Music listening, emotions and spirituality
For decades, researchers in the field of music psychology have tried to determine if human beings value music for itself or for the emotions that music evokes. They have also debated the source of emotional answers to music, some researchers saying that music listeners only mimic the emotions they perceive in music, other ones saying that listeners truly engage in emotions transmitted through music. What do you think? That the truth is probably somewhere in between? It depends probably on listeners and on types of music.
The researchers also want to determine if music and spirituality are inherently related. Strange subject? Non-demonstrable? Anyhow, for millenia, music has been played during religious ceremonies. Hence it is naturally linked to the main events of human life: marriage, death, birth, relationship to the universe, etc. And these events generally involve a succession of emotions. So, what is it possible to conclude, without going too far? Recently, Michael Lowis, a music psychologist, simply said that the more people feel them as spiritual, the more they perceive music to have spiritual or religious qualities. And, of course, everyone knows that musicians attracted by spirituality and religion compose music so that people sharing their beliefs get the benefits of it. Examples are numerous, from Gregorian chant to New Age Music. Perhaps this is a little brief and does not say so much about how individuals may experience music listening as an individual act.
Einstein, genius and music listening
Everyone knows Einstein for his theory of general relativity, which is a geometric theory of gravitation published in 1915 for which he gained a Nobel Prize in physics. Rabindranath Tagore, less known in the West, was a Bengali polymath and also a musician, a political activist, a painter, a poet and a novelist who also won a Nobel Prize, in Literature. In 1930, both met at Einstein’s home in Berlin to talk about all sorts of cultural subjects. It was the occasion for Einstein to claim how he saw music listening as a very intimate act.
During that dialog, Tagore established a parallelism between music and the human personality, which was for him like a general melodic arrangement in which each individual could improvise. It means that he saw the human character as a sort of composer while the individual was a performer. Also, he compared melody and harmony to lines and colours in images, one enhancing the other.
For his part, Einstein said that it would have been interesting to know the effects of European music on an Oriental that had never heard it in youth. However, Einstein was convinced that music could not be analyzed, saying that, like everything essential in the human experience, music listening belonged to a very intimate reality.
Knowing that Einstein contributed greatly to define the concept of ‘genius’ through his work, it is very interesting: his remarks may suggest the idea that music listening, like anything else, may be an attribute of genius. Genius may be defined as an extraordinary intellectual ability or an exceptional creativity. It may also define a person with tremendous skills in a particular area.