I'm coming to believe in the importance of silence in music. The power of silence after a phrase of music for example; the dramatic silence after the first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, or the space between the notes of a Miles Davis solo. There is something very specific about a rest in music. You take your foot off the pedal and pay attention. I'm wondering whether, as musicians, the most important thing we do is merely to provide a frame for silence. I'm wondering if silence itself is perhaps the mystery at the heart of music? And is silence the most perfect music of all?
Songwriting is the only form of meditation that I know. And it is only in silence that the gifts of melody and metaphor are offered. To people in the modern world, true silence is something we rarely experience. It is almost as if we conspire to avoid it. Three minutes of silence seems like a very long time. It forces us to pay attention to ideas and emotions that we rarely make any time for. There are some people who find this awkward, or even frightening.
Silence is disturbing. It is disturbing because it is the wavelength of the soul. If we leave no space in our music—and I'm as guilty as anyone else in this regard—then we rob the sound we make of a defining context. It is often music born from anxiety to create more anxiety. It's as if we're afraid of leaving space. Great music's as much about the space between the notes as it is about the notes themselves. A bar's rest is as important and significant as the bar of demi-, semi-quavers that precedes it. What I'm trying to say here is that if ever I'm asked if I'm religious I always reply, "Yes, I'm a devout musician." Music puts me in touch with something beyond the intellect, something otherworldly, something sacred.
How is it that some music can move us to tears? Why is some music indescribably beautiful? I never tire of hearing Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" or Faures "Pavane" or Otis Redding's "Dock of the Bay." These pieces speak to me in the only religious language I understand. They induce in me a state of deep meditation, of wonder. They make me silent.
Sting, Berklee College of Music Commencement Address May 15, 1994
3 comments:
I like your new Header.
Yupanqui often speaks of "silencio" as the essence of nature's mystery. I'll have to post about his "vidala del silencio" as a reblogsponse to your post. He has said that he has spent many days trying to figure out how to 'play' silence on his guitar. This may be the same silence that sting is pointing to, but it may refer directly the voice of God. Like the Nephites finally hearing His voice, we find Him in silence.
Have you heard (or better yet, not heard) John Cage's 4'33"? BBC did a documentary on Cage and this song of silence is really something extraordinary. If you can appreciate Jackson Pollock, you can definitely grasp what Cage was about.
I put this up here after having a conversation with my good friend about the nature of prayer; more importantly, the difference between 'saying a prayer' and praying. Silence is necessary. One must wait for the words to come to them, in silence. Then it really becomes communication with God, but also meditation and feeling. There is a lot to be said for silence, and yes, I think John Cage was saying something similar to what Sting says here.
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