Microstructures of feel macrostructures

In this reading, the author mentions that emotions play a huge part in the music. He questions how something as complex as emotions can be conveyed through something as simple as a drumbeat. This reminds me of the famous quote:

“To play a wrong note is insignificant; To play without passion is inexcusable” -Ludwig Van Beethoven.

My music mentors over the years have emphasized how important body language is; one of them would always tell us that people don’t only come to shows to listen to music, but also to watch so your body language has to be performative and in sync with your music. Through mastering the art of body performance, your music gets better. When a musician allows themselves to be immersed in the music, more often than not, they unconsciously start adding accents and decorative elements that enhance the music and give it a richer texture. This could be applied to each instrument in a different way, when it comes to the drums it’s through the motion of the hands and the intensity and speed of the contact with the drum.

Another important idea the author mentions is the importance of the rests. I am once again reminded of the famous quote:

“The music is not in the notes, but in the silence in between” – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

The presence of rests creates rhythm and beats. Without rests there would be no music, only noise. Based on my years as an orchestra chair, I can vouch for the importance of rests. If a rest is miscounted, players would play at the wrong time, the beat would be off, the accents would be on the wrong notes, the emotion invoked in the audience would be completely thrown off and everyone would lose their sync. To create a groovy beat, to invoke feelings in listeners, you have to pay immense attention to the rests. In the context of percussive beats, rests hold the power to make beats more or less interesting, by shifting rests a bit more grooviness can be achieved. This makes me wonder though how it compares to computer generated music, can we manipulate computers to convey the emotions? By randomizing and through the asynchronization of rests and beats, could we achieve the same results as human generated music? This raises bigger questions in my mind about whether human emotions are as simple as calculated tricks that can be programmed into a computer.