Music of the Spheres

Few things in this world have the power of music. Everytime I contemplate the amazingness of music, I am struck by it's complexity, it's affects on humans, and it's all-encompassing nature.
This evening, my wonderful, beautiful, Good, and in-most-other-ways perfect girlfriend took me to the Disney Concert Hall. If you have never been to this piece of art, it is worth your time and money. The building itself is a $100 million + statement of music. It captures your eye and intrigues your senses. A good amount of time was spent wandering the various corners of that creation. But, the gem of the struture, as is fitting, is the concert hall itself. Only fitting a couple thousand people, it actually feels quite small. The building is built in such a way that makes every member of the audience have a good seat and a good aucustical experience. However, what is fairly unique about this hall, is that they allow members of the audience to experience the performance from the chior loft. Thus, we sat two rows behind the actual orchestra itself. I have never been so enthralled by a performance (that I was not producing). I felt that I was literally a member of the Los Angeles Philarmonic, but instead of concentrating on my part I could focus on various members, or the conductor, or the entire orchestra. It was like what those filmed recordings of performances try to do with snap shots of various performers, except that it was live, and I could chose anyone and everyone I desired to see. The ability to see the nuances of the musicians, the facial expressions of the conductor, the fingers of a cellist on his strings was astounding. I could not believe that an hour had passed when they concluded Shostacovich's 11th. It was a beautiful evening.
The experience left me with a myriad of thoughts. I will not attempt to convey them all. But, consider for a moment, the depth of music. Before us lay a conglomeration of very talented individuals. For thousands of hours, these persons had learned to understand, feel, move, and otherwise tease out beautiful tones from a myriad of manmade instruments that produce various noises. Every type of physical means for making noise was represented. Vibrating strings, wood, metal, glass, stretched plastic or fabric were all represented in multiple forms. Every object creates their own individual set of overtones, which when added together establishes a veritable plethera of tonal variations. Through one man creating a mathimatical beat with a stick, this group of 80 individuals are able to establish order to the chaos. A man from Russia, who likely never spoke English, then created with a few scratch marks on paper, a historical, artistic, and compelling view of a dark moment in his country's past (1905's Bloody Sunday). A member of the audience needed to know nothing about this event, or Russia, or Russian, or even music, to be able to experience the horror, despair, and renewed hope that the Russian people experienced. Nothing else in this world has such cross-cultural, language, or experiential power. Music is a universal language. So, if America wants to be remembered, and if America desires to be great, then we really do need to get some good composers. Anyway, I am glad God created us with the ability to create and appreciate music. It is a marvelous gift!