[ Poem ] Music is an equation

Name: Music is an equation

Most believe that music is an art. I couldn’t agree more that they are, in fact, correct. But to me it’s something more mathematical.

Music is a way of bringing sound up to the level in which it strikes the pleasure zone of the listener. It’s supposed to lull the swift beating heart into a dull pulsing trance. It’s supposed to explore the dark corners of the mind and expose hidden emotions. It’s there to whisper in your ear of beauty and grandeur. But the writer needs to write the notes and lyrics first, before any of that can reach the listener.

To a writer, music is like a mathematical equation. The x’s are the variables that create the swings and bends in the instrument and voice of the singer. The y’s are the factors that bring the emotion into play so that the person listening can experience what the writer had felt. Add the x’s to the y’s and through the gap in the equals sign you get the final product. The final product is also the finished song; and the finished song is actually a new creation that the writer has just concocted.

Now that the song is created comes the process of taking it off of the page and performing the music. From the haunting twangs of the guitar: to the divine rifts of the piano. The instruments tweak and twist the written song to fit their needs and specifications. Then the voice comes into play. The singer lips form each and every word in the song with absolute execution. The singer matches their voice to the music and the instruments match the music to the written song thus creating another equation. A+B+C=D. A is the written song. B is the instrument’s altercations. C is the singer’s matching. Then D is the final product.

The final product, D, comes forth effortlessly when all components are in tune. When all components are in tune it means that the music is in sync. When the music is in sync that means the newest and greatest creation of the writer’s abilities has been heard by the listener. When the listener has heard the writer’s creation it means that the equations were written beautifully; step by step the equations did their jobs. The x plus the y equals A; A equals to B; B plus A equals to C; C plus B plus A equals to D, and D equals to the perfected final product.

Music may be an art to most people, but in a mind not unlike my own it is a series of equations that eventually sum up to a beautiful song.