Beauty in the World; Beauty in Music
No matter who I speak with, I always venture to encourage them to seek after truth and aspire towards beauty. It is far too often that we settle for things that are ultimately meaningless, and we neglect a deeper experience. Although many worldviews pursue truth and beauty differently, there is always an assumption that beauty and truth are values to pursue. In the search for those values, you will find yourself within a belief system. In this quest, I would like to turn our attention to the pursuit of beauty. Specifically, beauty that is found in music.
Quality Music Brings Quality Joy
Setting the objectivity of beauty aside, it is foolish to claim that quality in music is subjective. To illustrate my point, let’s take an example from art. A painting by Vincent Van Gogh is objectively of higher quality than the work of art by a toddler. The enjoyment of various works is subjective, of course. A mother will always enjoy her child’s artwork more than a Starry Night. Nevertheless, the latter is objectively superior to the former in both demonstration and execution. Quality is objective, enjoyment is subjective.
Conceding that the enjoyment of various arts is subjective, my goal in this article is to persuade you to relish in high quality art rather than whatever your ear or eyes find appealing. To enjoy quality art, and not something has no rational defense for its quality. I venture to do this because the depth of enjoyment that is found in high-quality art is much deeper than that which is simply found in what one’s ears or eyes may sporadically find entertaining.
I don’t think I have to argue for classical music’s complexity, simply because everybody agrees classical music is not simple.
Dear reader, you are doing yourself a disservice by settling for musically or lyrically simple music. There is limitless beauty and majesty to be found in the grand library of classical music that the average person will simply miss because they never even tried listening to it.
Music Can Be More Than Background Noise
Perhaps you are content for industrialized pop music, or you admire the latest pop icon, or you despise the perceived pompous personality of a classical listener. Regardless, I would encourage you to listen to Chopin’s Nocturnes or Debussy’s Clair De Lune. Let yourself drift along the calm river of harmonies that these songs provide, and the stories that they tell.
Debussy himself once said that “Music is the silence between the notes,” and it is readily apparent when hearing his music how this philosophy shows itself in stark contrast to the music of modern society. Rather than being caught up in the catchy hooks of the next hit or listening to a song so much that you become nauseated, listen to the story a composer is attempting to tell with no lyrics at all.