if you take a photon and slow it down, it turns into various particles.
Or, more generally stated - if you slow down a light beam, it takes on mass.
Slow down light, and it converts into objects.
.
Maybe someone can offer some corrolary with this to thoughts and music?
.
Like, maybe, when your mind's Beta waves (signifying more conscious thought) decrease in fequency & amplitude, and the Alpha & Theta waves get relatively stronger (signiflying a meditative, relatively thought-free state), - your sub-conscious music-creation process is unleashed.
.
Hmmm . . . basically: the less you think, the more creative you are.
. . . or . . .
.
Slow down your thoughts - and music is created.
. . . Kind of like E=MC Squared.

In ancient times, sound was believed to have a magical quality. In some cultures, a person had a name not known to the world in general. To know a person's secret name was to control him. Sounds had power. The tale of Rumplestiltskin is a remnant of this belief.

That's why to this day, the God of the Old Testament is "properly" referred to as YHWH. The actual vowels in his name are still not known, because the ancient Hebrew priests wanted to keep them a secret so that he was not impulsively summoned by the "wrong" people. To them, sound was power, and vowels (being the most sonorous of language particles) carried the real power or "anima" in a name - which could bring forth such an entity when called.

Very good, Irminsul. Like many Semitic languages, Hebrew verbs were originally unwritten. They were unnecessary, since native speakers knew what the vowels would be. The pattern in such languages was standard and predictable. Even after vowel marks were adopted, YHVH was not so treated, for the reasons you expressed.

Sorry to go correct your physics, BluesRockFunkJazz, but since this is "general chat" I don't feel too guilty.

A photon never goes less or more than the speed of light -- by definition. It may be subjected to time dilation in the presence of a gravitational field, but cannot slow down. Even if it could, it would lose, not gain, mass (of which it has none in the first place) according to the furmula. A photon is either going at speed c, or is absorbed, adding energy to the particle that absorbed it.

An electron behaves sometimes as a particle, sometines as a wave. The quantum jumps in the electron shell, and electron tunneling in your computer chip, are examples of wave behavior.

An atom seems solid, but it's mostly empty space. Traveling as 600 miles/second wuthin the electron shell, the electron acts as a standing wave, describing a sphere far from the mucleus. To us, it is a solid --i.e., matter.

Within the nucleus, the protons and neutrons, constrained by their containment, travel at 1/5 the speed of light. Their interaction within the nuclear force field energizes them. At this speed they exhibit relativistic effects, existing as an ever-changing virtual particle cloud. Even the nucleus is not really solid at all. It's more like a plasma.

THe way to change matter into photons is for it to be annihilated. This releases lots of high-energy photons. The reverse is true: it tales lots of photons to make matter.

Okay, a lame, gratuitous attempt to relate this to music.

When in a band, let's say touring and playing 6-7 nights a week, members are sort of like standing waves, constrained by the group coherence. This also energizes them. Some of the best music has been made in an environment if of much contention. Cream, for example, or the Beatles' "Abbey Road". Those at the nucleus are the most frenetic, with outer shells, e.g., managers and PR guys, making the whole thing look solid.

Under such intense conditions, personalities may tend to fragment. The strains are too great.

It takes a solid (pun intended) sense of balance to maintain such an arrangement for long.

Very good, Irminsul. Like many Semitic languages, Hebrew verbs were originally unwritten. They were unnecessary, since native speakers knew what the vowels would be. The pattern in such languages was standard and predictable. Even after vowel marks were adopted, YHVH was not so treated, for the reasons you expressed..

That makes sense. Although I am not so sure about Hebrew, which I do not speak, Arabic (which I took in college) only writes its long vowels regularly into the word. The short ones, which are marks above or below the consonant they follow, are not written once the word is 'learned'.

Einstein said "E=MCsquared"
Which is nature's way of
Sending light like a bat out of hell
On its way to Nowhere.
He never said it would be easy.

Gorf

Hey, DaveGTD.
Yeah, I was keeping it simple, because this is a music site.
For those interested;
A photon's being absorbed and imparting it's energy to something is commonly seen in photovoltaic cells.
Electricity is, basically, electon's jumping from atom to atom. Like, through a wire, for example.
The electron 'shells' in an atom which were referred to, actually belong to a much older theory, which was subsequently proven wrong. It might've been Neils Bohr w/ the original theory, maybe?
Sorry, didn't mean to Bohr you folks . . .

There are several energy levels. An atom with 2 electrons has one shell, describing a sphere. Add an electon & it has to go to the next level (or 'shell'). Keep adding electons, and when the 'shell' is filled - subsequent electons jump to the next, and the next, and the next.
originally, each of these energy levels, or shells, were thought to be spheres.
But here's the point - several of these 'spheres' are actually 'figure-eights.' That adds a little more dimension to your reference to band members and managers, and the like . . .
A plasma is the next state of matter after a gas. Heat up atoms enough, and the constituent particles diassociate, the atom loses it's cohereance, and the atom loses it's shape. I'd never refer to a nucleus as a plasma . . .
But . . .
Who cares?
No big deal, one way or the other. I don't need to crack my notebook to talk about up, down, sideways, truth, beauty and charm. Quarks. And, I don't care enough, to double-check before referring to mesons, pi-mesons, leptons, tachyons & the such. (Yeah-yeah, I know Tachyons & time . . .)
But, again - who cares?
If I were to talk about this stuff on a music site - that'd just be Tachy . . .

I agree with the members being like standing waves. Cool analogy.
But, if they play sitting down, are they still standing waves?

(sorry bout that; couldn't resist)
Let's call a truce w/ the nuclear physics, ok? We'll just bore everyone.
Hmmm - would that make it a nuclear armistice?
Back to music . . .
Be well