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Transformative power of beauty in music
Sometimes when you are feeling down filled with sadness, grief, frustration, anger or a myriad of pain life can throw at you, just like the words from a person who’s been through the same can be comforting, the beauty in music can comfort and heal.
Beauty is defined as “a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight” – Oxford Dictionary
The beauty of music has had a profound impact on humanity through the ages.
The immense beauty in art or music has the power to touch you in profound ways. Beauty appears in many forms. There is a visual or sensory aspects of beauty. It can be related to symmetry, proportion, harmony, and other qualities that make something pleasing. Natural beauty is often associated with simplicity and authenticity. It can refer to things that are untouched by human intervention and are admired for their inherent qualities. In the context of art and creativity, beauty can be the result of artistic expression and creativity. Artistic beauty can be found in various forms, such as paintings, sculptures, music, and literature.
It’s that natural beauty in art and music that can free us. That beauty can also be found in the natural world in the form of simplicity, harmony, and symmetry. Science, math, art and music are examples of disciplines that seeks to uncover that beauty. A famous mathematician said: “The mathematician does not study pure mathematics because it is useful; they study it because they delight in it because it is beautiful” – Henri Poincare. At Oxford outside the Mathematics Institute there is an inscription for all students to read and it says “To freedom and the pursuit of beauty in mathematics”
One of the greatest minds of the 20th Century, Albert Einstein was inspired by the beauty of the natural universe through music.
Einstein’s wife Elsa said: “Music helps him when he is thinking about his theories. He goes to his study, comes back, strikes a few chords on the piano, jots something down, returns to his studio.
Albert Einstein once wrote; “The theory of relativity occurred to me by intuition, and music is the driving force behind this intuition. My parents had me study the violin from the time I was six. My new discovery is the result of musical perception”
Einstein was looking for simplicity, harmony, and beauty in his ideas, and clearly for him music was the inspiration for that.
A number of years ago I found myself in a dark place. It took immense beauty to lift me out of the darkness, and it was delivered by the beautiful music of Mona, Lisa, Rudolf, and Michaela! In my life I can remember a few moments when I felt the profound beauty in the universe, and often it was through the conduit of music I felt it, and it just makes you want to cry in joy. Music can be so transformative through it’s beauty.
Share your thoughts or experiences about the impact of music or any examples you can cite on how profound the beauty in music can be.
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12 Replies
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Hi Jung,
a beautiful topic and actually far too profound to describe in a few sentences. The beauty or rather the magic of music lies for me in the fact that it can take me to places that might otherwise have remained closed to me. Music takes me by the hand and leads me back to locations of my youth. To places I thought long forgotten, awakens memories that were far away from me and when I then close my eyes, I travel back for a short moment: to my past, to people and things that I have not seen for a long time or that perhaps no longer exist. Or it simply takes me to places of my imagination: places where tomorrow and yesterday cease to exist, reality and dreams merge and wishes become hope. The beauty of music can perhaps be described with words, but the true beauty of music can only be felt with the heart.
“Those who love music can never be completely unhappy.”
-Franz Schubert-
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Hi Jurgen
I love that Schubert quote! And all so eloquently stated about how music can transport you to a fond place in memory or a wonderful place of imagination. I can relate to all of that completely, as so many times I hear a song I haven’t heard in a long time, and I feel volumes of emotions from a specific time or memory long forgotten. Another strange effect music has on me, especially 60s music, is the nostalgia I feel for that time, a really deja vu kind of feeling of the 60s times. Songs like Time of The Season, San Francisco for example, but the strange thing is I was only a toddler in the 60s. I never experienced those things first hand, yet the feelings and nostalgic feeling of the 60s is so vivid. I think when a song is masterfully written, it transports you to the mental state of the composer! MAGIC!
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I love the way you guys write. Your posts are both enlightening and inspirational. Jurgen , I love that Schubert quote. No truer words.
Jung, you reminded me of the first time I “heard” Count On Me. I was driving home from work and as the song ended I was taken back to a time when Marlo and I were driving to her next doctor appointment. I think I posted about this before. About eleven years ago Marlo was stricken with breast cancer. Then it was a few years of surgeries, chemotherapy, hospital stays and doctor after doctor. We were on our way to her third appointment one day when she broke down and told me how glad she was to have me and my support. Sickness and health, right? I used to say,”Everything’s gonna be okay. We do what we gotta do.”
Ten years later I’m driving home from work andas Lisa and Mona sang Count On Me, it occurred to me that this song could be about us. I remember running in the house when I got home and turning on the stereo. Marlo and I held each other and swayed to the music. No tears, just big goofy smiles. She knew what I was feeling. She remembered that day in the car.
“It was the best of times; It was the worst of times”
Music sure helped us get through it. I used to load up her iPod with her favorite songs and leave it by her bed when I went to work. It was kind of like a digital mixed tape. Arriving home I would drop hints to see if she liked the surprise song I put in the middle of the mix. Her smiles always gave it away.
