A heavy wall of silence presses down and fills the ears of the deaf, but when this wall crumbles and hearing is restored, a smile of great joy breaks out. The rhythmic ticking of a clock, the chirping of birds or the gentle throbbing of a heartbeat rushes in through the ears and floods the soul like a refreshing stream.
Bright sunny days will soon return to Maine, and the residents of Bangor must choose which sounds are healthful and life-giving and which sounds are bad.
Man makes music according to a threefold division present in nature. Rhythm is found in the patter of raindrops, harmony in the rapidly beating wing of the bee and melody in the shared song of birds, which find courage through singing to rise up each morning and meet the day.
Music also finds a threefold division in the nature of man. Rhythm, as in the rhythmic process of breathing, belongs to the body of man. Harmony, which reconciles and unites man to the cosmos, belongs to the soul; and melody, which is a joining of mind and emotion, to the spirit. Man takes the sounds of nature and makes out of these something finer. When music is at its best, the sound approaches the divine.
Yet rhythm may travel in the opposite direction, down toward the earth, and back towards the body. Efficiency experts learned long ago that a steady, clocklike rhythm improves a worker’s productivity; and modern music has echoes of the rhythmic clang and rattling hum of electric machinery. Certain rhythms may also be soothing and beneficial to one’s health, as in the case of three-quarter waltz time, or unsettling, when two conflicting rhythms are used together.
The effect of music on the mind and soul of man is of greater importance. No one can dispute that music is used to create a certain emotional state and thereby affect behavior. The beat of the drum calls the soldier to war; elevator music calms and soothes the crowds at shopping malls; and movie soundtracks alternately instill joy and fear.
Once the desired emotion is created, the lyrics tell us how and where the emotion is to be applied. Our rousing national anthem urges us to defend our flag in the heat of battle; the lyrics to John Lennon’s “Imagine” counsel peace. Surely the worst possible music, if it can be called music at all, is that which eliminates melody and harmony, that is, the function of mind and soul, and counsels anti-social behavior to the accompaniment of a pounding rhythm.
Such music may be protected by the First Amendment, but there can never be any legal or moral right to fill a city with reverberating bass and thundering obscenities, just as there can never be any right to shout in a neighbor’s ear. This, after all, runs counters to the purpose of noise ordinances that secure the peace and tranquility of a community. And it is the bass and the rhythm that travel farthest and makes the ground shake under our feet.
The perception of loudness is inseparable from the quality of the music. When Bangor was truly a venue for fine music, the Maine Music Festival held in the very first Bangor Auditorium in October 1897 featured Maine’s Lillian Norton, “The Lily of the North,” accompanied by an orchestra and choir of hundreds. When the resplendent Lily of the North rose to sing her opera song with tenderness and dignity, no one complained about the noise. One cannot imagine a shining choir of angels as ever singing too loudly.
Yet any song with a threatening, obscene or anti-social message is always too loud. Even if the noise of open-air concerts is substantially reduced, Bangor must seek music that expresses the values of our land and people, and imparts the right character to its citizens.
Fritz Spencer of Old Town is former editor of the Christian Civic League RECORD.