I mentioned in my autobiographical post that I have been brought up in an extended family of musicians. I must admit that I find it difficult sometimes to receive a sense of the "sublime" from visual nature. Forests and deserts are impressively sublime due to their powerful vastness but that sense of beauty is quite fleeting for me. More often than not, I find myself focusing on little, disparate elements in their objective qualities - this or that tree, rock, or hill. Even the sunrise and the Moon lose their luster very quickly and become "normalized" into objects. Unlike Emerson who was almost neo-medieval (in seeing the natural things as almost sacramentals of an uncreated reality) or Platonist about seeing a transcendent unity in the multiplicity of nature, I have a difficult time seeing that in visual nature. Nature is quite calming since it creates distance between me as I am and all of my concerns and "baggage" as one emeshed in society. As I live on Rybolt Road in Ohio, I am familiar with the woods in front of my house. While I can certainly appreciate the simplicity, peace, and quiet solitude in nature, I find it difficult to find the transcendent in nature like Emerson can.
Music, however, is almost a spiritual experience for me - maybe because it is an intangible and cannot be stripped of its sublimity like a finite thing such as the Moon. My experience of Jazz music is distinct. Jazz and Swing are genres of human emotion percolating and overflowing, rising up from my stomach pit filling into my head. When I play such music on trumpet, sometimes I can barely keep from laughing while reading the music. Trumpet Voluntary and regal hymns make me feel as though I am swept up in a throng, filled with confidence. Softer, poignant music is transcendent, lifting the soul up and giving a sense of spiritual clarity. After music ends, the soul is dropped rudely back to Earth into its normal state - leaving a wake of memories behind.
(Unfortunately, I cannot post a picture of musical sound.)
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