Of all man’s forms of communication, there is one which stands above the rest, one which penetrates deepest into our souls, which unravels effortlessly our emotions, which transcends us above the confines of time and guides us to a higher essence. It’s not as esoteric as quantum healing or ethereal magic. It’s music.

Music lets us envision possibilities and worlds without mundane limits. We can imagine ourselves in any circumstance, hypnotize and galvanize ourselves to greater potential, and best of all, it’s not some illegal drug. My former piano teacher described music as the best medicine. I’d add that cures all. It can be translated into shapes, colors, mathematics²—really, anything the mind or soul desires³—and in doing so, it transcends both external limitations and its intrinsic definition. Our senses blend together, creating a new realm of existence, from Rimsky-Korsakov’s bee army to Heino Kaski’s waving waterscape. Music transports us to worlds unknown, perfect depictions thereof, and has done so for centuries—and virtual reality is still struggling with getting the images to look realistic!

It directly hits our hearts, as it is sheer vibration and frequency, and when fired upon us correctly, with good aim and precision, produces a resounding effect deep within, a depth scarcely broached by thoughts, visuals, and other forms of interaction. In this sense it has bypassed any barriers and gone straight into us. Isn’t music then a most powerful weapon we can leverage for our own improvement, for others’ as well? What’s more, this power is expressed through simple mathematics, so it is pure; the same way math is the essence of the universe is the same way music is a pure expression of that essence of the universe. Given these properties, music is the best mechanism we have for creative imagination—that which we naturally output when we wish simply to express ourselves.

For me, the greatest form of music is with piano—the most versatile instrument, that said to have the ability to replicate all instruments in an orchestra and accompany a voice well. The complexity of 88 notes and 2 hands has produced unmatched possibilities for expression, more perhaps than the number of Weiqi games possible⁴, offering the utmost spectrum of the universe’s possibilities. Such grandness was noted by Sun Tzu 25.5 centuries ago, when he wrote “There are not more than five musical notes, yet the combinations of these five give rise to more melodies than can ever be heard.”⁵ And piano represents only a fraction of humanity’s musical expressions.

If we enjoy the thought of infinite wonder, then we should endear ourselves to music, for it is transcendental, it is beautiful, it is the rightful ruler of our hearts.

Footnotes

¹ A reference to the hymn “For the Beauty of the Earth” by Folliott Pierpoint.

² and in so doing, is perfect for the Triplex Mindset!

³ The relationship between mind/soul/body is a subject for another article.

⁴ which is an astronomically large number. Also, you might know Weiqi by its Japanese name, Go.

⁵ referencing Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”, chapter V: Energy, the Lionel Giles/Barnes and Noble 2013 translation.