I posted in my Channeling Tab that I am channeling Musical notes and colors I found this website that validated my channelings. Colors are musical. Please check out this website http://www.sevencolorsofmusic.com Emotional Energy in Music Power in Music
Musical power in many ways remains much of a mystery. Think of a
beautiful human face. What exactly makes it beautiful? Are there
specific characteristics that can be identified, that guarantee a face
will be beautiful? No. It remains a mystery. Somehow a power is encoded
in the facial features. Analogously, a beautiful work of music is more
than the notes; a power is somehow encoded.
The power carried in music is emotional, reflecting the principle that
emotions are more fundamental than thoughts. Feelings can exist without
thoughts. Metaphysical people are familiar with the term “thought form”,
the idea that a thought is a packet of energy that can remain in the
“ether” after someone thinks it, localized in space. It’s easy to
extrapolate from that the notion of a “feeling form,” that after it is
generated takes on a life of its own and remains as a packet of
emotional energy.
Music can carry packets of emotion. They are not attached to the music,
they are embedded in it. That embedded energy can vary from very
superficial to quite profound. How does this work? Emotional power is
created primarily in the chord progressions of harmony accompanying a
melody. Melody plus a strong harmony are the basis. Both are needed.
Tempo and dynamics affect it also, but harmony is the essential source
of emotion. Using the symbolism of music theorists, the chord
progressions I -> V and V -> I generate the strongest energy. The
other common chord sequences, combined with a melody, also create
potency. The Source of Power in Music
What determines an emotional packet’s strength?
Harmonic transitions are the basis of power. Music that embodies
deliberate, strong transitions, which are emphasized even more by a
simple and deliberate melody, is power music. A slow tempo and the
simplest of harmonies can create profound power through measured and
strong chord progressions. For examples of power through simplicity, we
need look no further than two of Mozart’s choral works: Ave Verum Corpus
and Laudate Dominum. The Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah is a
faster tempo and the power it carries is a different kind from those
Mozart pieces, yet again the strength is in the deliberate transitions
of the highly tonal harmony. No matter if the tempo is slow or fast, the
more strongly the harmony is emphasized, the higher will be the power
level.
Still, chord progressions are merely the carrier of energy, not the
original source, and the whole process remains a mystery, like the
beautiful face.
A melody line without any harmonic accompaniment can still create power,
if it implies harmony, and most melodies do. The Swanee River tune
implies transitions between the I, IV, and V chords. Something in your
subconscious fills in the harmony. Row, Row, Row Your Boat and Frere
Jacques are examples of songs that do not imply any chord changes, and
however fun they are to sing, they are emotionless except in a
superficial way.
A song’s lyrics can combine synergistically with the melody to create
high emotion. The early 20th-century musical mystic Cyril Scott said of
the
song Home Sweet Home that “it is a noteworthy example of a perfect
synthesis between the quality of music and the quality of the words.
Neither
alone is of [remarkable] value if judged by the standard of high art,
yet rendered by vocalists with histrionic ingenuity they conjointly
moved
audiences for over half a century.” The same could be said
of Amazing Grace and many other well-known songs. It cannot be denied
that the lyrics of choral works add to their power. But in my
investigation here, I focus only on musical power. When music is strong,
even the loftiest of words add to the strength only marginally.
The vast majority of music of all genres is relatively weak, from the
standpoint of high inspiration. Ordinary music affects us ordinarily,
and profound music touches us profoundly, if we are able to “tune in” to
it. Many popular songs, with their prevalent theme of romantic love,
convey those kinds of feelings strongly. But that is a different kind of
energy from the archetypal energies that represent evolution. Love
within families and relationships is a wonderful force for spiritual
advancement, but by itself it is not one of the seven stages. Love in
its largest meaning, however, may be another word for the seventh stage,
that I have labeled as “home”.
