Why Do We Listen To The Music?

People often wonder, why do we listen to the music at all? This is a question my girlfriend posed to me after I played to her some music from my collection. Although she liked it, she wondered why would anyone just listen to music, in isolation from anything else. My father also knew to remark that “the sort of music I am into” (orchestral music) is not something that you would listen to for itself – maybe it is good as a background for movies or something like that, but not for listening on its own.

What people don’t seem to be aware of, is that humans never actually knew why they listen to and make music. Yet they did, without exception, as long as humanity exists. It seems to be similar as the same dilemma as to why we were born and why we live at all. John Williams, one of the most famous contemporary composers who specializes in writing movie music, once remarked that we can’t really say why we listen to the music, and the best we can say is that humans have the spiritual need for it. Still, he himself is writing music for movies and jokingly remarks that most of it might well remain on his shelves if there weren’t a movie to carry it around the world.

While movie music might be the most sumptuous musical culture not to be on its own to date, movie composers are no pioneers in this respect. By greatest part of its existence music wasn’t on its own. It was for the first time close to that with western classical music, and even then not really before the romantic period. Baroque and classicist composers, although fully aware of intrinsic musical beauty, were thinking about themselves first as composers of church masses, castle-entertainment pieces and dances – essentially as employees of theirs mecenas - and only then as musicians who strive for beauty. Old Greeks, while being fully aware of independence of musical art, used music almost exclusively as a back up for theirs theatrical plays and other acts (and from the other side, they didn’t know for dramatic play without music – all Greek plays were actually sang and not spoken). This tradition of dramatic music will much later, in post-Renaissance period in Europe, be turned into the concept of the opera. Currently, people prefer to think about music as an utilitarian form and tie sorts of music for what that music serves for – dance music, movie music, video-game music, music for Internet pages etc.

But whatever music is used for, it can be extracted from that context. What boosts popularity of good music, is that it remains interesting regardless of context in which it comes to us. Music that is actually not so interesting as music can still become popular, but only within a certain context, to which it owns some of its impact. This also extends to some usual musical forms that are mixed with extra-musical context; if we would strip an opera score - say a Handelian opera - of its libretto and proper performance, it would certainly loose much of its charms; virtuoso pieces are not so interesting outside of a performance ritual, and sacred music can be dull outside of church. But pure musical substance gives music its intrinsic meaning, out of every context, so Bach’s melodies are as interesting coming from a mobile phone ring-tone as they are as movie sound-tracks or concert performances.

Often it is taken that music written for a particular purpose – say movie music – can’t stand on its own as music - but of course this does not have to be the case at all. Any music that has quality just as music will be interesting, whether it was written as stand-alone music or not. However, it is true that most quality music tends to be written as stand-alone music, where music that counts on some extra-musical backup tends to be inferior.

Music really belongs to an abstract space; it is mathematics in sound, and science of emotions. What’s more, listening to a piece in the given moment is not the most important thing; what is important, is our awareness that the piece exists, that it is written. That is why a great piece of music, once we hear it, means to us something as long as we live. Walter Benjamin speaks:

For pieces of art it is, as can be assumed, more important that they exist then that they can be seen.

What to do with these pieces? Well, they are just there - to be listened until they wear out; talk about them and analyze them; worship them; work inspired with them, even live inspired with them.

All I try to do is let people know what I think through my music. I just bring the music to you, and it’s up to you to do what you want with it. Vangelis

Even in our days, when music is more rarely heard pure but is mixed with words or is a background for dance, movie etc., a few musicians succeeded to make millions of people listen to theirs music without listening to words or dancing nor doing anything else. People can react profoundly on this innocent play of sounds that pure music is. The reason for that probably lies in the fact that while being abstract, music has a lot to do with real world. Music can be said to represent the metaphysical image of the real world and life, so by listening to it we come in touch with transcendental depths of existence. If everyday life is the beginning, art is the ending point of everything; everything strives to become an art. And music, as pure abstract art and nothing else – unlike say literature or painting that can also have non-artistic functions inside of society – may be the very last expression of life, and in many ways is a synonym for the art itself. Maybe this transcendental nature of music was traditionaly most appreciated in German society, so Herman Hesse meditates in his novel “The Stephen Wolf”:

There is a maternal right and attachment to nature in German spirit that is seen as a hegemony of music, for which other nations never knew. Us, people of spirit, instead of manly defend from it, instead of being subdued to spirit, logos, word – we all dream about a language without words, which will express what can not be expressed and depict which has no form. /…/ And always did German spirit took pleasure in wondrous and blissful musical forms, wondrous and tender feelings and moods, which reality never abolished, while neglecting owns true duties.

Ancient Chinese sage Confucius described culture as the ultimate good, a place for dwelling and relaxation. He notices how not only man, but every animal has such place for itself, on which it goes when it doesn’t have to fight for life or do anything else. Music could, for us humans, be just that. So if we would have to say on the end what do we do when we listen to music -- we affirm our belonging to humankind. By understanding a piece of music, we affirm being in a possession of human spirit. Our spirit continues to live by experiencing music, just like the body lives on by digesting food.