Prompted by the reading of a book by Jos Kessels, I reflected on my fascination for music and published two pieces on my Medium channel:
Musings on music
Musings in music continued
"What can I learn from this? An individual or a group of people create an acoustic signal. Energy is transferred and my “heart-mind” (to borrow an integrative concept from the classical Chinese wisdom tradition) receives this signal as pleasant or healing. At its core is an aesthetic appreciation of a process that I experience as multi-sensory and pre-cognitive. This experience is sufficient in itself. But I acknowledge that the social and physical environment in which this transaction takes place is important. It can meaningfully enhance the experience. I am also positively stimulated by taking a step back from the music and exploring it, looking for conceptual patterns. This is a game I like to play and says a lot about me, but nothing about the essence of the music. Ultimately, I find music generous and mysterious enough to allow it to serve as a starting point for an imaginative practice. Integrating it into other creative activities, positioning myself as a human being in relation to the ethos of admired composers, engaging with friends or inviting people to share a musical experience. Yes, I know, paradoxically a lot of prose to say that music is not a language, does not need to be explained and does not need a story to shine."
