Rethinking Musical Intent-Guest Post

Today we have a guest post from a great friend and unique musical mind: Kayla Sadowy is a music therapy student studying at Temple University. Before she started there we went to undergrad together where she often challenged my presumptuous opinions on music. The following piece, she told me, came up through this quote from Glenn Gould: “The justification of art is the internal combustion it ignites in the hearts of men and not its shallow, externalized, public manifestations. The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.”

A thought recently posed to me is that music therapy is music without the ego–that music therapy is the pursuance of what music can do for others, rather than an elusive quest for self-fulfillment.  I could do nothing but laugh at such a biased statement, a bias with which I would normally be inclined to agree.  However, although I may believe that certain careers within music are more predisposed to the crusade of musical diaspora, I want to believe that all musicians are on this journey.  That is to say that I believe all musicians want their music to do good for other humans.

For far too long, music–particularly that which is labeled as artistic–has been stifled by elitism, propelled equally by the perception of a slothful society and intellectuals drunk off quixotry.  Unfortunately, those musicians who believe they are preserving an art or paying homage to previous composers or performers are not yet extinct.  These are the individuals who believe that art moves forward by stressing a preservation of what has been done.  Imagine the haphazard navigation of a new place while constantly looking over one’s shoulder.  It strains potential.  It creates unnecessary challenges.  It festers inefficiency.  It just. does not. work.

How then do we find our way of paying it forward, of spreading the value of music to others?  For those of us who have dedicated the better parts of our musical careers to art music, what do we do?  How do we do something new?  Do we stand a chance at inspiring a most idealistic resurrection?  Can we catapult art music to new heights?  As the emerging musical generation before whom “everything has been done,” we must re-evaluate what has been missing, what is needed, and/or what we can stand to contribute.   That, my friends, is intent.

Anyone as much as an art music hobbyist at one point or another in his/her life has felt from music.  I mean really felt, as if the music permeated the body and took hold of something deep just to remold it.  Deny it up and down, but it is the quest to re-experience this that keeps all of us going.  We may spend the rest of our lives searching for that feeling again, that presence and permission to just be with music.  Whether or not we find it is insignificant, because even if we do, we seek it again and again.  And this is where things begin to go awry.

Rather than a replication of the experience, we should be seeking to catalyze this experience in others.  This is how people come to love music – through authentic, intentional connection.  It is not by learning a set of skills specific to an instrument, hearing something that is beautiful, or writing one’s own piece of music.  All of these are done merely to find that connection, the one that made us feel unmistakably yet gratefully human.  Yes, this connection may be primarily to the music, but that music would not exist in its viscerally evocative state without the authenticity and intentionality of its creators.

Music is a living art, one that exists only with the breath and pulse of humans.  Therefore, its existence depends solely on our intention in giving it life.  If we as musicians intend to pay homage to a composer or performer or exercise our own artistic brawn, we have done nothing but become curators in the museum of music.  When our music has the intention of inspiring life and feeling in others, then we have done our job.  In this model, music becomes a vessel for human connection.  And really, what other reason is there to play music?