What is Music?

• Rylan Hefner

*Speaker stands behind the podium for 33 seconds in silence, using a stopwatch to keep track of time*

What is music? Well, that’s easy, it’s like a, uh… You know, like that thing where… I mean, it’s kinda the, um… huh. Okay, well maybe that’s not the best place to start. Let’s begin by defining what isn’t music. I started this speech by standing in silence for a period of time. That’s not music, right? No, of course not! It’s just silence, that’s not music. Is it? Well...

John Cage’s 1952 experimental composition, 4’33”, is one of the most controversial pieces ever written. You may not have heard it before, but you have witnessed part of a performance. I began this speech with a performance of the first movement of 4’33”, a composition that consists of exactly four minutes and 33 seconds of silence, the first movement being 33 seconds long. Many people argue that 4’33” is not a musical composition, because there is no music in it. But that all depends on how we define music. Unfortunately, as we discovered earlier, music is not an easy thing to define, so let’s try something else. A painter has purchased a canvas, and a new set of paints. They spend hours thinking of exactly how they want their art to look. They set up their easel, get out their brushes, and call it a day. They present their art: a blank canvas. The painter put thought into their creation, painted exactly what they wanted to, and took the time to create this piece of art. In my opinion, the same can be said about music. A performer walks onstage, and for four minutes and 33 seconds, performs silence. They put thought into their performance, performed all the sound they wanted to, and took the time to make their music.

Of course, you may not agree with me. You might think that “no, silence is not music.” But I’m not gonna tell you you’re wrong. I can’t. I don’t get to decide what is or is not music, nor does anyone else. When I asked the question “what is music,” you had an answer. You may not be able to put that answer into words, but you know what music is to you. Your ideas of what music is are just as valid as anyone else’s.

Humans are musical creatures. There is music in almost every part of our culture. It is so tied in with our lives, that our taste in music is, itself, a part of our identity. We surround ourselves with the music we like, the music that makes us feel good. That’s what we think of as music. So when someone comes along and says that your definition of music is incorrect, or that your favorite song isn’t actually music, that can feel invalidating. They are telling you that your definition of a piece of your identity is incorrect.

Humans are musical creatures. There is music in almost every part of our culture. It is so tied in with our lives that our taste in music is, itself, a part of our identity.

I struggled to define my identity for much of my life. I had a way to define myself to others, which seemed like enough. It was easy. No questions raised. No whispers, no rumors. It was so easy, I began to tell it to myself. I almost believed it. It didn’t seem like a lie, because I couldn’t tell myself the truth.

It was around this time three years ago that I finally listened. I heard music. Music that wasn’t there before, replacing the sound I had been forcing into my ears for 15 years. I was confused. Why hadn’t the music been there before? But it had. I just didn’t let myself listen. Whenever I heard the music, I refused to let myself acknowledge it. I knew my definition, and this music didn’t fit. But when I took the time to attend to the sounds of myself, it wasn’t the music that didn’t fit: it was the definition. And so, the definition fell away. Slowly, I let others hear my music. Piece by piece, person by person, note by note.

Not everyone listened. They heard my music, and called it noise. They heard my music, and sang it back to me, pumped full of dissonance. And as the blue hornets stung my ears with hate, I heard everything, but heard nothing. I did not hear silence, no, there was no music here. It was deafening. It was nothing. So I played my music. I had to drown out the nothing, even by filling it with silence. I played louder. I grew stronger than I was before. I listened to my own music, and played it for everyone to hear, even those who will not listen.

What is music? That all depends on how you define it. This is how I define my music. I am my own definition.

Uh-Oh /’ ,ō/ (exclamation):

Uh oh, uh oh uh oh! UH OH UH OH!!! Uh oh

UHHH OHHHH UH OH! Uh oh?

Dino /’dīnō/ (informal):

The best kind of animal. Remember the pterodactyl bones at the science museum? The pterodactyl is your favorite dino. You also had dino pajamas. Hanna Anderson didn’t make any with pterodactyls, but you still liked the ones with T-Rexes.

Red Shirt /red SH rt/ (noun):

The color of your favorite waffle shirt. You liked how the little ridges of the fabric felt, even though it was easier to get crumbs stuck on it. You liked how you looked like the red wiggle when you wore it, because you wanted to be him when you grew up.

Rake /rāk/ (noun): Your first instrument. You played it for hours like a guitar, it’s neon yellow and blue colors loud and bright, making up for its inability to produce sound. Later this year, you learned how to play a real instrument, but that rake was your first experience with music.

Dictionary by Perriam-Webster

• Per Johnson

I walked into my first lesson nervous, unsure of what to expect. I was only 4, and the imposing tan walls of the small church in Eagan was enough to make me want to turn right around. Inside, other kids, some as young as I was, some as old as 18, tuned and warmed up on their instruments. My mom walked me into a side room, where I met my first instructor: Helina Pakola.

