One Hand
Clapping:
The Taoe of Music
WholeArts and
The Psychic Internet is proud to present the
"Preface" and "Part One" of this
remarkable book by Daniel d'Quincy. "One Hand
Clapping: The Tao of Music," originally published by
WholeArts in 1991, is a book-length essay on the
performance of music from the perspective of Eastern
philosophy and religion. Mr. d'Quincy is a noted
composer, musician, author, inventor, educator, speaker,
and photographer. Please visit his unique music sites at WholeArts: syNThony, and the WholeArts Online Music Conservatory.
Page 16
Besides, far from
wanting to end our inquiry, case closed, we wonder if
more reflection might disclose elements and factors that
we have not yet noticed. It is not in our nature to leave
the matter with God and be done with it. In artistic
terms, this approach resorts to a kind of deus ex
machina, which has justifiably been out of fashion
roughly since the last days of Euripides.
In fact, the
Western resort to God is hopelessly out of fashion in
purely philosophical discussions of any kind, except of
course those that are patently theological. This is
something that one may possibly object to, but it is an
unquestionable and verifiable fact of modernity. And this
philosophical disposition has sunk wide and deep into the
consciousness of the average person. By far, the dominant
view of the Universe in our time among fully
industrialized people is the “mechanical
theory” of things. This has been clear at least
since Napoleon asked Laplace why God was absent from his
scientific reasoning. Recourse to the hypothesis of God,
said the natural philosopher, was simply not necessary in
order to explain the facts. And modern people have been
primarily interested in the facts ever since. There was
once a time when it made perfect rational sense for a man
of the Church to decline Galileo’s invitation to
look through the telescope, saying that God had already
explained the heavens to everybody’s satisfaction.
But the stubborn churchman was no match for what have
typically been called the “stubborn facts.”
Today, God is praised more as poet than astronomer. This
reflects an inner failure of faith in the average person
that is scarcely recognized by the great majority of
Sunday preachers. They do not yet comprehend that any
attempt to retain the idea of God in the drama and comedy
of human life, even in religious terms, will require a
wholesale refashioning if it is to succeed.[1]
We may revisit
the notion of God later in this chapter and book, at
which point we may have to put aside our ordinary
notions of God, but for now let us train our attention on
the “facts,” or rather, shall we say, on the
raw data of our experience. Tabling for the present even
our most subtle religious constructions, we will stay
with the matter at hand, and ask again:
“Who is
asking the question?”
[1]The physicist Murray Gell-Mann definitively
explained everything in the following formula: a few
simple rules + chance = the Universe. Fortunately, a few
diehard skeptics retain a nagging suspicion that he left
something out. (Next Page)
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