I've been thinking about how music affects us - take The Tree of Life. No, I haven't seen the movie and I don't want to, but I think part of why some people have liked it so much is that in a way it kind of cheats - it borrows the grandeur of beloved pieces of music to infuse its visuals with reflected profundity. An example: who cannot fall in love with whatever they're gazing at while they're listening to Die Moldau, a piece of music used in The Tree of Life ....
Die Moldau seems almost perfect, and when I hear it my hair literally stands on end, but is it perfect, and is perfection what beauty is really all about? Here's a bit of the post at In Living Color ...
I recently discussed a Fleet Foxes song ("He Doesn't Know Why") [lyrics at bottom of post] with my brother, who is a music professor and cellist ....
... I wanted my brother to explain in music theory terms why I find this song so beautiful, and he had quite a lot to say about it ... knowledgeable people seem to be able to tell us why we should like some music and not like other music. In fact, my brother told me (fairly politely) that I shouldn't actually like Fleet Foxes so much. He said they sing out of tune, for example. Should I notice that and respond negatively?
This reminded me of a past post by Johnah Lehrer, Why Does Beauty Exist?, in which he writes ...
[T]he hook of beauty, like the hook of curiosity, is a response to an incompleteness. It’s what happens when we sense something missing, when there’s a unresolved gap, when a pattern is almost there, but not quite. I’m thinking here of that wise Leonard Cohen line: “There’s a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in.” Well, a beautiful thing has been cracked in just the right way ...
I really like this idea and I think it's true of a lot of what I find beautiful - it's the lack of 100% of perfection that keeps me interested and engaged, I think because in a way my brain and my heart keep trying to complete it. I wonder what Thomas Aquinas would say about this view of one of the Transcendentals :)
He Doesn't Know Why
Penniless & tired with your hair grown long I was looking at you there and your face looked wrong memory is a fickle siren's song I didn't understand In the gentle light as the morning nears You don't say a single word of the last two years Where you were or when you reached the frontier I didn't understand See you rugged hands and a silver knife Twenty dollars in your hand that you hold so tight All the evidence of your vagrant life My brother you were gone And you will try to do what you did before Pull the wool over your eyes for a week or more Let your family take you back to your original mind There's nothing I can do There's nothing I can say
