Open your eyes and listen
A few months ago, in a conversation with an experienced musician in his 80s, he handed me a sheet of music and said, pointing with his finger to a few bars of a staff: “this sounds incredible”. I took the score in my hands and was amazed by the composer’s creativity! I thought, “Oh my gosh, we are listening with our eyes”.
After that, the old man told me, “When a physicist communicates with his colleagues, he does not hesitate to put equations. When a professional musician communicates with his people, he does not hesitate to use sheet music. Very interesting the content of your website, but where is the sheet music?, I see very few”.
That touched me very deeply. There was a lot of truth in his words. I told him that I live music as an interdisciplinary art. I like to see how thoughts and emotions can be expressed with images, sounds, movement, buildings, sculpture, scenography, not only words. But as much as I wanted to justify myself, deep down I knew he was right.
Dear reader imagined a library with more paintings than books; imagined a sculpture exhibition with more poetry than sculptures; imagined a concert where the musicians will speak more than they played; imagine a ballet with more words than dance. The art of the word is wonderful, however, not everything revolves around the word.
When trivium weighs more on the scale than quadrivium we become talkative, we look like laying hens that every time they lay an egg they run around the hen house cackling loudly. Seneca was right: “Too much study of the liberal arts makes us quarrelsome and talkative”.
Otherwise, my patrons, like most of the audience I address, know how to read music or are interested seriously in learning. Another part of my visitors appreciates the content as a general culture. And others who arrive here are indifferent, or they are spam.
After reflecting, I decided to post raw sheet music because I have read more scores than books in my life. I always have had more sheets of music than books, and I use my creative time in the world of sounds.
The great masters of the word have clearly written that where words end, music begins, that architecture is frozen music, that music is liquid architecture and that what cannot be talked about is better to be silent.
In recent weeks I have received messages from musicians where they share with me, comments on the scores that I have published. They talk to me about the harmony, the melody, the rhythm, the form, the instrumentation, and the issues that are in those scores.
That experienced musician was right, “When a professional musician communicates with his people, he does not hesitate to use sheet music”. I have to acknowledge the wisdom of that suggestion.
Now: Open your eyes and listen to this great classic:
Try again:
Ok. Maybe Leonard Bernstein can help you:
Before the recording era, music was learned in two ways: by ear to ear, or written to be heard with the eyes. Not by word of mouth, because it was, it is, and it will be impossible to convey the music with words.
—But it is possible?
—Yes, it is possible. With discipline, you can develop this skill.
—What skill?
—The ability to listen without saying, writing, or thinking a word.
—And what discipline is that?
—The discipline of silence and imagination.
—What kind of silence and what kind of imagination?
— The silence of the broody hen and the sound imagination. The broody hen remains calm and silent in the nest for weeks, brooding the egg.
When you see an image of an animal, can you imagine the sound it makes?; can you imagine the sound of the wind?; can you imagine your mother’s voice, your father’s voice? An ordinary person, without disabilities, can imagine sounds without a problem. With training, You can read a sheet of music and imagine the sounds that are written.
There are different types of language, not just words. Expand your mind, beyond words. You cannot explain a composition in words. For example, the piano Sonata No. 14 in C sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 2. It was nicknamed by someone after Beethoven’s death. This has historically disfigured the musical sense of the piano Sonata No. 14 in C sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 2.
Beethoven was very clear: this sonata has the atmosphere of the key of C sharp minor. Nothing more, nothing less. Some stranger has baptized it with another title because of the sensual emotion that the piece produced only for him, and not because of its musical content. To me, this action is as ugly as seeing a frog eating a butterfly.
Words to words, music to music, shoemaker to your shoe.
I hope the musicians who visit my website feel at home. And I hope that those who are not musicians will find here a motivation to learn to decipher musical grammar.
Remember: Open your eyes, stop the words and listen, only then will the music reveal itself.
If you don’t know how to listen with your eyes, you can take any course in the Virtual Campus. But I want to be honest, that won’t be enough. You’ll have to learn to be in silence. You must stop the words, only after that, you’ll be able to listen with your eyes. This takes time of deep concentration.
Music exists long before words. Words belong to the trivium and music to the quadrivium. Many laying hens cackle and cackle all the time, and they never understand the meaning of music in their life.
