Musica Universalis

Unlike with traditional orchestras, electronic self-playing music from the very beginning produced distance and real cult never formed. Ultimately, what electronic instruments mostly brought is, in the light of this chapter, exactly the opposite of adoration of the instruments: tearing down of the cult of musical instruments and concentration on music itself. In the spirit of that eastern saying: “Continuing further means going far; going far means returning”, electronic instruments brought music back to the beginning, when it was sung. Producing music was originally immediate, it was sung and danced; later came musical instruments, that formed an additional technical layer between us and music, yet which was considered to be important, since thanks to it we could reach more timbres and often control sound more precisely. Electronic instruments drive this to the end: freed from all physical limitations, music becomes a mind-to-mind, soul-to-soul experience, where not only instruments but even our body is transcended. Electronic medium can be considered an ultimate step towards something for which we are not completely naturally born – beings that make music. With electronic instruments the word composer can get its true meaning - a being that composes elements of our natural sound world into an art form, as painter does with visual elements and writer with words.

Despite its sophistication, classical music orchestra couldn’t be art music to the end, because it was not based on natural basics of musical art, the timbre itself. JM Jarre's Oxygene was not sounding more sophisticated than classical music, but more music than classical; functioning on a more elementary level than classical, being closer to the heart of music. When I first heard Oxygene, I wondered how comes people didn't make music like this since always? It was like a step towards what music always should have been but couldn’t due to technical limitations: starting from basic elements of soundworld, and respecting the rules of elementary music logic, one creates music in its primordial form. And every sound motion here is motion of mind and soul, and not of fingers or the body.

We need to refine the natural attitude that musical instruments are extensions of the hands before being extensions of the brain. Jean Michel Jarre

Music becomes direct mind&soul to mind&soul communication; a spiritual language that embraces composer and his audience in a world of sound. Sound is exclusively expression of composers spirit which like a mastermind rules it, like directly emitting sounds that he has on mind from within him onto us. There is no feeling of “someone playing an instrument” on the side of a listener; we experience music as direct record of someones spirit and emotions. Composing is consequently not anymore motivated by the construction of a particular instruments, or by the feeling of singing and dancing, but by what composer tries to convey and express.

Music made on this way, as an expression of our inner sense for music and not according to the physical construction of the means that produce the sound, we will call Musica Universalis. This music can be imagined as coming purely from inside, appears in the head as a sound idea; our mind starts playing what it wants to hear, putting sounds together on a divine way, in accordance with inner structure of our being, more beautifully and musical than anything we can actually sing or play with some limited set of instruments. Plato considered all arts, music included, in essence imitative – that they in theirs core copy structures from nature, additionally crystallizing them in order to reach ideal shape. So Musica Universalis can be understood as music that is completely shaped in accordance with what it conveys in Platonic sense of “truthful imitation”, and is not subdued to means of production.

Obviously, universal music is essentially the same what has always been understood as bare musical composition. So with electronic music, we have the first musical culture in history that is not applied over a particular practice of interpretation, but is completely based on composition. Traditional relationship between a composition and performance is changed: while in traditional music interpretation was basic and necessary and composing additional and eventual, in electronic music composing is basic and necessary, and interpretation is additional and eventual.

The eventual question could be, if universal music could in the same time be musica humana. While indeed much music is naturally singed, so is in the same time universalis and humana, it must not be so. For example, Beethoven, although famous as maybe the greatest classical composer, did not think of music as of a voice and his musical ideas and his sort of musicality were never easily singed. Even when he tried to compose partitures for voice, singers were finding them difficult to sing.

Music that touches our soul best often is not the one that is most natural to play or sing. Virtuoso music is good for playing, and dance music is good to dance to, and some vocal music, like ethnic chants, are interesting to sing, but theirs effect on us just as music can be thin. On the other side, much music can be easy to play with fingers, but not easy to play in the head. There is music that is virtually unplayable by any set of instruments. What’s more, composer often has to exactly struggle against construction of instruments that he uses in order to convert his ideas into physical sound life. For example, as a contrast to Kraftwerk pieces, JM Jarre’s pieces usually sound as not being shaped according to used instruments, but on the contrary trying to work around their’s limitations in order to convey something. This process can often be very toiling and require great skill.

Electronic music is the most genuine music you can do because you have to go to hell and back to get something good enough. Garry Cobain of FSOL

But this is essentially what symphonic composers were doing since always – much of theirs skill had to do with finding a way to express themselves despite and against the limitations and constructions of symphonic orchestra. If classical music was the art of musical composition reaching admirable heights, yet still somewhat restricted with performing practice, with electronic technology art of musical composition is born in pure form. Composers simply write in sound, as writers use words and painters use colors, and audiences simply listen to the music, like reading a book or watching a painting.

