Music is a beautiful liberal art: Norman J Brodeur

Norman J Brodeur is a great musician of the era and is famous for his live music shows and also for sharing his views regarding music and making people aware of music and its connectivity with God and our Soul. Norman J Brodeur believes that music is that form of art which helps you to connect with God or with your loved one souls, it is that form of liberation that it can affect your mood and health instantly. In a recent interview conducted on the occasion of music festival Norman J Brodeur shares is views about how music is a form of liberal art.

Norman J Brodeur says that Music is pre-eminent among the arts for the order and clarity, the sharply defined character, of its elements. Music moves us, sometimes too overpowering emotion. It does so through well-defined structures, through an order of tones and rhythms. It is not the mere sound of drums but their rhythmic beating that stirs us. Here we come upon the central paradox of music, the paradox that defines music as a worthy object of sustained intellectual wonder: Music is the union of the rational and irrational, of order and feeling.

Ultimately, by shaping our feelings, music shapes the whole human being.

Ancient connectivity:

Norman J Brodeur makes it more clearly by giving ancient examples: we turn to the ancient Greeks, for whom music, far from being morally neutral, played a decisive role in moral education. Aristotle’s Politics ends with an extensive discussion of the proper moral and political uses of music and the effect of music on the souls of citizens. In the Republic, Plato draws our attention to the power music has over the young. He places special emphasis on the danger of music. The severity of his critique underscores what we, in our effort to excuse or defend music, often fail to acknowledge: that music is a great power and, like any great power, can be used for great good or great evil.

Norman J Brodeur argues why is music so emotionally powerful, far more powerful than the visual arts?

Plato provides a possible answer. In the Republic, he calls upbringing in music “most sovereign” because rhythm and concord “most of all sink down into the inmost part of the soul and cling to her most vigorously.” In experiencing music, we do not behold from a distance but drink in and incorporate. Some forms of music, so Plato claims, are conducive to the orderliness of soul and the love of grace and beauty; others indulge the baser passions and feed the lust for disorder and self-indulgence. Studying music as a liberal art gives students the opportunity to consider the possibility that Plato is right—that music is not limited to taste and enjoyment, but has a powerful influence on who we are and whether we are ennobled or debased.

Norman also talks about the beauty of music:

Norman J Brodeur says that the beauty of a great musical work is not always immediately evident. Sometimes it takes time, and training, to realize that it is beautiful. Students often say that a piece they did not like at first became one of their favorites with repeated experience of it. Their taste changed, not because they got used to something they didn’t like, but because an inherent quality eventually became apparent to them.

There is an ancient Greek saying: “Beautiful things are difficult.” This is true to our experience of beauty, which sometimes comes to us only if we make an effort to go to it.

Further, Norman says that Beautiful music pleases and sometimes challenges us with its intelligence, depth, and complexity. It does not please for the moment, but invites endless re-experience and return. The more we listen, the more we hear. And the more we study the music, the more reason we have to find it beautiful. The music unfolds in time and exhibits a delightful play of forces or tensions. In music, the question of beauty comes down largely to this perception of how musical forces conspire to form a whole. Great musical works exploit these tensions to the fullest.

Norman J Brodeur concluded with the interview by saying that he hopes the love of music and its beauty will nourish the love of knowledge and truth. Thank you so much, Norman J Brodeur for spreading love and awareness regarding music.

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