Phoenix
by Dale J. Sprague
Reveries
8.1997 A scientist remarked to the effect, that 'it is becoming increasingly harder to find randomness in the universe.' It does seem easier to experience random energy by adjusting one's sensitivity down or by reducing one's awareness than it is to find some random energy generator causing all the confusion. With study, analysis, and error analysis of an ever increasingly sensitive technology, this development toward a scarcity of random energy might be expected. This of course, includes sound, but then, one does not need advanced technology and theorists to know this already; otherwise, how could one be soothed by the apparent random or unique signatures of sounds one hears from a water fall, or rain splattering, or the thousand'and'one sounding animals in a New Haven dawn, or the rustling leaves of an October tree, the wind through Evergreen, all seeming incidental, somehow blend harmoniously. It soothes us, rests us. We feel we belong.
If we are able to feel from nature's profound diversity of sound, all collecting and a'blending in one's ear, and feel a soothing, harmonious sensation, imagine the effect of music, harmony of sound by design. Baroque, romantic program, suites, symphonic tone poems, concertos, sonatas...rhapsodies, I collected them to listen what words cannot express. At this time, most of my composition work was in the form of notes on metaphysics, anecdotes, and sketches. I collected these over a few years and then began to write sustained work. After a year, the first piece of work began to take shape, and when it was all out, I noticed it had shape, some kind of form. I consulted a reference for developing musical score for program composition, and discovered that I, unwittingly, had used nearly the same format as that used for program music; that is, four parts, initial exposition of theme, or motif, expression of theme...a transition, the scherzo, introduction of new theme or motif, expression of that theme, and finally..the finale of it all, expressing its wholeness. The correlation was significant. The influence of music, once experienced, is unconscious and inevitable.
I already knew from experience what to think of those who deny the effect their music has on those who love it, and from this experience, wondered about the sound and possibly, the music everywhere in the cosmos, what we can hear, what we cannot, affecting our lives, shaping our being, more than we know...or perhaps will ever know.