I have a lot of favorite songs that I have attached to memories. It’s funny how memories can sneak up on me when I hear something from a long time ago. All of a sudden I am trying to figure out why I am happy or sad. Then along comes a memory of why? I find this is the best time to turn up the volume and enjoy.
I am reminded of that song by Triumph
Then you hear the music
And it all comes crystal clear
The music does the talking
Says the things you want to hear-
Hi JP
Thanks for sharing your heartwarming and beautiful story. I am so glad Marlo got through those tough times and is doing well. Count On Me is such a moving and powerful song about being there for the ones you love, and being able to count on someone no matter what. It is the most precious gift in the world to have someone you can count your life on. Marlo is so lucky to have you!
Another song that Mona and Lisa covered, that is an incredibly beautiful love song that captures the essence of loving and being there for someone is Bob Dylan’s “It Aint Me Babe”. After many decades of relationships, this song certainly says it all.
You say you’re lookin’ for someone
Never weak but always strong
To protect you and defend you
Whether you are right or wrong
You say you’re lookin’ for someone
Who’ll promise never to part
Someone to die for you and more
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When I’m down I generally prefer quiet introspection to music. The most beautiful and moving songs to me are actually the sad ones with soul-searching lyrics about dealing with a hopeless situation. Some of them always make me tear up and want to reach out and give the singer a big comforting hug. Examples include Patches (Dickey Lee), Seasons in the Sun (Terry Jacks), and The Winner Takes it All (ABBA).
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Hi David
I also find the music that stand out and moves me the most are the sad, melancholic, or hauntingly beautiful ones. These songs, the good ones while sad, has a longing beauty behind them that has the effect of lifting me up. The 3 songs you mentioned are like that, while sad, it’s beauty consoles. MLT’s “Close To You” while sad has so much longing beauty, I swelled with tears when I first heard it driving to work one morning, but they were cathartic tears that lifted me up. “Goodbye past, is it true that the good things don’t last”. Sad but true, but expressed in the most beautiful and moving way.
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I found a few videos of Beatles and Bach music visualized that captures graphically the mathematics inherent in music. It shows the symmetry, harmony, order, and repeating patterns that perhaps Einstein got his intuition from when formulating his mathematics formula to explain how the universe works, like his General Theory of Relativity.
Notice the symmetry and repeating patterns. These visual patterns sound so wonderful. Einstein deduced beauty from sound to patterns that is expressed in math formulas.
Beatles “All My Loving” https://youtu.be/KyW1U9zxf9I?si=7Gb52tKRJekuK1Io
Beatles “Twist And Shout” https://youtu.be/UrmHNjLUBwU?si=q-dKqt0DH_G1u26a
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Bach’s music is full of math in symmetry, repeating patterns separated by intervals or inverted. This visualization of his 14 Canons will show you what I mean, when his music is full of math.
Bach – Canons: https://youtu.be/mdI7UM7Xubw?si=TiFb_j2PuGN9G8OI
Bach – Goldberg Variation 1: https://youtu.be/vV9pScVEUdg?si=4L7KWD8FVY9jeWA-
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That’s pretty kool. I liked No. 9 when the violins chase each other. To think of the classic composers transposing each layer and each instrument of a symphony and then assembling an orchestra to perform it must have been exhilarating. It seems like I can hear the repeating patterns better with the accompanying visuals. I was thinking the beta version may have used characters in place of the colored cubes. Perhaps an image of the instruments 🎻🎻
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Just as music can be a catalyst for emotions, it often reveals all its charm and magic in connection with a beautiful or thoughtful story. Often it is the lyric of a particular piece of music or the idea behind it that makes music unique and memorable. Images can also enhance the magical power of music. When all these threads are woven into one strand, sometimes something wonderful and unforgettable is created. Music, poetry and artistic beauty become a symbiosis that caresses the soul, like the following music presentation by Cirque du Soleil shows impressively.
The alternative version of “While my guitar gently weeps” should be well known. I actually like this quiet version even better than the song on the white album. Maybe because it reflects the sentimental and thoughtful mood of this song better. When I became aware of the following video years ago, I was enchanted and deeply impressed.
I look at the world
And I notice, it’s turning
While my guitar gently weeps
With every mistake
We must surely be learning
Still my guitar gently weeps
‘Cause I’m sitting here
Doing nothing but aging
Still my guitar gently weepsThese lines touch me again and again and I don’t even know exactly why.
Interestingly enough, on the same evening when I was looking for this music video, I became aware of Mona and Lisa for the first time, because I also found their version of the song. Yes, algorithms (even if they are just those of a search engine) can be wonderful. Jung, you’re right: music and mathematics are sometimes mysteriously connected. 😃
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Hi Jurgen
I like this version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps, and I love the video with the animation of the hand writing turning into form. When you write something, it is the opposite, form and ideas turn into script, but here the script turns to form. Thanks.
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