Soul Music

This relates to my (Merlin's) post on the definition of "narrative." My Father once made a very insightful statement concerning music that relates to the movement which characterizes narrative (I did not actually hear this one myself, it was related to me by Pauli and our friend Nathan). He said: Rhythm appeals to the body, Harmony to the mind and melody to the soul. This is basically the 3 parts of the soul found in Ron, Hermione and Harry ... but the important thing is that movement is what relates to/connects with the soul. For, you see, rhythm is regularity in a movement but it really does not "go" anywhere in and of itself in that it does not have with in it some telos/end/goal/resolution to which it travels; and Harmony has a resolution but it appears "statically" as it were, all at once. Only melody achieves a harmony among different notes by moving through them sequentially in a certain way. .... So melody contains both elements of rhythm (it has a particular meter and tempo etc) and elements of harmony (it has harmonic resolution) and thus really is like the "golden soul" of alchemy as the unifying bond between the biological soul (body) and intellectual soul (mind). This is one of the things that is uniquely human. Animals and vegetables have (respectively) sensate and vegetative souls (life forces) that are both forms of the biological soul; Angels have intellect because they are purely spirits (no bodies); but humanity alone has the "golden soul" of alchemy that is a unity between the biological and intellectual, the physical and spiritual. Movie Music (the artistry of John Williams) It really is the way I said in my new definition of narrative, that the movement itself of the chronology of a narrative has a unique identity. Dominic is much more of a music head than I am - he used to play trombone in marching band and all and learned a good bit of theory, I just sort of "rocked out" in a band for a bit LOL - but he showed me once that in the Star Wars Universe John Williams (composer) has some "hidden clues" type of stuff. For instance, the main melody to the "triumphal song" (I don't know the real name of it) at the end of Phantom Menace is the same note intervals (but in a major key) as the Emperor's Theme from Return of the Jedi. - Same harmonic elements, with very different feels carried across by the movement of the music. Likewise, The main theme Williams wrote for the Harry Potter Movies is almost identical (at least the first two phrases in each) with that of Schindler's Theme from Schindler's List (also, of course, done by Williams). Post-Script Speaking of my father and music - I had a very enjoyable time recording music with him over this Thanksgiving weekend; we do mainly old Gospel and folk type stuff when we get together, Johnny Cash type stuff.