When does a collection of mere sounds become music?
Have you ever heard an orchestra warming up before a performance? All the musicians are playing their instruments, tuning them, practicing a few measures of the piece. You might catch a few pleasant bars from a flute here or a violin there, but by and large it just sounds like noise.
And then the conductor steps to the podium, everyone is silent, and the real music begins. It is still all the same musicians, with the same instruments, playing from the same written score, at the same time. So, what’s the difference? What transformed all that noise into music?
Answer: Order. Yehudi Menuhin, the great violinist and conductor, said it like this: “Music creates order out of chaos: for rhythm imposes unanimity upon the divergent, melody imposes continuity upon the disjointed, and harmony imposes compatibility upon the incongruous.”
And so it is that the very nature of music teaches us something important: Freedom and individuality can be good and beautiful things, both in music and in life. But without order, when we all just play what and when and how we like, without our eyes fixed firmly on the conductor, it’s all just a bunch of noise.
Have a wonderful day.
