- published: 28 Apr 2016
- views: 10496
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch (which governs melody and harmony), rhythm (and its associated concepts tempo, meter, and articulation), dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture. The word derives from Greek μουσική (mousike; "art of the Muses").
The creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of music vary according to culture and social context. Music ranges from strictly organized compositions (and their recreation in performance), through improvisational music to aleatoric forms. Music can be divided into genres and subgenres, although the dividing lines and relationships between music genres are often subtle, sometimes open to individual interpretation, and occasionally controversial. Within "the arts", music may be classified as a performing art, a fine art, and auditory art. There is also a strong connection between music and mathematics.
To many people in many cultures, music is an important part of their way of life. Ancient Greek and Indian philosophers defined music as tones ordered horizontally as melodies and vertically as harmonies. Common sayings such as "the harmony of the spheres" and "it is music to my ears" point to the notion that music is often ordered and pleasant to listen to. However, 20th-century composer John Cage thought that any sound can be music, saying, for example, "There is no noise, only sound." Musicologist Jean-Jacques Nattiez summarizes the relativist, post-modern viewpoint: "The border between music and noise is always culturally defined—which implies that, even within a single society, this border does not always pass through the same place; in short, there is rarely a consensus ... By all accounts there is no single and intercultural universal concept defining what music might be."
If eyes are the mirror of the soul
You will find in my the scorn and apathy
You will read my hatred as in a curs'd book
You will see yourself as I see you
It is a mirror sombre and opaque
Which protects me, which stifles me
A great ditch around the heart
Which rejects, which estranges me
There is a world in my head
A dead world where nothing lives
And it is there I am, too far,
Far too far to be rejoined
A crown of thorns is still a crown
I am a king in a kingdom of suffering
I have taken my time to reach this stage
I have taken pains to torture myself
To descend, to descend
Into pain, I exist
And I my brain is numbed
The thorn in my flesh
Can overcome apathy
There is glory in humiliation
A throne to be taken, a crown to win
I have no more tears,
And my smile has lost its brilliance
I have forgotten who I was,
I have killed my emotions
Crushed, empty, weary,
Always standing, I am a tree