Thoughts In Closing

A final thought as I close out the blog entries that I feel is relevant to the reading and to my thoughts as of late involves the shape of music through time. If we can imagine space as static in each moment in time, and time as an extra kind of space in which normal space resides, then perhaps there are shapes and patterns within spacetime itself that are analogous to what we can visualize in normal 3-dimensional space. The easiest is to imagine time as linear, and so if we could see all of time at once (which in itself carries all kinds of paradoxes), our lives would appear as long, undulating snakes (for those that have read Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, think Tralfamadorians). What would a shape or regularity in a 4-dimensional world look like? My thought is that things that are static within time itself must create a pattern since the same is true for that which is static in 3-space. As an example, human habits and routines would trace out magnificent patterns through time since there would be an element of repetition in those patterns. Most people wake in the morning and head to the bathroom to shower, and so that would be a recurrence in this 4-dimensional world.

It seems to me that the human mind is geared toward symmetry, regularity, and patterns. Music is rich in such traits. When you listen to a song with a steady beat, that beat is somewhat constant in time. It is recursive and so it has a strong sense of regularity which we tend to latch on to. Recorded music, then, no matter how random it was at the time of recording, will also trace out a pattern since it will have the same structure each time it is played. So where does improv fit into all of this? Improvised music, when not recorded but played only once, seems to break the mold. It becomes a one-of-a-kind artifact in spacetime, an oddity if you will, to be treasured in the present and to never recur again in the same form. Perhaps this is why we are so interested in it and some people abhor it. On the one hand, we can appreciate the fact that it is not recursive and so is something new and fresh from the regularity that we enjoy. However, for those that prefer regularity too much, those that will play a score note for note as it is written without any deviation from the sheet music, we can see why improvisation can be terrifying since it is reaching out into new territory that will only be seen once and then never seen again. From my experience in this class, from playing and reading, I feel as though I can embrace the abnormality of improvisation in the music world for it offers plenty of new ground to be covered and explored.