If you need to be uplifted, how about listening to some beautiful music and learning why it’s awe-inspiring? Awe scientist Dacher Keltner lists music as one of the “eight wonders of life,” and there’s no question that music is an essential and universal part of being human. So spend nine minutes here, and then spend some more time with your favorite music today.
See also:
Beethoven Ode to Joy flash mob (YouTube)
Tchaikovsky Research, Symphony No. 4
Music: Jens East — Daybreak (ft. Henk) www.soundcloud.com/jenseast
Licence: Creative Commons Attribution V4.0
Musopen, Mozart Symphony No. 40 in G minor
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Transcription (remember, this is a direct transcription of what I said and is not actually how I write!):
Welcome to 9 Minutes of Wonder. I’m Betsy Hedberg. I hope this podcast will help you rekindle your sense of wonder for this awe-inspiring world. If you like what you hear in the next few minutes, please subscribe and share.
[clip from Mozart Symphony No. 40]
“Music has a unique power to express inner states or feelings. Music can pierce the heart directly. It needs no mediation.”
That is a quote, not from me, but from the famous neurologist Oliver Sacks in his book, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain.
And music is one of the ways we can experience wonder. I’m sure you’ve had this experience either at a concert or listening to something you love, even in your car or while you’re working. So I think we can all relate to that.
You just heard a little excerpt from Mozart’s Symphony No. 40, and as you can tell from that number, No. 40, he wrote a lot of music and a lot of symphonies. And since today, January 27th, 2025, is Mozart’s 269th birthday, I thought it would be a good time to play that for you.
I don’t know about you, but I find this music uplifting. And I know a lot of things are going on these days that are definitely not uplifting, to say the least. And to be honest, I’m currently pretty upset about many things that I can’t control. But if what I share with you today enhances one person’s day, maybe yours, then hopefully this will all be worthwhile.
So I love all sorts of music, but today I’m going to take a chance and focus on classical music for just a few minutes. We can be honest, there’s a good chance that you are not a fan of classical music. Most of my friends are not. They either think it’s boring, or it’s the music of stuffy dead white guys, or they just haven’t been exposed to it at all. But even if it’s not your thing, I invite you to keep an open mind, and also to think about how the things I say about classical music might apply to whatever your favorite type of music is.
And by the way, a lot of classical music was written under circumstances of intense personal or political struggle. So for me, the music can project a sense of solidarity with people from a different time, who had all sorts of challenges in their societies and their personal lives. So maybe there’s some relevance even for today in that regard.
I’m nowhere close to an expert on Mozart or any other classical music composer or anything about this particular type of music, but I did grow up in a household where the local classical music station was almost constantly on the radio, and I was lucky enough to play in my high school orchestra. And I also still like to attend concerts and read about the music and composers from time to time.
Why do I think classical music inspires wonder? For one thing, the music is very complex, and it required an incredible amount of musical knowledge and intuition to compose it.
Of course, until the 20th century, composers couldn’t listen to recordings of their own music or of other people’s music, so everything had to be composed in their heads and on their instruments, usually the piano, and then written down into musical notation. And if you look at some of the written music, the musical scores from that era, there are typically musical notes all over the place for every instrument in the orchestra, and often with written notes and instructions as well. So you can see the complexity right there on the page, even if you can’t read music.
And of course one of the reasons many people are turned off by classical music these days is that the pieces tend to be quite long, much longer than the average three or four minute song that we’re used to, obviously. Symphonies in particular, they go on and on for like 45 minutes or so, generally in four separate but related movements with various musical themes being developed and gaining complexity as the music continues.
Now Mozart had perfect pitch, which means he could hear the music perfectly in his mind without needing to play the notes on his piano. So that meant he could compose music while taking a walk or riding in a carriage, for example, far away from pen and paper and piano. And he could apparently keep all this music in his head until he got back to a place where he could then write it down. And this includes, remember, being able to hear all of the instruments of the orchestra in his mind at the same time.
But often composers would write their musical ideas down on whatever scraps of paper were around wherever they were, much like a writer might keep a little notebook in their pocket and take notes as ideas come up or today take notes on their phone.
Another example of how these classical composers had incredible minds is that, as you may know, Beethoven grew increasingly deaf throughout his career until he could hardly hear a thing. Yet he continued composing. He composed and conducted his Ninth Symphony when his hearing was almost completely gone. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is generally regarded as a complete masterpiece and the most complex orchestral work up until that time. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said, “At a certain place in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, one might feel that he is floating above the earth in a starry dome.” (Nietzsche also said, “Without music, life would be a mistake.”)
But the composing process is only part of the story. The main point from our perspective here is to listen and enjoy the music.
And so much music from the classical and romantic eras, from the mid-18th to the end of the 19th centuries, is very emotionally evocative, and for many people it’s really awe-inspiring. The music sounds beautiful to the ear in a complex sort of way.
And I realize this is very, very subjective. Most of the times I’ve shared music with a friend, whether it’s something by my favorite singer-songwriter or another type of music, they haven’t loved it as much as I do, even though I really want them to. But our tastes are not exactly the same. And we all relate to music based on past experiences and memories and many other things. So again, I realize how subjective this whole topic is. But many people do find that if they sit back and listen to a symphony, even if they don’t understand the details of its structure or its composition, and even if they don’t know anything about the composer or the era, it still evokes an emotional response that is something like wonder or awe. And of course that’s the same for many types of music, not just classical music. So you might think about how that applies to the music that you love to listen to.
It can help us to have a sense of what the writer or composer was going for, what they were trying to say with their music. But that’s not always possible. And I don’t think it’s always really desirable, because I think art is something that we’re supposed to make our own meaning of.
The composer Tchaikovsky wrote about the composition process: “How can one put into words the intangible sensations which one experiences when writing an instrumental work without a specific subject? This is a purely lyrical process. This is fundamentally an unburdening of the soul in music, with its essence distilled into sounds, in the same matter in which a lyrical poet expresses himself in verse. The only difference is that music has much more powerful means and a more subtle language with which to express thousands of different emotions and frames of mind.”
By the way, Tchaikovsky had a lot to unburden in his music since he suffered from depression and plenty of other emotional turmoil, and he was a gay man living at a time and place where that was not tolerated.
Now another thing I find really remarkable is that some neuroscientists make their careers out of studying how music affects our brains. And, you know, I like learning about the neuroscience in a way. I mean, it’s fascinating. But in another way, I don’t like to dissect my experiences with music, and I sometimes, or I guess very often, would prefer to just enjoy it. It’s like when you analyze something too much, it kind of loses its luster. At least that’s how it is for me.
So now, again, think about how all of this might translate to the music that you love. What makes music magical for you? It may have lyrics that speak to you, but it’s also likely that it’s not just the lyrics, and that if you were to read the lyrics without music, they wouldn’t have the same effect at all.
So I hope that something I’ve said in this very brief time today has inspired you to re-engage with music in a way that maybe, you know, maybe you put it on in the car, you kind of take it for granted, but maybe you can sit back and really pay attention and allow some form of music to inspire you today.
[clip from Mozart Symphony No. 40]