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 33
Described in this
way, our own immediate sense of the relationship between
foreground and background, as people of a specific
culture, highlights the most telling difference that is
to be observed between the basic orientations toward life
that prevail in the East and the West. The word
“prevail” is used advisedly, for, of course, we
want not to loose sight ourselves of either foreground or
background in this very discussion. Thus, the dichotomy
between East and West that we are trying to highlight for
a purpose should not at the same time be exaggerated.
There are always qualifications to be established. For
example, it would be wise to qualify our statement by
making it clear that we are speaking about the
traditional East, wherever it still exists, and the
modern industrialized West, which now exists everywhere.
There are
dominant, but also countervailing, factors in every case.
Poetry in all cultures, for example, through metaphor, of
necessity subverts the customary distinctions between
things as defined by words. “My love is like a red,
red rose,” says the poet.[1] Through
poetic language, an element of impressionistic vagueness
enters into our experience. In poetry, the distinction
between foreground and background is not so boldly drawn.
We become aware then of something that predates names and
the ordinary distinctions that we make between things,
something welling up from the void. A voice faint and
unworldly seems to tickle consciousness from a direction
that can’t quite be located. Even the poet may be at
a loss to explain what the poem means exactly. Robert
Browning, asked to explain his “Sordello,”
replied that when he had written it God and he knew its
meaning; but that “Now, only God knows.”
This becomes
particularly poignant in religious poetry, wherein
ecstatic visions of God lead to a breakdown of the
boundaries between ideal things, such as faith and doubt,
or the mortal and the immortal. This can be devastating,
as, for example, when Job learns that the distinctions
between good and bad fortune ought to have no
significance for the righteous man. In the New Testament,
in a much lighter tint but with the same intent, Jesus
made nothing of the distinctly different responsibilities
that accrue to man and flower.
But how reluctant
and little likely are the preachers of our time or any
time to dilate on the “lilies of the field.”
This kind of poetic expression appears always as a
subversive factor in the culture of the West as a whole.
For the most part, our very real need for tomorrow’s
bread and shelter is exploited shamelessly by our
institutions and the people who dominate us. And so we
feel, as if instinctively, that God may clothe the
flowers, but Solomon in all his glory must fend for
himself. We are told, in the Apostle’s words, to
“put away childish things.” Heaven forbid that
we should fail to fret and fear for our next dollar.
‘Tis a good and proper fear that accustoms us, and
puts us in the right frame of mind, to fret and fear for
our soul’s eternal salvation.
In its most
extreme form, life in the West is determined by one
single overpowering fear and presentiment: Judgment Day.
But, we needn’t couch this issue in religious terms
only. Nuclear Armageddon is quite up to the task now that
we find Michelangelo’s version slightly cartoonish.
Our national fears have us battling against one
“evil empire” after another. Each one comes
into sharp focus in our mediated (mediated) and
conditioned consciousness, one after another, each one
for ten minutes or so. Hence, nearly all of the
accumulated and tarnished gold of our civilization has
been expended in a waste of military shame. And, still,
even so, we are all of us desperately afraid that,
despite our best efforts, our defenses will falter, and
evil will be victorious in our time. Not just any evil,
but the evil of total destruction. We are not amateurs in
the field of fear. We are credentialed to fear for the
absolute end of time.
[1] Robert Burns:
“O my Luve's
like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June;
O my Luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly play'd in tune.” (Next Page)
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