Monday, March 28, 2011

Monday's Musical Musing

Hello Reader, I hope your weekend was a good one. Mine was rather excellent, thank you for asking.

Today let's talk about music, the vein that has run through the body of my life for as long as I can recall, perhaps through yours too. I listen to music almost all the time and it features largely in so many areas of my life. I'm also continually fascinated by inventions, more the way in which things get invented.

Rice and bread are two examples. I've spent too many hours wondering how they were discovered. What sequence of events led to people figuring out that rice, if grown and plucked from under that water, polished, then boiled and simmered would taste so good?

And how did they figure out that wheat and whatever else is in bread, if processed however it is processed, will become bread. For the record I should tell you that I only know that baking bread is quite involved, I haven't the foggiest idea of exactly how it's done.

Now to music.

I wonder. How, or at what point did man figure out that the right combination of noises is pleasurable to our ears? Or is it the case that music evolved to become pleasurable, that perhaps, had we not pursued it, it wouldn't exist today?

You know the way dinosaurs went into the water, becoming fish, then monkeys, then Charles Darwin and then man? Well that's evolution. Did music evolve to become what it is now through a series of accidental developments? Or did Charles Darwin hear a bird singing and think that it might sound a bit better if he went and had a go on that drumkit over there in the corner?

"Musical" is classed as one of the forms of intelligences, suggesting that it's more of a fundamental than an accidental evolution, but I wonder.

There's one thing I do know. Life feels a lot better to music.

6 comments:

Sach said...

This is how.

Invention of Music

Rhythmic Diaspora said...

Thanks JapSach, I think that answers that one!

. said...

Absolutely, I could'nt agree more. What intrigues me about music is how particular songs from certain era's trigger a strange melancholy of emtions within me. Some music I love listening to and some ( even really good music) makes me sick to my stomach because of issues I faced at the time. Would you happen to know if this is normal ?

Rhythmic Diaspora said...

Maya - I haven't got a clue whether the feeling sick thing is normal! But, I'm sure music can take the listener back to events that were going on at the time so perhaps it makes perfect sense.

G 12 said...

@Maya - I totally get what you mean. I can't listen to Textbook Love by Fleet Foxes because it was my ringtone at a time when I was having problems with an ex. Makes me shudder. Pity, because it's a really good song too. It's happened with other songs as well, sometimes whole albums. Sigh :/

@RD - Music is amazing. Sufjan Stevens and Gotye are my current fixes. You like?

. said...

@ G12 - Ditto ! Music does have a huge influence over our emotions.