Mundane Magic: Sound

While I believe that our interactions with the world around us via our senses are small miracles in themselves, sound especially seems magical to me. Sound changes us.

The sudden jarring blare of music in a horror movie: the crying of a child: the laughter of a loved one: the pop of dry firewood on a quiet night. Sounds of man and nature. Music, in particular, moves us.



It can whip a crowd into a mob, or silence an audience of thousands as they listen in awe to the voice of one man or woman. I think most people who survived being a teenager have at some point just sat down by themselves to listen to music, either to change their mood or to amplify it. We listen by ourselves, or with friends, or strangers. Studies have been devoted to understanding how certain chords and progressions directly affect our minds and moods, as well as our ability to learn and remember things. Vibrations from the sounds we hear strike us, shaking the very molecules that make up our bodies.

Whether lyrical or instrumental, a song can affect us deeply. It’s no wonder that sound, musical or otherwise, holds a special place in pretty much every religion or practice. Ideas and emotions can be communicated not only by recorded sound, but by those repeating or performing a cover of a song or message.

In most Christian services, songs and hymns are offered up as praise to God. Some churches use chime and bell choirs in addition to vocals, and many churches still use large bells in their steeples - or at least speakers that play the sounds of bells.

it makes more sense in person.

And their not unique in that aspect. Many religions have chanting, and/or instruments in their services and practices. Bells, gongs, flutes, drums - and especially the human voice - all have special use and application during ceremonies, even if just for the spoken word.

I enjoy the Buddhist belief regarding certain chants - specifically, “Om Mani Peme hung” (spelled and pronounced a number of ways). It is believed that you don’t even need to understand this mantra to benefit from it: that just by seeing it written (even if you can’t read it!), or hearing it, that it benefits and affects you. It’s sort of like the ancient, much less annoying version of The Game.

You're welcome.

I think this is a really good concept, because it’s true about a number of sounds - if you hear someone blaring metal music, you don’t need to understand the lyrics to get the idea of what’s being played: similarly, if someone plays relaxing music in another language, you don’t need to know what’s being sung to be soothed. Granted, there are Christian metals bands, and there are some very creepy songs with very creepy lyrics sung in very soothing or cheerful tones. Typically this sort of thing is an anomaly to a genre, meant to be ironic or against the norm. The idea that enjoyment or understanding of a song can take place without understanding of spoken word has been around about as long as music itself, I’d imagine.

"Music is the universal language of mankind." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Even the deaf can feel the vibrations of a song and be affected by it. I think that in this way, music is a pretty example of ‘mundane’ magic - something wonderful that passes all boundaries of language, gender, race or religion.