“In every known culture, the ordering of sound in ways that
please the ear has been used extensively to improve the quality of life.” These words appear in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s
book Flow, The Psychology of Happiness. Prof. Csikszentmihalyi has devoted much
of his life to studying the psychology of happiness and creativity, so we
should expect this to be a true statement.
Certainly it sounds as if it could be true, and the notion is an
enticing one for anybody who wants academic support for an argument promoting
the value of music in human existence.
But is it true and, more importantly, does it properly reflect the
function of music?
(As it stands, this statement does not refer specifically to
music, but as it comes at the very start of section in the book headed “The
Flow of Music” and is followed by a statement that “one of the most ancient and
popular functions of music is to focus the listeners’ attention on patterns
appropriate to a desired mood”, it is certainly to music, rather than the
organisation of sounds into a spoken language, that Prof. Csikszentmihalyi is addressing
his comments.)
My few and feeble ventures into the realms of
ethnomusicology have taught me that in many cultures music is functional rather
than enriching. Music intended to ward
off spirits, to scare birds at sewing time, to mourn the dead or to accompany a
sacred rite was never intended to please the ear, and in many cultures that is
the only music which has been created. Audience
reactions at “world music” festivals when the functional music of differing
cultures is performed, rarely touch on how the sound pleases the ear;
“fascinating”, “exciting” and (I regret to say as often as not in my case)
“troubling” and “incomprehensible” are the usual responses, and on those
occasions where words like “beautiful” and “enchanting” crop up, it is tinged
with surprise; as if nobody actually expects world music is to be immediately
pleasing to the ears. I know of many
cultures in which the struggle for daily existence leaves no room for the idle
and time-consuming search for something which merely pleases the ears.
The matter of whether or not music written deliberately to
please the ear is found in “every known culture” is certainly open to
debate. I am sure it is an incorrect
statement, but Prof. Csikszentmihalyi (and his editors) would certainly have
checked his facts thoroughly, so I am open to persuasion. That, though, is not the real concern I have
with his original statement. What offends
me most is his failure to grasp the true function and purpose of western
classical music; a music certainly born of a “known culture”, even if it has
now become essentially multi-cultural in both its creation and dissemination.
Western classical music can exist without sound. It uses sound as its medium of transmission,
the means by which it is communicated to the listener, but for those who
create, and for a great many who are involved in it, sound is not essential to its
appreciation. On the most obvious level,
how else can one explain the significant involvement in the creation of music
by the deaf (Beethoven and Smetana were by no means the only composers who
created great music while completely unable to hear sound)? Logically, therefore, music must have some
more important driving force behind its creation than merely to “please the
ear”.
I would suggest that only in our own time has music been
written with the express purpose of pleasing the ear. I may be wrong, but I suspect that this a (if
not the) primary objective behind the music of such composers as Eric Whitacre,
whose music is lovely to hear but does not stand up to closer scrutiny. Making beautiful sounds is clearly a 21st-century
thing in music; hence the proliferation of best-selling albums and high-earning
artists who promote their concerts with the word “beautiful” prominent in the
publicity. But where beauty - or at
least “pleasing the ear” - occurs in earlier music, I would suggest is by
accident rather than design.
Johann Sebastian Bach’s music is deemed beautiful. It is,
but I cannot accept that it was composed with that aspect in mind. I am certain
that much of Bach’s music was specifically designed not to please the ear, but
to satisfy the intellect and, to a certain extent, confuse the ear into feeling
that the music was beyond the full appreciation of ordinary mortal man; appreciated
and understood only by God, for whom it was written as an act of homage. Hence the emphasis on complex textures –
polyphony and counterpoint – which cannot be properly grasped by any human ear
in one sitting.
Mozart is frequently proclaimed as the penner of beautiful
tunes, audiences sit attentive in concert halls lapping up the gorgeous tunes
of Johann Strauss, Berlioz is cited as a composer whose music is lovely to hear
and people lap up the soothing tones of John Tavener and Arvo Pärt. But not one of them wrote music simply to please
the ears of passive listeners. Mozart
was writing for performers, aware that as often as not few people were actually
listening to his music. Berlioz had
profound and burning ideas to express, and stretched the bounds of what was
acceptable in order to express them; more than any other composer before the 20th
century he deliberately set out not to please the ear but to shock it. Strauss wrote his music to accompany dancing,
while the music of both Tavener and Pärt is a manifestation of their deep
religious convictions – music intended to express the inconceivable rather than
titillate the conceived.
Different audiences take different things from performances
of Western classical music, often driven by their particular cultural
background, and the very universality of music, the huge variety of responses
it produces, is testament to the fact that it is appreciated on a multitude of
different levels. Some listeners,
certainly, enjoy it merely for pleasing the ear; these, presumably, are the
shallow creatures who glibly dismiss music which does not have nice sounds as
“noise”, and write off the works of some of the 20th century’s more
adventurous composers as “not music”.
But enticing as it is to accept Prof. Csikszentmihalyi’s statement at
face value, it is not only wrong, but represents a dangerous misconception of
what music really is. He belittles the
culture which developed music to stimulate the senses, fire the imagination,
focus the emotions and, in short, not just enhance the quality of life with its
pleasing sounds, but to affect the very purpose of existence