Helina was an imposing character, loud, brash, and unafraid to intimidate her young students. Although my first lesson was just plinking along on a xylophone while the other kids played their violins, I soon learned that my violin training would be rigorous and breakneck. On my sixth lesson, she smashed her fists on the piano she was accompanying me with and screamed “GARBAGE” at my incapability. I worked harder after that.

e

Homophone /’häm ,fōn/ (noun):

A word you learned this year in kindergarten that made you feel smart. It was long, and you couldn’t really remember how to pronounce it, but your name was a homophone. Per. Pair. Pear. You thought this was the funniest thing, and taught your parents that night what a homophone is.

Moomin /moo min/ (proper noun):

A Finnish hippo-like troll you learned about from your teacher Ms. Ulla. She was from Finland, and liked to teach the class about Finnish culture. Your favorite part of the first grade was when she would bring Moomin Gum back from trip back to Finland to visit her family, because when the label on the gum said it was an acceptable substitute for brushing your teeth. You didn’t like brushing your teeth.

My first concert was that winter, where we played a few simplified Finnish folk songs and some Christmas carols. A moment I will never forget, Helina told us to “show them what we’re made of” before we walked on stage in our pointy elf hats and dress shirts. Her intensity was terrifying, but it certainly inspired me to practice.

An MPR interview with Pakola a few years after I switched instructors perfectly demonstrated her personality: “Oh, I only think there’s one way to live your life. You have to demand. From yourself as well as anyone else.”

***

I went to a wedding for the first time this year. My cousin was marrying her long-time boyfriend, and I was asked to accompany another violinist, a family friend. I accepted, learned the piece, and practiced it a few times with the other musician, Colin.

During the rehearsal the night before, Colin was running 30 minutes late, and the bride’s family was growing impatient. My mom told me to play something on the violin to cheer everyone up, but I didn’t know what to play. I asked, “what should I play?”

“Anything!” she responded.

I picked up my violin and started to play the main theme of Star Wars, one of my favorite movies as a fourth grader. The familiar booming melody echoed through the halls of the church, and despite being made for a 100 person orchestra, my ferocity on the tiny halfsize violin still made everyone laugh.

It was then I realized what music could do.

***

It was 2:30 in the morning, and I was lying awake, wide-eyed and terrified, in my bed, looking at Find My Friends on my phone. My mom had been feeling very unwell, so my dad rushed her back to the hospital, where she’d just been discharged after her kidney stone surgery a few days prior. Tears streamed down the side of my face and the phone screen blurred as my shoulders shook silently. My dad had texted me an hour earlier saying they’d be spending the night, but other than that I was in the dark.

Tracking the pulsing blue dot that was my mom’s phone, I tried to piece together what was happening. They were at Regions hospital, moving between wings for reasons unknown to me. At one point, it looked as though they crossed into the neighboring Ramsey Medical Examiner’s Office, and my heart stopped, fearing the worst. But eventually, the dot moved back into the hospital, and I started to breathe again, realizing it was probably just a glitch in the program.

I’d never been truly scared before that night. I put my earbuds in, turned on Tchaikovsky, and let the familiar opener of his first violin concerto put me to sleep.

Bite /bīt/ (verb):

When a game of tag gets a little too intense. You had your friend pinned into a corner on the school playground, and were about to tag him when he took a chomp out of your arm. It only left a tiny circle of bruises where the teeth had been, but your parents never really forgave him. You always thought it was kind of funny.

PG-13 /’pē ‘jē TH r’tēn/ (abbreviation):

An important rite of passage in your life. It was when you saw the Hobbit at the Rosedale AMC, your hand bandaged in bumblebee gauze after your sister closed a door on your fingers. You had done the math before leaving: you were only eight, and the movie was for thirteen year olds. This meant you were mature. This was only the beginning of your immense love for movies, and sitting in that slightly stained, crumb covered red cushy chair in the back row of the theater you felt right at home.

Reading /’rēdiNG/ (noun):

How you spent all your free time in fourth grade. You kept a book log at school, and competed with your classmates to read the most books. Chapter books were regulars in your rotation, and you read over 250 that year. Your favorites were Lord of the Rings, but you didn’t mind a little Calvin and Hobbes between such long books. Reading that much also made you a very competitive Scrabble player on Scrabble Fridays. Your best word was “flirting” for 98 points.

Change /CHānj/ (noun):

I lay on my bed, tossing the worn down blue and yellow Nerf ball through it’s tiny hoop on my wall. Today is like all days - nowhere to be, nothing to do,

You worried about it. Fifth grade marked the end of a chapter of your life you weren’t ready to move away from. Your friends were all going to different schools, and you didn’t know what your plan was. You wanted to go with them, but you didn’t live in the district their public school was in. You dreaded it all year, but when June came, you had to say goodbye.

