Susan Watkins -- Symbology of Music

(Topic of Choice #1)

I am really interested in exploring the concept of music as symbol, because it is one of the things least conducive to being analyzed and yet one of the most powerful mediums for sacred revelation that I've ever encountered.

Most symbols that I consider can be rendered down into description by language. Clearly, the written word is dependent on the symbology of words and those concepts related to words-- very clearly defined objects, places, animals, people, or qualities. When I say "love" or "tree" or "cold" or "valley," very very specific information is conveyed to the reader. When this information is strung together in spoken or written word, we sometimes accomplish the creation of "myth" and through that the conveyance of the sacred. Visual art, as well, can usually be translated into language-based interpretations-- identifying recognizable symbols, colors, or effects which, when strung together, create myth and communicate the sacred, etc. etc. We can break these art forms down into their elements, and thus analyze them.

Music, though, is a whole different animal. (For the sake of this discussion, I'll refer only to pieces composed without lyrics.) Music cannot be broken down into smaller elements-- at least, not into smaller elements that would appear anywhere outside of music itself. Words all represent concepts that exist outside of the medium of language ("death," "sweet," "high") and art uses forms that also exist outside of art ("mountain," "people," "animals"), but the only elements you can break music down into are elements which exist only inside of music-- chords, notes, melodies, harmonies. You can't point at a bar of music and say "Oh, there's a dog." It might remind you of a dog, but it is not comprised of that symbol.

So why is it that, while linguistic and visual arts can and do convey the sacred, some of our most powerful pangs of longing or joy originate not through these clear symbols but through the abstract and purely subjective form of music?? I have read many a beautiful passage of literature and seen many a painting that have moved me and spoken to me about the sacred, but I have wept tears more bitter and held my breath in joy much longer for one of Beethoven's symphonies or Rachmaninov's piano concertos. Even if you disagree that music is "more" powerful than other art forms, it still begs the question: how is it that such a seemingly undefined medium (in terms of identifiable symbols and elements) can communicate the same as that incredibly powerful tool of language which our lives are based around???