Creative Musical Arts

“Music is what feelings sound like.” —Anonymous

When I ask my MUM students about the purpose of writing songs, they usually say that it is to communicate feelings. That launches a class discussion which goes something like this:

I argue that when someone rants on about their love or their sadness, while plunking a guitar, this is also a communication of feelings, which is exactly what they just described. Is it?

No, they say, a song is not the same thing as just any random telling of emotions. A song is an art! So I ask them to take this into account in their statements, and they write something like this: The purpose of songwriting is to communicate feelings in an artistic way, which gives them depth, beauty and power.

This begs the question, how exactly does that process occur? We do some reading on the subject. Joni Mitchell provides great food for thought:

“You could write a song about some kind of emotional problem you are having, but it would not be a good song, in my eyes, until it went through a period of sensitivity to a moment of clarity. Without that moment of clarity to contribute to the song, it’s just complaining.” —Joni Mitchell

We take apart her statement: “Complaining” is obviously not very charming or deep. To get past this superficial point, a good songwriter has to take his/her emotion through a “period of sensitivity” — a process of refinement. The process is complete once it reaches a specific goal, a “moment of clarity.” Someone comes up with a great analogy: “At first, the emotion is like a rough piece of coal, which the songwriter then polishes into a clear diamond.”

We try to visualize the “period of sensitivity to a moment of clarity.” How might one draw the layers of emotions, from coarse to very refined, to the final moment of clarity?

As the students draw, it dawns on them that their drawings describe the inner process of refinement that is intimately familiar to anyone who practices the Transcendental Meditation Technique. This practice effortlessly allows the mind to settle inward and experience finer and finer levels of thought, until even the finest thought is transcended and the very source of thought — pure awareness — is experienced (see image on the right).

That pure awareness is our innermost Self. Being the source of thought, it is also the source of emotion, creativity, clarity, and all other qualities of consciousness.

The correlation is evident. Since emotion is an aspect of thought, the refinement of thought brings about a corresponding refinement of emotion — Joni’s “period of sensitivity.” And her “moment of clarity,” from a Consciousness-Based perspective, could easily correspond to the inner Self, which is experienced in its pure state when even the finest thought has been transcended.

Joni Mitchell appears to have had spontaneous moments of great inner clarity, which informed her legendary artistry and depth of heart. The experience of transcending is of course a universal, human experience, not limited to those who practice TM.

Several students say they have had the same profound experience as songwriters or in other fields of life. But they find it very elusive. Although it is natural, it can’t be forced. That’s why TM works so well — it is completely effortless. It simply allows the mind to follow its natural tendency to settle toward its own source, and it does so systematically.

Some students mention that after learning Transcendental Meditation, they noticed their creativity expanding. This is because this technique also systematically develops our awareness, so that the refinement and clarity become more and more infused into daily activity. Then we can count on them to be there, effortlessly and spontaneously, when we write a song, solve a problem, talk to a friend, etc.

In conclusion, students re-write their definition of the purpose of songwriting once more, this time more like this: “The purpose of the art of songwriting is to refine and ultimately transcend emotions, and let the inner clarity, beauty, and power of pure consciousness shine forth. This rocks!”