Third Wheel /TH rd (h)wēl/

Making friends was hard. You didn’t really like anyone at your new school, and no one seemed to like you. After a few months of drifting, you found a few friends. It turned out that they had a crush on each other. What does it mean to date someone when you’re twelve? It means you ignore your friends. That whole year, you were ignored.

Aware

/ ‘wer/

To become politically awakened. It was about now you learned what a bad place the world really is. You learned about climate change, and how much of it was driven by corporate greed. You learned how many people in this country lack empathy, and how easy it was for a tyrant to rise to power. That whole November day, it was hard for you to speak. You could only cry.

Failure /’fāly r/

To have everything go wrong all at once. When this happens, it’s hard to focus on valence electrons in science class. When you got called to the teacher’s office to talk about how you had failed the test, you didn’t even care. But you also didn’t want to talk to anyone about it. That was the day after your grandfather had died. Your grandmother had died a few months prior. Your mother had been hospitalized for a month in 2018, and had nearly a dozen surgeries for a variety of medical issues. The house was quiet. You couldn’t focus in the vast silence.

Drama /’dräm /

Your first year of high school, when a crush is a promise, and a “secret” has no meaning. Collectively, everyone had all the information, but no one had all of it. Late nights texting friends, trading secrets, and apologizing became a norm that year. Lies and deceit between friends meant it was hard to talk to people without risking giving away information about them. Sometimes you told people things that hurt them. Sometimes you got hurt. By the end, some of you were happy, and some of you haven’t no one to see. I turn on my side and see my phone, charging on my desk. I consider calling a friend, seeing what they’re up to, but I realize it’s likely just the same for them.

I turn onto my back, and think about what I’d rather be doing. I’d rather be in my friends house playing music together, him on his baby grand and me on the violin, filling the house with the fieriness of Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3 in G Minor, and the soothing melodies of Beethoven’s Romance in F Major. We used to play like that for hours and hours on end, pausing only to figure out a rhythm or dissect a particularly challenging portion.

I think about how music used to seem a chore. My third grade diary recounts how “boring” violin is and how “I wish I had more free time.” Now, my whole existence is free time, and I long for the days I could spend it with friends, making music together.

Tired of living in the past, I walk across the blue striped carpet and take my Taylor off the guitar rack. I sit back down on my bed, and start to play the familiar pattern of “Dust in the Wind.”

Same old song,/ Just a drop of water in an endless sea./ All we do,/

Crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see./ Dust in the wind,/ All we are is dust in the wind./ talked since. You ended up happy. You still regret ninth grade.

Loneliness /’lōnlēn s/

How you feel when the people you love most get sucked away from you and there is nothing you can do about it. How you feel when you have hours and days and months to yourself, and only your thoughts to keep you company. Eventually, you can see them again, but only outside, only wearing masks, only six feet apart. Your parents say they understand, and try to support you. They don’t understand. Even you don’t truly understand. You just want things to be back to normal, to hug your friends, to sit down on the couch crowded with too many people and watch a crappy comedy on a Friday night at 8:30 when everyone is done with practice, just like you used to. But you can’t.

Music /’myoozik/

How you make yourself happy again. You played the violin for 12 years, and you still take lessons, but it doesn’t interest you anymore. You want more from music. You start taking virtual guitar lessons on Saturdays. You spend hours in your room with the door closed, practicing fingerpicking and how to get your hand to do a b minor bar chord, and you love it. You start playing the mandolin, which you hang on your wall. You add electric guitars to the rack by your door. You mess around with the theremin, although you’re the only one in the house who likes how it sounds. You take a music theory and history class, and triple your understanding of music in just a few months. You read about the clinical benefits of music, how it affects the nucleus accumbens, the same part of your brain that can addict you to hard drugs and creates dopamine. In a way, you’re addicted for life. You make music, and music keeps you sane.

As the final project for her feature photojournalism independent study, senior Noor Christava created a virtual gallery displaying a collection of her work. This means of presenting art allows the observer multiple different ways to view and interact with Noor’s pieces, without ever leaving the comfort of their home.

Q: What draws you to photography?

NOOR: It’s a fast way to capture scenes, moments, and stories. I like being able to walk around with my camera and just photograph everything.

Q: When you started this project, in particular, what were you hoping to capture?

NOOR: I wanted to capture unique portrayals of light and reflections that people might not usually look at very closely. A theme that I found emerging as I was taking these photos was the fact that there weren’t people around, giving it an abandoned, isolated feel to it. The light and reflections can act as an aspect of beauty in these isolating places and times.

Q: How work is displayed is an important part of creating a gallery show. How did that factor into your choices making a virtual show?

NOOR: I wanted people to be able to see the photos in a 3D setting, whether in real life or on a screen. I think that this can help bring the photos to life. While the gallery can allow people to “walk” around freely, it can also lead them around the gallery in a certain order if the artist wants.