An Arpeggio of “Aha” moments
Do you know what is an “Aha” moment? It is not a moment when you learn something completely new. No, such moments are restricted to things that you think you know (whether consciously or subconsciously), but actually don’t know. These are those light-bulb moments that suddenly illuminate a darkened room in which you had been roaming for quite some time, and you end up realising that the origami plants on the window were in fact organic (I cannot deny the possibility of some of you having an “aha” moment on reading the definition of the moment itself).
One doesn’t usually get many such moments while reading. That is because we rarely pick up books on such topics since we subconsciously feel we already know about it. So, for example, most of the science books I have read taught me new things, but almost none have made me reinterpret things I already knew, to the extent this book has. One must note that the simple moments when you understand something are radically different from light-bulb moments. For example if someone were to explain, to those of us who have never played drums, why the notes of the bass drums last so much shorter than the notes of the cymbals, we will get the feeling of having understood something new, but it will never be that light-bulb moment, for we aren’t familiar with the instrument. But if you explain the same thing to someone who has played the instrument for some time, he will start nodding vociferously with a wide grin on his face. Say hello to the “aha” moment.
Pardon me if I have spent too much time explaining a term (the “aha” moment) which many people, including some of my friends, find very irritating. But this is really a crucial aspect of my experience of reading this book. As the pages turn, Powell builds up the lay-person’s theory of music, starting from notes, the alphabets of music.
Do you know what is a note? It is any sound which has a repeating waveform – which basically means our ears receive the same information again and again many times a second. This often, though not necessarily, has a physical basis. For example, when you hit your table, it will also produce a note for the layers and particles of wood will always vibrate in the same way (provided you hit at the same point with a similar force each time). That is why most of the solid objects give, more or less, the same sound on being hit again and again. Some of these notes will be crystal clear (like tapping a piece of good quality glass) while others we will hardly characterise as notes (like asbestos) – but that is because they aren’t producing notes but noises, which are themselves a chaotic combination of notes (and a different set each time you hit them) due to which there is no repeating pattern as such.
From notes emerges the idea of the octave (do you know the relation between the various notes in an octave?); the relations between the notes in an octave lead us to keys (do you know what major and minor keys really are? Theoretically there are many other possible keys, many of which have been tried at different points in history, and the fact that just two survive today is an example of musical evolution over the ages); keys lead us to chords, and chords to symphonies.
The fact that Powell has a great sense of humour adds to the experience of reading the book. It is not uncommon to find authors who try to sound funny but fail miserably. Thankfully though, Powell has a great sense of timing and execution in this regard and this lifts up his exposition by a few notches.
Reading this book was like walking into the kitchen with the chef as he told you the recipe of your favourite dish, and although you can’t make the dish yourself, you are still able to grasp the importance of each item, and its role in the final dish.
Now I know why the sound of a violin is much more rich and complex than that of a flute; why major keys seem to sound cheerful and minor keys sad; what exactly the role of a conductor in an orchestra is, and loads of other such things.
If you had asked me, a fortnight back, why plucking a particular guitar string at different places, without changing the fret, produces different sounds, I would have stared at you with a lost expression, and then blurted some random physical reason, in which I myself didn’t believe one bit. But now, I can tell you it is because plucking at different places leads to the generation of different combinations of harmonics, leading to a different sound.
Reading this book has enabled me to see an art form from a very close perspective. Many people love music, most of them listen to it passively, and that is not because they don’t want to be active listeners – they just don’t know how to interpret the structure of a given musical piece. This book is doing a great job of turning passive listeners to active listeners.
Talking about structure, there is one aspect in which the book does fall behind a bit. Towards the end the author tries to take up some topics, but does not cover them to the extent needed. As a reader I felt I would be learning them in slightly more detail, because of the importance of the topics chosen, but they are handled in a rushed, almost forced, manner.
However, that should not take anything away from the lucidity of the rest of the book and I am sure that by the time you finish reading it, you will learn a lot of new things you previously had no clue about – including why I chose this specific title for this review.