JUNE 7, 2022 – (Cont.) It was entitled generically, An Introduction to Western Classical Music, and I’d composed it, so to speak, off the top of my head after the friend—unfamiliar with much of any classical music but curious about it nonetheless—had asked me for some recommendations. Somewhere I possessed a copy of the essay, which would’ve greatly enhanced my conversation with the alien, but as I flushed the toilet, so went any hope of finding the essay without a lengthy search.
Plan B. I’d have to jump on YouTube, search for a few pieces and play them on my laptop. I took an inordinate time to wash my hands as I riffled through my mental hard drive and hastily assembled a playlist.
“What I’ve decided to do,” I said, “is pull up some pieces of music that in composition and rendition qualify as our ‘best stuff.’”
“Hmmm,” murmured the alien.
“First up,” I said, “to get our feet—er filaments?—wet, is a short piece by a German genius of the 17th and 18th centuries, J.S. Bach, performed by a Canadian genius of the 20th century, Glenn Gould. It’s Invention No. 8 in F Major from a collection of 30 practice pieces called Two-Part and Three-Part Inventions.”
I clicked on the play button ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQot-jM6FSw (from 40:56 to 42:00)) and watched intently for the alien’s reaction as the eccentric Mr. Gould worked his magical touch on the keyboard of a Steinway grand—the “best stuff” of pianos. From the first two bars to the conclusion of the piece, the alien’s filaments pulsated in perfect time with the music.
“More!” the alien cried when the piece ended.
“You liked it!” I said, relieving unrealized stress. “Isn’t it a thrill to hear such a thing?”
“Huh?”
“A thrill. Isn’t it thrilling to hear a great work like that performed by a great artist?” I was puzzled to say the least. The alien had registered a strikingly positive reaction, only to undercut it a moment later with a questioning grunt.
“I don’t know that ‘thrill’ is the right term,” said the alien. “What interests me, however, is the structure of the sound waves of what you just played. I’ve traveled far and wide across your galaxy, my galaxy, and many galaxies in between, and I’ve never encountered such a constellation of sound waves. I think you’ve got something here.”
I congratulated myself on modest success—thus far. “Interesting that you should focus on structure,” I said. “Bach was a genius at the structure of music, and the group of 30 Inventions from which the sample was played, comprise good examples of how Bach’s mind worked. It was exceptionally mathematical, and over the generations since Bach, geniuses of all sorts have parsed and analyzed his music in much the same fashion as problems of higher math would be analyzed and solved.
“And yet . . . the Bach’s Inventions were composed for a very practical application, as a teaching guide for students. To this day, any intermediate piano student has mastered the patterns—the structure—of the piece you heard and performed it proficiently, if not intellectually or musically, at a year-end student recital. (Cont.)
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© 2022 by Eric Nilsson
