I have looked at life aesthetically and believed that every life has a song to
it…It does has its profound lyrics capturing the essence of one’s life, the
tune manifesting the most beautiful emotions evoked… the voice in itself
upholds the identity of the soul…
I knew there is a
song to me…but I did not know how do I go about the composition…
7 weeks ago, I
stepped into a course on philosophical inquiry and here is my effort to unravel the experience through my linguistic limitations...
Week One: What is
Music?
Through this
week, I first learnt to appreciate the purpose of music to life and why it is
important to look at it aesthetically. I did affirm for myself that my life
indeed has a song to it. I acknowledged that I need to submerge myself into the
technicalities of music to give my life an aesthetic representation through a
song. Whilst I will start the composition of my song with little music I know
today through the instruments I learn to be part of the orchestra, but as a
function of time I will improvise it through my deeper wisdom in the
field of music…
Week Two: Epistemology
Through this week,
I learnt the importance of considering pre-suppositions that lead to a song. A
context is key and using reliable processes in arriving at a solid foundation
for music making. This week also served me to be my own devil’s advocate
through “radical skepticism” concept challenging myself at every step to “be
sure…believe and be justified” in my approach to music making. It uncovered the
beauty of enjoying the journey as much as the destination merely emphasizing on
the message that reliable processes in music making results in no less dividend
than the dividends from a finished piece of music.
Week Three: Music creator
Through this week,
I learnt that why I can represent my life as a song and a computer cannot, even
though a computer has technical ability to be easily programmed to create
better music faster than me. I also wondered, why I myself cannot be a
computer who can be programmed to generate melodies. It was a realization that
computer is more capable syntactically to compose a music that it is hardly
able to appreciate the semantics behind it. The enlightening truth is that I
still am the creator of my music and not a computer.
Week Four: Morality
Through this week,
I learnt that a good song need to emote right…I start to wonder if there is
goodness we can attach to music and indeed there is something we can term as
good music or bad music. Could a good music to me be a bad music to someone
else? Can there be universal good music if any? Or good and bad music is just
dependent on my mood or my emotive state? This did trigger a deep thought
process on introspecting and studying about the morality of my music. My
initial thoughts are that it is most important for me to feel right about my
music before setting it to scrutiny by others for the virtuousness of my music
to me is matters the most…
Week Five: Verbal Testimony
Through this week,
I learnt that all music is encapsulated in 7 notes. I started to wonder the
origin of 7 notes, its lineage through verbal testimony and also some critical
arguments if I should believe in its authenticity of verbal testimony and if I
really do, the method I will use in deriving that justified belief. I realized
the value of verbal testimony yet appreciating the “intellectual autonomy”
approach that I could adopt to create a unique song of MY OWN using the 7 basic
notes carrying my DNA…
Week Six: Amalgamation of technical and
aesthetic worlds
Through this week,
I explored the basic raagas formulated using the 7 swaras and its consistence,
its clarity to the level of capturing nuances, its authenticity, its
application in the best of music we hear today. Evolution of raagas has been so
critical to reach the altitudes in music industry. Going to the depth, I also
had the privilege to question the philosophy of music –if it had to be so
technical as raagas are down to its intricacies, its gamakas, the aarohaNa and
avarohaNa, its application and associated taLa etc or it should just stick to
the survival needs of a human viz serving relaxation needs. The answer is never
easy here as the purpose if a mix of both and they are closely intertwined.
This motivated to eliminate my prejudices towards deep diving into
technicalities of music that is needed to create a good song.
Week Seven: Time Travel
Lastly, on time
travel…We do come across people say …”..those were the times…” claiming that
past to be “golden times of their life…and also the same people building dreams
for future. But this is probably just a trick in the mind to dwell in past or
in future to always believe that past was better or future will be better. It
is a paradox that when this past was actually “present” , the same people did
not cherish it enough being in the moment but in future, which is the real
present, the same past appears so poetic. The relationship between time and
music is inherent and picturesque. The backward time travel to yester years
music brings back nostalgically the times we truly lived and the forward time
travel builds the dreams of creating greater music. Time travel is logically
possible in mind but the price and value of it in reality is worth deliberating.
My music is timeless
and the transcendental experience is worthy of the "atraversiamo" ...