Music to be this – literature in sound – was always a dream of classical music and classical composers. Actually there is a direct connection between universal music, bare musical composition, and the notion of “art music”. While musicianship as a skill of producing stimulating sounds existed since always, for a long time music, unlike literature or painting, didn’t have a status of true art, but was more superficial entertainment, a background for dance fiestas. For example in czar Russia, every artist could become an academic, except a musician. Even on the ground on which classical music developed, medieval western Europe, music didn’t have such status before classical music period. Only relatively recently, with classical music, music gained such status. There is no sharp line when European music reached this classical stage, but with composers Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven people recognized that music became a stand-alone art, as we know it today - able to deeply excite with it's atmosphere and with precise science of form.

The term classical music did not appear until the early 19th century, in an attempt to "canonize" the period from Bach to Beethoven as an era in music parallel to the golden age of sculpture, architecture and art of classical antiquity (from which very little music has directly survived). Wikipedia

It is hard to over-estimate the importance of western classical music in the history of music; it is almost synonym to art music. Whole humanity knows for Chinese writing of Confucius; whole world knows of Ramayana and Mahabharata of India, or for Taj Mahal. But world cares little for music of China or India – it means something only to Chinese/Indian musicians themselves. Generally, traditional music around the world is a not-so-important art -- those few world-known ethnic tunes (say “El Condor Passa”) are more an exception than a rule. Western classical music clearly stands apart from all other traditions as almost synonymous to art music. What happened for this music to reach such status?

What happened is, that music became understood more as a composition than a performing/technical exercise. And it is concentration on musical composition, rather than on any other kind of dealing with music, that gave classical music its status. Composition is of primary importance; performance is necessary to hear the music, but is secondary. With classical music, there is a strong consciousness of abstract composition, that gave birth to strict notation. For the first time, there is a firm concept of a musical composition that famously leads its life, principally unaltered, through decades and centuries, which gives birth to compositional greats.

Concentration on composition necessarily means attention is shifted away from means themselves. Still, in classical music it was not easy to hear or play a symphonic piece; the production itself was very important. Simply playing music was something. No wonder it was so, if we look at, for example, the means used for the first performance of Handel's 'Resurrection' oratorio: five very good singers, twenty one violins, four violas, five cellos, five contrabasses, two trumpets, four oboes and one trombone. But today it is enough to press play on a Hi Fi, and medias are daily bombarding us with music we even don’t want to hear.

Apart from this shift away from means of production, there is a shift away from basic musical gifts and towards higher order of musical gifts. In classical teaching, good hearing and raw musical gift is considered necessary and of great importance, as well as knowledge of musical theories and solfegio. These are taken to be precondition for composing; yet it is perfectly possible to be a good composer with only a minimal knowledge of musical technique, and without being a performing musician. There should not be confusion between the art of musical composition, and the skill of musicianship. Many genial composers weren’t good performers – like Stravinsky, or Ravel, or Wagner (didn’t know to play), or Berlioz. Being basically gifted is different from being compositionally gifted – able to create pieces that are difficult to think of and put together, because of difficulties with decision making, concerning chord progressions, layering, choice of textures and other decisions that constitute composing. In electronic music such decisions are mostly what constitutes musicians job. And it is a fact that nowadays much of what was highly regarded before, conventional musical skill, became common place, worn out, unimpressive, dull, commonplace. These skills became almost as ephemeral as the skill of reading and writing. In literature, we take knowledge of words and grammar of our spoken language for granted, and than proceed to call art using these on artistic way, with an aim of poetic beauty, or storytelling. In painting and music, we usually didn't take command over basic materials for granted, but somewhat admire the very technical ability of the one who can no more than reproduce on paper what he sees with his eyes, or sing with his voice music that he previously heard. Not so anymore. Music is more and more understood as a language in sound, and not something that humans physically do; expression of what they feel and think, and not what they physically and technically do to produce it. It is when we take the basics of musical language for granted – where we can equate hearing and tempo with knowing words, and grasp of abstract elements of musical form as grammar – that we start talking of composition.

Yet making music on this way is still more close to beginning. The most inventive composers, such as JM Jarre or Vangelis, are not -- could not be, in those times and with those instruments -- the true masters of universal aproach to music. We hope they will come in the future.