The One with the Music

I guess if you over-generalise, you can seperate most activities/objects into either art or science. It’s an oversimplification yes and I’m drawing the segregation from the JC’s classifying of subjects into arts and sciences. The big difference is, people always dig someone who’s more artistically talented than scientifically talented. Yes you’ll go down in the history books and become damn bloody rich if you discover a cure for cancer but that rock star is always going to be more appealing to people.

I was thinking about this whole topic when I was listening to Coldplay on my new Razer headphones and thinking about my cousin who is a sound engineer. Music is definitely an art, there’s no arguments there and sound engineering is definitely a science. Yet the two deal with essentially the same thing, sound/music/differences in air pressure waves/noise whatever you wish to define it. Music is the ear-pleasing combination of a number of different tones and pitches at various volumes that evoke certain emotions in people. For all that digital sound engineering has done, at the end of the day you cannot scientifically explain why a certain Bb chord might sound better with that F# rather than maybe an Eb. You can use sound engineering to bring out the clarity in tone and all but there is no hard and fast rule that is scientifically catalogued that gives you the code to making good music. Good music will always be inspired and a product of someone’s emotions and hard work in experimenting and seeing how the various parts fit together. There’s no manufacturing in a sound lab. I suppose that is why music has persisted through the millenia and will continue to persist for millenia more.

All this came about because after I hit the arts VS science question I realise that I need to release my inhibitions and self-criticism if I want to become a decent musician. I suppose I’ve been pretty confused through the years. I loved history and literature classes but I just naturally performed better in physics. I did well for the aerospace diploma without remotely putting in as much effort compared to my O levels. So I guess I’m just better at science based stuff but my true love lies in the arts. Maybe if this wasn’t Singapore I could have gone a different route but we are all victims to circumstance and so I had to choose the safe path. I shall try harder to practice music more. It’s just that it’s not easy to learn on your own because you don’t have a direction.

~ by mephiston1 on June 17, 2009.