Music

Sometimes, when I'm watching anime or just listening to an internet radio, some song reverberates through the air and hits me in a way that few songs do. There is something of a stirring of my soul as the chords, the voices, and the beat all combine into a synthesis of something more than sound.

This begs the question, why? What is it about humanity that has spawned music? What is it about music that brings us those special songs that strike our soul and make us yearn for more than the mundane existance we share?

As I listen to Forces from the anime Berserk, I can't help but be awed at how it affects me. Even though I have taken music theory courses and done plenty of rough compositions of my own, the actual hows and whys of music are lost to me. I find myself wandering aimlessly as I ponder the questions of how concepts such as dissonance and melody even fit into the mechanics of sound.

It seems rediculous sometimes. Through the manipulation of compression waves people can be changed. They can be made to feel excitement, joy, sorrow, depression and any number of emotions. I can not deny that music does this, I just don't understand how.

There can be no doubt that music and life are somehow linked in ways we can not comprehend. I seem to recall hearing about a study wherein playing music for plants helped them grow, or could even stifle them.

Whatever the deep, underlying substructure that allows pitch, tone, timbre, and key to be understood, music is. We have an art that is continually improved regardless of the lack of a tangible basic understanding. All we have is what we feel.

Sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, each of these has some secret that can touch us. It's all a mystery to me.