Quote:
Originally Posted by Zhanteimi
Silence
I'm especially interested in hearing Frownland's and innerspaceboy's thoughts on this topic, as I know they have clear, strong opinions on it. |
I really appreciate your tagging me for this. It was a nice little write up on a very important element of music, (and of life, itself).
I've been meditating in silence for several hours a day lately. I was able to work through some important stuff that way.
And I've always loved the quote,
After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. - Aldous Huxley
A quick Google search returns a stockpile of links compiling quotes on the beauty and power of silence. There are 280 on
this site alone. So you're definitely not alone in your appreciation of the concept.
Silence actually surfaced in an amusing way for me this evening. I've been entertaining a lot lately and suddenly find myself making use of an entire half of my home that I'd never set foot in before. After having to haul 100lb speakers and amplifiers back and forth between rooms of the house to host guests I quickly decided I needed to invest in an additional vintage receiver and speaker pair to fill the front half of my home with music.
The challenge was that most of the content I've played when entertaining has been dinner jazz, modern classical, study music, field recordings, and other sonic wallpaper while my guests paint, read, or write. This made the task of preparing a playlist to demo vintage setups in local shops rather silly.
None of the content I planned to play would in any way test the limits of the speakers' preformative ability. Frankly, most of it is played at the threshold of audibility. I would have felt silly demoing gear with "Dead Flag Blues."
It was really the silence I was listening for.
I also find it curious how different people respond to silence. For some, it is a prison of the mind where they cannot escape or ignore the thoughts that torment them when the distractions of the day are stripped away. But for others, it is the sweetest and most serene complement to any space.
What we do with silence is entirely up to us.