Thoughts on Harmony

There was a point, a turning point for me, when I chose the path of music.  This choice was a reflection of my deep passion not only for music itself, but for the architectures it represents in and beyond our lives.  For me, music is an expression of the complex (and simple) inter-workings of our very being.  It records our souls’ cathedrals, describing our heights and depths and our unspeakable beauty.  It moves within us, but also beyond us to bear witness to a cosmic harmony.

My favorite definition of the word harmony is, “any simultaneous combination of tones.”

Seems a little dull? Perhaps at the surface.  But this definition is my favorite because of its vast scope.  Let me show you.  Listen to and watch my multi-media composition Harmony.  As you do, notice these “tones” sounding simultaneously…

•  Hitler/Martin Luther King, Jr. dialogue juxtaposition
  • 0:00-1:27 – Hitler’s speech is played normally while King’s speech is reversed.
  • 1:27 – In a symbol of triumph, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech flips, playing normally while Hitler’s dialogue reverses.
  • Framing 1:27, Hitler’s dialogue translates, “From now on, bomb will be met by bomb.”  King responds, “I have a dream that one day we will be able to work together, pray together, struggle together.”  King answers Hitler’s proactive violence with proactive peace.

• Eric Whitacre’s Lux Aurumque
  • Underlying this composition musically is a recording of my first performance of this gorgeous piece by Whitacre.  I was 12 years old and the beautiful tension in the major seconds in the altissimo range of the clarinet struck me with a dissonance that impossibly spoke of light and gold (translated title).  How could dissonance capture something as brilliant as a golden sunrise?  And yet, purely, it does. Two tones simultaneously.
  • Lux is processed in Harmony through a slowly phasing envelope that gradually reveals its original continuity.  This effect emerges audibly immediately after King’s use of the word “symphony” at 1:53.

• First series of images:
  • Baby footprints – symbol of each of our beginnings
  • Eye – close-up of my own eye, symbolizing my perspective and the individual human
  • First footprint on moon – our “heights”
  • Oldest known human footprint(s) on Earth – and our “depths”

• Final series of images:
  • Baby Footprints
  • Footprints in the sand – symbol of joy, exploration, and horizons, transitions, and change (malleable and at the edge of the ocean)
  • Oldest known human footprint
  • First footprint on the moon – paired with dialogue “That’s one small step…”
  • Eye
  • Bleeding Heart – overlaps the eye as a symbol of the soul/compassion, given with the silhouette of my hand in the gesture that Love is the answer to pain. The gesture is “bi-tonally” personal and universal.  Note the sustained clarinet in Lux at this time. 
  • Hands presenting child’s feet – at conclusion of “one giant leap for mankind,” symbolizes:
    • Each of our beginnings
    • The steps and leaps from childhood to adulthood
    • The steps and leaps over the span of a life
    • Newborn love and compassion
    • Hope
  • The Milky Way – our cosmic unity, our heights, our depths
  • Winter sunrise through my kitchen window – Light and Gold in the midst of darkness, harmony through the sounds of many souls, including mine, watching the sunrise.  “Look what happens with a love like that…”

• Final Dialogues (Overlapping)
  • Martin Luther King, Jr.
  • Hitler’s speech (backwards)
  • Mahatma Gandhi (2:14)
  • First description of the moon from astronauts in space (apprx. 2:33)
• The dialogue depicts the vision of the moon as being “black and white” and harmonizes the image of the angel with one white wing and one black wing.  This symbolizes racial equality.
  • • The moon is also described as having “no color,” symbolically erasing racial boundaries and illustrating through the ecumenical lunar icon the importance of our “common-tones” as human beings
    • “Makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth” – beauty sired by diversity here on Earth
  • English announcement of Parliament’s meeting interrupting Hitler’s speech (2:45)
  • John F. Kennedy (3:07)
  • Neil Armstrong (3:24)

• Miscellaneous
  • Martin Luther King Jr.:
    • “I have a dream that one day, my four little children [paired with image of four children standing on beach]
    • will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin [multi-colored hand silhouette followed by multi-colored human silhouette with raised arms and light projecting from center]
    • but by the content of their character [human silhouette transitioning to hand holding a heart with light projecting from center] – transitions to eye with heart pupil, referencing the Bleeding Heart/eye overlap symbolizing compassion
  • Images of pain, embrace, and dance = the experience, expression, and release of the human condition
  • Images of water = fluidity, life, renewal
  • Images of the cosmos = our vital connection to things much “larger” than ourselves… Though the stars seem far away, every atom that makes up our bodies was born in the core of a star.  Check out Symphony of Science’s “We Are All Connected” and Carl Sagan.
  • Finally, the recording of a human heart sounds intermittently throughout.

Though many more harmonies are present in this work, I hope you found some that resonate with you.

“With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of all things.”  – William Wordsworth

Thanks for reading! (Now go practice)