Music

At the beginning of the creation of mankind there was no language that we have now, only music existed. At first, the human expressed his thoughts and feelings with low and high, short and continuous sounds. The depth of his voice spoke of the strength and power, while the pitch expressed love and wisdom. The human communicated his sincerety and insincerety, his goodwill or dislike, his pleasure or displeasure with a variety of musical expressions.

Gathering into groups, the sounds created words, which communicated different meanings for different methods of expression. Gradually, the music turned into the language, but the language never freed itself from the music. The language is a simplification of the music; the music is hidden in it, just like the soul is hidden in the body; each time the language was simplified, it lost some part of its music. 

The study of the ancient traditions shows that the first divine messages were given in songs, such as the Psalms of David, the Song of Solomon, Ghats of Zoroaster and Krishna's Gita. As the complexity of the language grew, the poetry appeared. Some parts of the Vedas, Puranas, The Ramayana, The Mahabharata, The Avesta, Kabbalah and The Bible are written in verse,  as well as various works of art and science in the ancient languages. On the next stage people freed the language from the bonds of the rhythm and created prose from poetry, but all the prose consists of music as well. 

The art of music in the East is called "Kala" and has three aspects: vocal, instrumental and expressing movement. Vocal music is considered the highest art, because it is natural. No matter how perfect strings are, they can't make the same impression on a listener as the voice, which comes right from the soul, just like breath, and is brought to the surface with the help of the mind and vocal apparatus. When the soul wants to express itself in a voice, it activates the mind, and the mind with the help of thoughts produces subtle vibrations on the mental level. They develop properly and go in the form of breath through the abdomen, lungs, mouth, throat and nasal organs, causing the air to vibrate all the time until they show up on the surface in the form of the voice. That is why the voice naturally expresses the position of the mind, true or false, sincere or insincere. The voice has the magnetism that the instrument lacks, because the voice is an ideal natural instrument, in the form of which all the other instruments of the world are modelled. 

Although the sound of the instrument cannot be produced by the voice, the instrument is still completely dependent on the human. There is no such thing that can't serve as a sound transmitter, although the tone appears more clearly through a sonorous body than through a solid one, since the former is open to vibrations, while the latter is closed. Things which give clear sound demonstrate the life, whereas solid objects, full of material, seem dead. Resonance is the preservation of the tone; in other words, it produces a bounce echo tone.

All instruments are created according to this principle, the only difference lies in the quality and quantity of the tone, which depend on the design of the instrument. Percussion instruments such as the tablah or the darbuka are suitable for practical music, while stringed instruments, such as the sitar, the violin or the harp are designed for artistic music.

The effect of instrumental music on the listener depends on the level of the evolution of a human, who expresses the degree of his development through the tips of his fingers with an instrument; in other words, his soul speaks via the instrument. The state of human mind can be read by the way he touches the instrument; however great an expert he is, but with the help of pure skill alone, without the developed internal sense, he will not be able to create elegance and beauty that appeal to the heart. 

The next in order of importance after vocal and instrumental music is the motor dance music. The movement is the nature of vibrations. Every movement contains thought and feeling. The movement is the sign of life, and it is precisely the accompanement that puts both the performer and the spectator in motion. The tuning and the rhythm tend to create the predisposition to a dance. Therefore, a dance is an elegant expression of thoughts and feelings without saying words.

The music of life demonstratec its melody and harmony in our everyday experience. Each spoken word is either true or false note in accordance with the scale of our ideal. One person's voice pitch is as hard as horn; whereas the one of the other is as mild as the notes of the flute. The gradual process of the entire creation from the lowest to the highest degree of evolution, its change from one dimension to another is seen as music, where the melody is transposed from one key to another. Friendship and enmity between people, their friendliness and dislikes are harmonies and dissonances. The harmony of the human nature and a tendency to attraction and repulsion are similar to the effect of consonant and dissonant intervals in music. Music is everywhere - just listen and you will hear... 

Excerpts with slight modifications from the book of I. Khan "The Mysticism of Sound" (Chapter 7 "Music")

The source: http://webcenter.ru/~smos