I thought our discussion and reading on music was some of the most insightful material we had discussed all semester and I wish we had more time to go deeper into it. What really stuck out to me in the reading was Van der Leeuw’s point that music points beyond itself to that which it cannot express. I think this is the best represention or definition of art that we have encountered all semester. This is what all art is driving for and attempts to express yet cannot. It can bring human beings however closer to the other they seek.
One of the most interesting aspects of music which is not normally seen as such importance is silence, or rest in the music. It really does create the most tension in a piece. Generally one thinks of music to be soley the notes, but the space between the notes plays just as equal a role.
I think the best aspect of music that reflects the human strive for the other is the “ungraspability” of music. Music is ever fleeting and one cannot feel its power until it has just passed. Music truly is living in the moment and an expression of that. It is much like the experience of a human being. They can see something as it is when it occurs, yet after the fact they are able to comprehend what happened through their emotions and feelings. It seems music then on this level reaches to a deeper level of the human soul and psyche which pictoral arts cannot graps due to their cultural influences. Music too has cultural influences, but it is not hindered by a language or idea.
Music may be the purest truest art in that it plays with and manipulates human emotions yet does not offer answers to the human dilemma of life and death. It may be better seen as a reflection of the ever changing flow of life and death that rises and falls. This is obviously seen in the music with the interplay of harmonies and instrumental colors.
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