Written by: Charlie Cuthbert
Music can mean many things to people. It can be a powerful way to express yourself and from some of the greatest composers we can see raw emotions in some of their pieces. I never really under stood how to feel a piece of music. I always just simply played the notes with emphasis on certain notes. It was when i started getting lessons at Edinburgh Napier university, that i started to feel what i was playing. My first instrument is saxophone and my favourite style of music to play is jazz. In jazz you can hear that suffering of the time especially in Nina Simone’s music. In 1964 she published her song “feeling good” which was about the hard ship of gaining her freedom as a black woman, in America. You can hear that soulfulness in her voice and her passion. That song still gives me goose bumps to this day. It’s that reason behind music that makes it so powerful and incredible.
There’s a talk on this about our “why” by a comedian. He talks about how this guy who is a music teacher and is asked to sing amazing grace. He does it perfectly and is then asked to give the hood version. He then comes out with this amazing version that blows everyone away. He knew not just what he was doing but why he was doing it. To give it that meaning and to understand his message through it. This is why i find music so powerful to me. I find it when it has meaning it can people. It can impact you and make you feel something towards that person and you can reflect on your own issues.
There’s a really powerful piece of music by a comedian called Tim Minchin who usually sings about religion and conflicts in the world and just stupid stuff that he makes fun of. But there’s one really powerful piece called White Wine in the Sun. That is about him and his family sitting down at Christmas at his home in Australia, sipping white wine the sun. With his family and how he doesn’t really like Christmas but likes the fact that he gets to be with his family and be with the people he loves most in the world. For a music comedian his pieces are amazingly meaningful. He uses some really good music techniques as well and composes some amazing pieces. His why is wanting everyone to be happy and he does this through comedy.
I was watching this Ted talk on Beethoven, it talks about his life and how he was out there and unusual for his time. He had a rough up bringing with his alcoholic father beating him as a child and how he was troubled and probably struggled with depression. Beethoven was criticised for being to simply with melodies and was criticised for his endings as well with them being to abrupt and him repeating a lot of chords. He now is revered as a genius for what he did with those simple melodies. He took something simple and developed it and turned into this beautiful thing, with that simple idea throughout it. One of Beethoven’s sponsors who was a prince asked him to create him something for the french military. Beethoven refused and as he left their argument he dropped a note that said “Prince what you are, you are accident by birth, what i am, i am through my own efforts. There have been thousands of princes and will be thousands more; there is only one Beethoven.”
The meaning behind music is really interesting and the power it can create, is incredible. On yet another video i have watched, it talks about that question that everyone asks at some point if they see a live orchestra or are some what interested in music. Why aren’t saxophone’s used in orchestras? It’s something that i have been asked as a saxophone player and i have always loved playing classical pieces and showing off the full talents of the saxophone. It’s such a diverse and incredible instrument with it being used in jazz, contemporary pieces and popular works. Why isn’t it used in classical music? This is because the creator Adophle Sax managed to annoy the french and they did everything they could stop his instruments being used in orchestras. Even today they’re still shunned away from Classical composers and aren’t used as much as they should be in classical music. People say of how harsh and loud and out of place they would be? But they’re completely wrong. When it was first invented composers called it a perfect blend for the orchestra and was what it needed. It needs that blend between brass and woodwind to marry them together bringing the whole orchestra together with it’s blend.
All of music fascinates me with it’s meanings and complexity of rhythm and harmony. With so many styles and the history of how music came to be this wonderful mix and absolute genius and bog standard pop songs and some incredible works of rubbish that still amaze me. Music is all personal preference and there is so much for me to talk about. You can take this knowledge away and this view of music from a young musician away and take it how ever you want but in the words of John Miles, “Music was my first love and it will be my last.”