When I was an undergraduate music student, I was suddenly exposed to a wealth of compositions that, even though I came from a musical family and education, were new to me. One day during Freshman year I was sitting in a music history course and the professor played an LP record of a piece by Franz Schubert, Quartettesatz, a one movement gem of a composition for string quartet. He was demonstrating sonata-allegro form (basically ABA, or themes, development of those themes, first themes again with some changes), which was often used by composers in their first movements.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing; it was exquisite, and I spent the rest of that day trying to track down a recording. This was in the 1970’s, so more of a challenge than just Googling it on my non-existent computer/phone. I was rabid in my quest, and pursued it like a little kid after candy. I couldn’t think of anything else, I had to hear that music again!
The same thing happened when I first performed pieces like Bartok’s “Concerto for Orchestra” and Brahms’ second concerto for piano and orchestra: I was hooked and played the recordings until I had every phrase memorized. The list has gotten longer over time, and whenever I hear these masterworks today, they’re like old friends who have, somehow, grown with me.
There are two ways we experience art or music: we either are there, seeing or hearing it in person for a live or recorded performance, or we’re remembering what we saw or heard. Frustratingly, I had only heard the Schubert composition once through, and could only bring back bits and pieces of it.
Why do some pieces of music or artworks touch us like this? Why did I have this visceral need to hear the Schubert piece again? There was something about it that seemed both familiar and revelatory, and I wanted to make sure I had explored those things thoroughly. This piece was like hearing about who I really was for the first time - I couldn’t let that go. It was describing what it’s like to be alive in a way I had never heard before. Somehow, a hidden part of me had emerged, and I knew myself better when I heard it.
It’s not just classical music that has this effect on me. It could be jazz, rock, metal, Broadway, etc. that’s sharing something that rings true, that circles back to a personal moment, that explains why I’m here and why there is life on this planet. Imagining life with no art or music brings home its importance; I don’t think we could last very long.
I’m not as visually astute as many people (for some reason, my aural sense is better developed), but there are still artworks that stay with me. I saw Michelangelo’s “David” in Florence, Italy for instance, and immediately understood its miraculous significance as a symbol of rebirth. The same thing was true with Picasso’s “Guernica” and Mark Rothko’s work at Houston’s Rothko Chapel. I love the wild weirdness and color of Toulouse Lautrec, and the calm beauty of Monet. I actually cried when I saw van Gogh’s work in Paris.
But I don’t necessarily have to be looking at them to sense their power.
What lasting effect does music and art have on people? What sticks with people when the music stops or we go home from an art show? Since there are two ways of experiencing art and music: in person and in our memory, which is more powerful?
We know with certainty that music and art are good for human health. Hearing music or seeing art we like lowers our blood pressure and heart rate, makes us feel like we’re sharing something significant with other humans, sharpens our critical thinking skills, raises overall satisfaction, and inspires us to be creative, for starters. Music and art can also improve tolerance by showing the witnesses that there are other ways to think about life than the ones they’re familiar with. Humans often experience a release of the pleasure drug dopamine in the brain when in the presence of art or music that speaks to them.
When we experience these profound changes in the brain, they are more or less permanent. In a TED talk, the conductor/pianist/composer Michael Tilson Thomas tells about how he happened to be visiting an elderly relative at a senior residence, when he noticed an old man trying to pick something out on the piano. Recognizing the skeleton of a melody, he went over to help out, recreating on the piano one of the themes from Beethoven’s gorgeous Violin Concerto.
He was astonished that someone had carried this melody with them to the end of their life, finding meaning and solace in just trying to remember it. The experience reinforced his search for the “why” of creativity - i.e. why do humans continue to create and find joy and meaning in sharing creative works? The next time you or someone you know asks why we should teach and expose our children to art and music, consider what would happen if we didn’t.
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