All music, at the most basic level, is made up of relationships between pitches (sound vibrating at specific frequencies). These relationships can be thought of as forms, and can be described in many ways: as notes on a staff, as midi data, as number ratios.

 

While other types of art represent forms using physical matter: with brushstrokes on a canvas, the carving of stone, the shaping of clay; music is unique in that its forms are expressed across the canvas of time. Music is by nature ephemeral - it only truly exists in the moment.

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In music, forms are carried across the canvas of time by energy. Sound, at the most basic level, is energy; and for music to exist, it requires a constant source of energy. The breath that sustains the human voice, the hand striking a drum, the bow drawn across the string - each of these carry music like a thread through time. Music, just like the universe, is in constant motion; in a way, it is motion. When the movement stops, music ceases to exist.

 

Because everything in the universe is vibrating, music is occurring around us and through us every second. Just as the relationships of things in the physical universe can be represented through numbers, they can be mirrored in relationships between pitches. These relationships carry specific meanings, or archetypes. Through our own creation of music we are capable of imitating, within the range of frequencies audible to humans, the forms that exist around us at all times. It is no coincidence that music is capable of affecting us so deeply. When music imitates these universal relationships, it carries the power to remind us of deep metaphysical truths.