Power music falls almost entirely within the classical genre. But there
are a few popular songs, from the pens of gifted songwriters in
the1970’s primarily, that carry archetypal energy, mainly of the Blue
category. Some of these have romantic themes and some don’t; 95% of the
power, at least, is in the music, not the lyrics. I’ll include a few of
these later in the lists of examples. Again, there are many powerful
songs from all time periods, but only a handful that have one of the
pure energies strongly.
Tonality
I have said that pure energies are encoded in simple harmonies.
Therefore archetypal power requires tonal music, meaning music that
follows the traditional harmonic rules, and retains a sense of a central
key (although modulations may change the key occasionally). Somehow the
simple frequency ratios of tonal harmony are necessary to convey “pure”
energy.
Strongly tonal music was composed starting in the 1500s and continues to
the present, but not much powerful tonality has been created since
about 1900. It may seem strange to say that power music was brought
forth during a span of only 400 years of human existence, yet that is
precisely what seems to be the case. In a certain sense those 400 years
represent the fulfillment of the human search for truth, or at least the
human ability to incorporate truth in music and art. Incidentally, 400
years may seem like a relatively short period, but earlier I claimed
that the time “window” for true power in popular music was only one
decade. I don’t expect these statements to stand without a challenge,
though. Contemporary Composition
20th and 21st century music and art has served and are serving purposes
of a different kind, purposes that that are needed at this time in
history. Impressionistic art and music (Debussy, notably) was the
beginning of a breakaway from formalism, where free expression became
more important than adhering to convention. Tonality in music became
weaker, and unconfined creativity grew. This new music, along with art
and literature, is meant to open us to expanded possibilities, to break
down structure and free us from all restrictions. Obviously it will be
uncomfortable for those who derive security from the familiar. The
danger of greater freedom is that chaos is possible. The great potential
is that we will advance much faster, if at all, than we would
otherwise. We must claim our power and take control over our destiny.
Only a revolution in societal beliefs will allow us to do that.
Jazz is a genre of music that embodies the very idea of breaking the
rules. But really, jazz bends the rules only slightly, maintaining a
regular beat and sense of key. It brings in creative harmonies, but they
are harmonies that can be named. Jazz serves as an environment for
relaxation, for letting go, and as such it will likely always have a
welcome place in musical society. But the very thing that epitomizes
jazz, the loosening of harmonic bounds, makes encoding archetypal power
in jazz very difficult. And the same can be said of all contemporary
music that abandons the rules: it has its purposes but it cannot serve
as a vehicle for the high energies. Musical Inspiration
If the highest and best music comes from somewhere else, somewhere
beyond these three dimensions, then conveying it here requires a special
conduit; it takes a person who can first hear or feel the energy in the
mind, then put it into notes. The highest music comes through composers
who have this ability, and they often consider themselves merely the
channel, not the source. We call this music inspired. It is the rare
composer who is blessed with this gift. The rest are creating mostly or
entirely in their own minds. The amount of true power in an artistic
work relates directly to the degree of other-worldly inspiration.
Those rare composers often spoke of the source of their music being “spirit”, “God”, or other terms denoting larger reality:
Strauss: "I feel...that I am tapping the source of Infinite and Eternal energy from which you and I and all things proceed."
Wagner: "I have very definite impressions while in that trance-like
condition which is the prerequisite of all true creative effort. I feel
that I am one with this vibrating Force, that it is omniscient, and
that I can draw upon it to an extent that is limited only by my own
capacity to do so."
Grieg: "We composers are projectors of the infinite into the finite."
Stravinsky: "I heard and wrote what I heard. I am the vessel through which the Rite passed."
Handel (upon completing the Messiah) : "I think I did see all of heaven before me, and the great God himself".
Robert Schumann said that his later music was dictated to him "by angels".
The composer’s capacity to transmit inspired music may bear no relation
to other aspects of his/her makeup and personality. Joscelyn Godwin
writes,
“No matter that their personal life may not always measure up to the
highest moral standards: being moral exemplars is not their task. There
are
other souls who may have incarnated for that purpose: we call them
Saints, and we do not expect them to be great artists.” Next: The Colors of Music |