Music as Narrative

Stephen Jablonsky

Let us remember that music is both magical and mysterious, and, because of that, untold amounts of energy and intelligence have been spent trying to explain it with varying degrees of success. Sometimes I wonder if musical analysis is a fool’s errand best kept to one’s self. Music, because it occurs over time, is narrative in the sense that it presents a sequence of musical events that may or may not be related to each other. It is narrative in a language that is perceived and understood in different ways by each listener. Our brain processes the incoming aural data relative to what it already knows about other music. It also operates on various levels of cognition based on prior musical training and experience. It is even possible that we listen to the alternative “realities” of music simultaneously, but focus or blur our attention depending on our purpose of listening.

I have always contended that a musical masterpiece is greater than the sum all the theories that try to explain it. I sometimes find myself reading the most erudite of scholarly reporting only to realize that all those diagrams, charts, and verbal descriptions are like analyzing the muscle and tissue of a cadaver. The magic and mystery of music is analogous to the spark of life that animates the body, and like doctors, music theorists marvel at its indescribable beauty. Great music bristles with the spark of genius and its effect stays with us long after we experience it.  Music of lesser quality merely survives during its performances and is soon forgot.

Great films (and great music) are great from the first scene to the last and never flag. We are swept up and carried through time without any awareness of its duration. It holds our attention the way a hypnotist controls our awareness. Good luck to all those who attempt to explain the power of the trance. Each masterpiece is the product of great skill and craft, but at no time are we aware of the technical genius that undergirds the work. What sweeps us away is the emotional ride we are taken on as we explore the heights and depths of the human experience. A great watch keeps perfect time without our understanding how the inner works operate. The genius that went into creating the watch mechanism is best appreciated only by other watchmakers.

I close by sharing with you a visual experience very much like listening to music—watching clouds float by on a warm summer afternoon. The exquisite aesthetic of that experience defies description and has, to my knowledge, not yet prompted the formation of a Society of Cumulus Theorists.