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1023 days ago
Unfiled. Edited by EvaHill 1023 days ago
Classical music is one of the most complex types of human creativity. With its help the humanity tries to resolve the universal questions applying the specific audial language. Together with history essay writer I discovered the theme more deeply. The specificity of classical music is that it can resonate with each individual exclusively, not focusing on ones expectations or requests. Consequently, many people do not want to understand or perceive classical music because they should make more efforts in order to enjoy a symphony or suite. On the other hand, classical music performs the cultural function of transforming ones experience into a universal landmark for the whole nation, thus it cannot be parted from humans. In other words, classical music, similarly to other types of art, is aimed at addressing specific life problems, but it solves them in its own aesthetic way, endowing a listener with a deep spiritual experience. Therefore, a person creates music in order to understand the surrounding world, while also passing his/her experience to other people through the symbolic forms that need to be felt and experienced at a certain point in time.
Listening to classical music requires special preparation because its structure and form differ from those of other genres, namely, from popular music with its simple couplets. The idea of classical music is that each composition is built nonlinearly, thus the listener cannot always combine each element into one single system. This specificity requires careful and focused listening since each segment of the composition plays a key role in understanding ones idea: The notion of expression does not require that there is any correspondence between what the listener perceives in a piece of music and what the composer or performer intends to express. However, I am surprised by the fact that a composer often has a complete work in his/her head, and picks up the corresponding notes, chords, and instruments for realization of this plan. Humans unique ability to combine different elements into a single composition, a harmonious work mesmerizes me. Even avant-garde or contemporary classics share this ability to create complex and holistic systems from different elements, going beyond the use of melody and harmony. Perhaps, this indicates the fundamental need of people to create their own spiritual or symbolic world in order to understand how they should live.
Moreover, classical music, with the exception of opera, does not contain words but it can visualize certain images through sounds, and surprises me how a person can express himself/herself this way. This technique requires not only to imagine, but also to have a super-delicate and subtle understanding of things, so its abstract nature distinguishes music from other arts. It is not a coincidence that the ancient Greeks compared music with mathematics, combining it with the harmony of spheres in space. However, the most striking thing is that certain musical passages cause similar emotions in all people, although each of them experiences it individually. For example, Maurice Ravels Bolero from the first notes creates a sense of calmness and balance, which later transforms into enthusiasm and joy. In this case, the composer tries to transfer humans emotions and feelings through a coherent combination of sounds, eventually forming a certain aesthetic feeling.
All in all, people created music in order to understand the surrounding world, which always seemed mysterious. Nature also has many sounds, so the first instruments were similar to the sounds of birds, rivers or animals. This fact indicates that the first civilizations wanted to adapt their life to the rhythm of nature. Then music increasingly served as a function of distinguishing oneself from other humans, performing the social purpose of integration on the same territory. It was also a way of organizing ones experience, which could not be transmitted in any other way. Therefore, the first civilizations outlined and marked the boundaries of their world through music, uniting people of different social classes in such a way. The cognitive theory also insists that music is strongly linked to motivation and to human social contact. Obviously, the first musical pieces were primitive and performed a religious function but they did not lose their social orientation to transfer experience from one generation to another.
As the result, music perfectly united people of the first civilizations due to rhythm and tempo, creating an atmosphere for the realization of certain goals. In fact, music still performs the social function because it is a powerful factor of identification that often tells a particular story or transfers ones emotions. However, it does not eliminate the fact that music also performed a political or economic function at the first stages of its development because each civilization used the potential of music in its own way. Despite these functions, the main purpose of music has always been to express the human needs, in particular, the need of understanding, love, friendship, and compassion. In this case, Darwin claims that music has the power to convey love and admiration with the aim to charm each other due to specific rhythm and notes. It means that music was associated with human beings from the beginning of times because it expressed both biological and spiritual needs at the level of associations and feelings.
In conclusion, classical music as well as any other genre demonstrates the unique ability to create completed worlds and images through a combination of sounds. One can find these sounds in nature but only humans can create them artificially, uniting separate sounds into one melody and rhythm. The fist civilizations used this ability to express their own knowledge about the surrounding world, passing it from one generation to another. For me, classical music is an outstanding phenomenon because of its complexity and universality, allowing anyone to enter into intellectual and emotional dialogue.

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