One cannot underestimate the role of music as a device for the desensitizing and conditioning of modern society. There is nothing new in the concept that music has the power to adjust and channel the collective consciousness of massive groups of people.
It is amazing to notice that, even in the days of philosophers like Plato and Socrates, they had a profound understanding and respect for the tremendous influence that music can have on its listeners. Much of their research was based solely on the practice of careful observation (a method which is still most successfully employed today); tracing certain musical influences and using the cause to effect principles of critical deduction. Plato, for example, observed the effect that music had on society in his day and made this thought provoking statement. "In order to take the spiritual temperature of an individual or society, one must mark the music."
Socrates also did extensive study into the effects of music, recognizing its potential as an instrument of indoctrination and character development:"Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful." He also understood the significance of training while still in the time of youth. ". . . now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to know the reason why" (The Republic of Plato, translated by Benjamin Jowett. Oxford Clarendon Press, 1888, page 88)
One can gauge the seriousness of Socrates" view on certain musical modes by the following statement:
"Any musical innovation is full of danger to the whole state, and ought to be prohibited . . . when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the state always change with them."
(Aristotle, The Politics, translated by T. A. Sinclair, revised by T. J. Saunders, London: Penguin, 1981, book 8, section 5, page 466)
It seems that Aristotle believed that Socrates was too liberal because he permitted the Phrygian mode to be added to the Dorian. Aristotle's view was that this combination made the music too orgiastic and emotional. Nevertheless, it is plain to see that both these philosophers viewed with extreme regard the immense power of music.
Perhaps some of the theories presented by these thinkers of yesterday may seem somewhat exaggerated by today's standards, especially when seen through the eyes of the liberated 90's. But perhaps, as one continues studying, the logic of old may start to make plenty of sense today.
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