INTRODUCTION 

A few days back, as the intern was working on my violin, the luthier and I, in the process of sharing a pot of home-brewed Earl Grey and oven-baked cookies between us, started talking. We touched almost every issue on earth, everything that comes up when two people related by music(only) sit for an hour with a pot of home-brewed Earl Grey and oven-baked cookies between them. 

He seemed worried about the way parents remove their wards from music classes for three to four months per annum on the pretext of the impending exams. The child is getting too stressed, says the distraught parent; he needs to put in more time for his studies. 

The luthier here said something I will never forget. He said it quite casually, almost jokingly, the way the greatest truths of the world are uttered without after-effects, filters, or AI manipulations. 

He said, to reduce stress, they are taking away the one thing that reduces stress the most. 

Yes, I thought, helping myself to the last couple of cookies, we probably are detaching the oxygen cylinder from the deep-sea diver, so he can swim better! 

What is Music & Why It Matters 

LET US MAKE MUSIC 

‘Everybody has a song, everybody can sing…’ so says the song. We will soon see why. And how! Those of you who think that music is not your cup of tea, that God has somehow skipped through that section of the manufacturing booklet that came with you, and only venture to give your vocal cords a try at the camouflage of the shower, may do the following experiment with yourself. Be perfectly at peace, we are working with your sanity, and we are going to return it to you the moment this game of music-making is done. 

Now, say La - La - La- La, or Ding - Dong- Ding - Dong, or whatever suits you the best. Say it naturally, without haste and not yawning. 

Take the first La, change its pitch. Elongate the second La a bit. Reduce the pitch of the third La, and reduce the time span of the fourth La, and also change its pitch. Sing it several times. That’s awesome!! Now, you have created MUSIC. In a crude form, yet it's a new music made by you, and you only !!! 

It may be pleasant, or it may not. But now that you have made a group of interconnected sounds or notes, you have created music. 

This was how the first music was born, even before language took shape. A call to hunt, or discovering a river nearby, a lullaby without words, a serenade of emotions. Even now, it is the tone, or tune, of the speaker that determines the meaning more than the exact words. A simple “Nothing!” answered to a simpler “What’s the matter?” denotes a load of things if you can adequately decipher the tone. It needs experience, though! 

So now, we have understood how little pebbles of sounds, when changed and arranged in an understandable and defined way, produce gems of music. 

Let us be serious for a little while (because the moment you induce gravity in music, it tends to follow the example of Huckleberry Finn) and excavate a little into the history books. 

The earliest documented music is mostly concerned with divinity. The oldest documented music in the East is the Hurrian Hymn No. 6 (also known as the Hurrian Hymn to Nikkal or H6), dating back to approximately 1400 BCE. Discovered in the 1950s in the ancient city of Ugarit (modern-day Syria), these clay tablets contain lyrics and musical notation, making it the oldest substantially complete musical work in the world. 

Both in the Orient and in the West, the early humans devoted their musical ability mostly to please the Gods. We are not sure about how much the Gods loved the presentation, but we can be sure about how the humans loved to sing them. The biggest proof is the amount of music we play during any of our festivals, and the volumes of hymns, chants, and bhajans we sing at our worship.  We shall keep this point underlined in red for future reference. 

THE EVOLUTION 

Slowly, music made its way into other spheres of life. Songs of revolutions, ballades of moonlight, serenades of aching hearts, and refrains of bonfires… it evolved through the ages. These songs have been sung thousands of times… by the simple layman, the peasant, the blacksmith, the vagabond, the soldier, the hunter and the hunted… ordinary people who lived one day, and died, and nobody remembers them now, no history textbook speaks about them… but relentlessly carried the music through the deluge, the wars, the famine and through the inevitable parade of deaths.. The words, sometimes the tune itself, have been modulated, moulded according to the occasion and the dexterity of the singer/ singers. But the main theme lingers. 

Everything on earth, i.e., almost everything, has two basic modes of functioning- the utilitarian mode and the ornamental mode. 

One simple example will illustrate the idea (and will definitely raise more questions than answers), still, here goes the example:- 

You make a cup. (Wow!) You can drink Earl Grey( my fav) from it, or mix lemon, honey, and lukewarm water to take care of your fat, or so to say, anything that can be drunk from it. That is the utilitarian function of the cup. 

You change the shape of the cup (suppose you can do that without breaking it), paint some flowers and leaves that don’t actually match with each other, anyway, and it becomes a work of art! Now you place it on the TV cabinet, or in some place where it would be impossible for the guests to miss it, and you stare at it for hours from various angles and pat yourself for being such a creative being! You dare not drink from it, neither Earl Grey nor that lemon-honey mix, and the housemaid is restrained from dusting anything within twenty-three yards of the sculpture that was once a cup. That good old innocent cup is transported to the realm of a glorified mode of art and ecstasy. 

Similarly, music, too, like Schrodinger’s cat, is both utilitarian and artistic at the same time.

At the very beginning of civilization, music was more a form of information. And a mode of conveyance of adoration and prayer to the Almighty. However atheistically inclines we may be today, in those internetless days, prayers and hymns were as important as Instagram is today. So, music was mostly utilized for a cause. 

The cup overflowed and music ventured in alleys away from the alter. Newer ideas bloomed, newer thoughts took the stage. Music  shed its cloak of piousness, and hold the hand of the common man, lovingly. Here, it turned itself into art… something that does not promise a profit, but something you can not stop yourself from being dragged into, like popcorns in the theatre! 

Not all music remains. Not every composition survives. In our next episode we will find out why we go back to some definite pieces of music over and over again, like returning home, to the rickety chair and the old glass of Earl Grey on the porch. 

Till then, keep singing your own original composition,  La La La La… 

• Dibyojyoti Biswas