I’ve found myself listening to music much less frequently this past week, though I’m not burned out on music as I’ve also been composing more. I think I must simply be enjoying a break from my habit of nearly continuous music in my apartment. (I didn’t decide to stop listening to music one day; it just sort of happened.) The experience has made me wonder if music is sometimes overplayed in our lives, if the incessant and continuous sounds cause the art to lose its significance. For me, at least, musical experiences have been some of my most profound spiritual moments, both as a performer and as an audience member. This sacred experience of music has nothing to do with religious or faith tradition, for music is a way for human beings to communicate and share with each other when words fall short.

In some of the world’s dwindling tribal societies, music is not an industry. Instead of individual consumption of personal musical tastes, music is a communal experience as part of celebration or ceremony that shapes a shared cultural mythology. The power of music comes from the interaction between performers and participants, and in this type of musical celebration no one is a bystander. Furthermore, community events such as this are one of the only times to hear music, as the lack of recording technology and portable playback devices limits non-ceremonial music to the recreational activities of musicians. In a way, the sanctity of music is guarded in such a society by limiting musical consumption to sacred venues. Sacred music in our society, on the other hand, is constantly diluted with profane (commercial?) music, blurring the line between the two.

This is not to say that our culture has too much music, but my current experiment with silence has caused me to wonder if a constant barrage of music deadens our senses and devalues our perception of the art as a whole. I’m sure I’ll eventually return to my habits of music consumption, but for now silence is golden.