When we listen to music, we consciously notice the audio. Sometimes, I fall into thinking that’s all I’m experiencing, but there is more nuance. Last week in choir rehearsal, my director mentioned the landscape of music. I have been thinking all week about what this means.
When I hear the word landscape, I picture the open desert framed by mountains. In such a landscape, I first notice the horizon’s sturdy mountains. From there, I note shrubs, cacti, trees, and boulders strewn through the sand. I notice the beige or red sand itself. And if I watch very carefully, I spot lizards scampering under rocks, cactus wren fluttering into the dark columns of hollow saguaros, a tarantula lurking under a creosote bush, a fruit atop a prickly pear cactus paddle… The closer I look, the more hidden details I see. Finally, I hear tumbleweeds scraping against boulders; I smell pungent creosote; I taste sand, gritty between my teeth…
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At its most immediate, comparable to those first-noticed mountains, the landscape of music is the arrangement of notes. We’ve all experienced the anxiety produced by the Jaws musical score, the sense of impending doom in the score when Voldemort is onscreen, or the peaceful melody in UP when they picnic on a hill. The music playing behind the main action sets the tone of the scene. Whether we notice it or not, the arrangement of the notes dictates our emotional response. And many of us know that a minor key sounds sad while a major key sounds bright and happy. So, in the combination of notes, the landscape is first built.
When we listen to a good song, it evokes an image, which we relate to our realities. This is the next level of the landscape—the plants and boulders. Beyond the notes being played, the words in the song bring image and emotion to mind. Even without words, though, music can create vivid image—I’m thinking of Vivaldi’s Spring. As soon as we envision and feel, we are able to relate the song to our emotional identities.
Underneath the notes and the words is the hidden life in the landscape. The way the song is performed creates this aspect. A pianist can hit a note hard and let go immediately, or press gently and sustain. The note sounds totally different depending on the particular touch. The same in vocal inflections and guitar riffs and drum beats. The inflections in music affect us subconsciously, moving us.
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When we sing as a choir, we often begin by just hitting the notes. But then we move toward phrasing, and we think about the words, and we feel it, and the piece becomes something new. Between the melodies and harmonies, the images contained, and the emotion made by the musician, the landscape of the music takes form, whether its a symphony movement or the latest pop-song. In every piece of music these aspects are combined to create something beyond a fleeting aesthetic appeal.
