Observations on Music from an Uncommon Man

While organizing books near the top shelf in my office this weekend I discovered that I had a copy of Aaron Copland's Music and Imagination. Those familiar with the myriad books about Bob Dylan will recall that Sean Wilenz's Bob Dylan In America opens with a whole chapter devoted to this composer who has been referred to as the "Dean of American Music." 

As I read the opening chapter of Copland's book I was impressed with how much his ideas resonated with me. We don't listen to music to pass tests or properly understand musical notation. We listen to enjoy. Music lifts us, comforts us, releases us, takes us places and sweeps us away in the swirl of our imaginations. 

Here is the opening page of Copland's rich little volume.

THE MORE I LIVE the life of music the more I am convinced that it is the freely imaginative mind that is at the core of all vital music making and music listening. When Coleridge put down his famous phrase, "the sense of musical delight, with the power of producing it, is a gift of the imagination," he was referring, of course, to the musical delights of poetry. But it seems to me even more true when applied to the musical delights of music. 

An imaginative mind is essential to the creation of art in any medium, but it is even more essential in music precisely because music provides the broadest possible vista for the imagination since it is the freest, the most abstract, the least fettered of all the arts: no story content, no pictorial representation, no regularity of meter, no strict limitation of frame need hamper the intuitive functioning of the imaginative mind. 

In saying this I am not forgetting that it has its disciplines: its strict forms and regular rhythms, and even in some cases its programmatic content. Music as mathematics, music as architecture or as image, music in any static, seizable form has always held fascination for the lay mind. But as a musician, what fascinates me is the thought that by its very nature music invites imaginative treatment, and that the facts of music, so called, are only meaningful insofar as the imagination is given free play. It is for this reason that I wish to consider especially those facets of music that are open to the creative influences of the imagination.

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Four Aaron Copland quotes

So long as the human spirit thrives on this planet, music in some living form will accompany and sustain it.
--Aaron Copland, Music as an Aspect of the Human Spirit (1954).

The composer who is frightened of losing his artistic integrity through contact with a mass audience is no longer aware of the meaning of the word art.

--Aaron Copland

If you want to know about the Sixties, play the music of The Beatles.

—Aaron Copland

For me, the most important thing is the element of chance that is built into a live performance. The very great drawback of recorded sound is the fact that it is always the same. No matter how wonderful a recording is, I know that I couldn't live with it--even of my own music--with the same nuances forever.

--Aaron Copland, Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music

This latter quote brings to mind Bob Dylan's approach to performance art.

 

Uncommon

I have been currently listening to Tony Dungy's follow up to his first #1 NYTimes Bestseller Quiet Strength. I'd last year read Dungy's first book, an impressive, thoughtful re-telling of his life story, from aspiring athlete to Super Bowl winning coach. The lessons had relevance far beyond the scope of football. It was a book about life and ultimate values. Uncommon is Dungy's sequel, an appeal to men as regards what it takes to live significantly in a culture that conspires to drag us down, make us one of the herd.

In his introduction he share two stories which prompted him to write this book. One is the story of a black man who had a promising life ahead of him, who through a momentary lapse of sense ended up in prison. The second is of a young white youth who likewise ended up in prison as a result of a temporary lapse in judgment. Both, from Central Indiana, each of them seeing all of their dreams erased by stupid impulsive decisions.

Dungy no doubt earned the right to get his first book published by winning a Super Bowl for the Indianapolis Colts. His story is compelling and original, a story of achievement while swimming upstream as an early black coach in the NFL. He makes no effort to conceal the Christian faith and values that sustained and motivated his aspirations to excel, not only as a coach but as a husband, father, and role model. Uncommon builds on this, echoing the challenges he faced.

Here's a review of the book from Amazon.com:

Super Bowl–winning coach and #1 New York Times best selling author Tony Dungy has had an unusual opportunity to reflect on what it takes to achieve significance. He is looked to by many as the epitome of the success and significance that is highly valued in our culture. He also works every day with young men who are trying to achieve significance through football and all that goes with a professional athletic career—such as money, power, and celebrity. Coach Dungy has had all that, but he passionately believes that there is a different path to significance, a path characterized by attitudes, ambitions, and allegiances that are all too rare but uncommonly rewarding. Uncommon reveals lessons on achieving significance that the coach has learned from his remarkable parents, his athletic and coaching career, his mentors, and his journey with God. A particular focus of the book: what it means to be a man of significance in a culture that is offering young men few positive role models.

Being a football fan over the years, I enjoyed the stories of coaches who were influential in his own development, especially Chuck Noll and Tom Landry. Noll led the Steelers to four Super Bowl championships, and Landry transformed the Cowboys in to what became known as "America's Greatest Team." Anecdotally, in 1976 I briefly dated a girl from Pittsburgh and while walking through a suburban neighborhood near her home she said, "That's Chuck Noll's house." Instinctively I touched the mailbox, as if some kind of success karma would rub off onto my fingertips. As Dungy notes, success did not change Noll. He was an ordinary man who achieved extraordinary things, yet remained in his quiet suburban neighborhood and did not take flight to a hoity toity part of town.

As for the book, Tony Dungy's appeal is to each of us, but especially to young men with their lives ahead of them, to weigh their choices and to walk the road less travelled. Conscientious service-oriented lives not only prove more rewarding for ourselves but are necessary to make our world a better place. This is a man who knows whereof he speaks.