Music for Healing – Harmonic Reasons

Harmonic Reasons 

There are harmonic reasons that music is calming for me. I define harmony for my students as two or more notes played at the same time, or more than one note at once.

Even if the whole world is going crazy, I know that when I put on Bach, Haydn, or Handel, the five chord will resolve to the one chord or the six chord.

If I’m listening to jazz musicians, I know that the one six two five progressions (in music language, it would be written as I-vi-ii-V) are common and the blues will always be around. The five chord (V) almost always follows two minor seven half-diminished chords. (If this looks like Greek to you, in music, each note of the scale is given a roman numeral, on which a chord is built. These chords appear in certain progressions, or orders, in different types of music. These chord progressions are often predictable and reliable.)

I can be certain that Bach will always have counterpoint and fugue in his music, and Mozart will never go 12-tone on me. I will never put on Handel’s Messiah and hear a whole tone scale. (12-tone music basically consists of 12 tones picked by the author that always appear in the same order and are manipulated in a variety of ways. The whole tone scale was a six-tone scale heard in late romantic, 20^thcentury, and jazz music.)

Below is a journal entry from summer 2014 when I was attending a concert at Tanglewood’s Ozawa Hall:

I just listened to the Emerson String Quartet play Shostakovich’s String Quartets 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15 all in one concert. It was a long concert with two intermissions. What it taught me is that I have to write music about Zeb’s death and my experience in dealing with it. I have to write about my sadness and get it out of me. Shostakovich poured out his life in his music, pouring the sadness of his experiences into his music through sound. That is what I have to keep doing. I did that with Fearless Moral Inventoryand I need to keep doing it. I will pour out my life in my book and my music and it will heal me.

I loved the Brahms right away. I heard his String Sextet in Bb major, opus 18 at Tanglewood recently. Why wasn’t everyone on their feet at the end of that performance? Maybe I’m just out of step with the rest of the planet, but I thought that the Brahms sextet was the best thing I’ve heard at Tanglewood this season. I will add his string ensemble music to my CD collection.

I urge you to beef up your listening library with pieces that refresh you spiritually.

I strongly suggest that you learn to play an instrument. Is there an instrument that you always wanted to play but never got the opportunity? Go buy or rent one and start taking lessons. It is a wonderful creative outlet.

Music is a vital part of my life. I can’t imagine living without it. How thankful I am to have ears to hear it, a heart to appreciate it, and a soul that depends on it for nourishment.

I pray that the music I sing and play will glorify God now and forever.