Music is sometimes described as organized noise. The basic elements of music are rhythm, harmony and melody, all inter-related. The most familiar concept to non-musicians is melody, which is composed of rhythm, steps and intervals. The steps are often parts of scales. A scale has been aptly defined as “a way up or a way down”. Intervals can be large or small, but the majority of intervals are wide (large).
Life is also composed of rhythm, harmony and melody. The day-to-day progression of life is similar to a scale, in that the steps are small and many. Life intervals are the major events: birth, graduation, promotion, buying a house. As both scales and intervals go in both directions, intervals can also involve death or serious injury, failure, losing the house. For people who suffer from manic depression or bipolarity, I would guess that their perception of intervals overshadows their perception of scales. The intervalic events of life are possibly not mitigated by the minor (scalar) changes in the opposite direction. Alternatively, scalar events are somehow interpreted as intervalics. While “normal” people have relatively few large leaps in life, a person suffering from violent mood swings will usually have mostly intervalic changes, possibly several in a given day.
Dealing with change is more difficult than dealing with stasis. Stasis is not something that lasts very long. In fact, in nature, there is no real stasis, only growth and decay. Stasis being short and transitory, dealing with change may be the optimal survival skill of our times. The more changes in music, the more challenging it is to play.The rate of technological evolution is multiplying. The world is a significantly different place for each subsequent generation, unlike, say, 100 years ago. The future will belong to those who not only master change, but thrive in it.
Start practicing now.
