. . . What really are the formal dynamic principles that govern the creation of music—of this or any other period? What indeed is the nature of music? What is its essence, its content? What is the relationship between the human mind and human senses and the external world, which we presumably observe and, therefore, in partial ways understand and reflect? And why have we failed, thus far . . . to arrive at a complete formal and aesthetic theory of music? Ironically, the answers to these questions elude us intellectually, even though any musician will tell you that such intellectual abstractions constitute the most concrete experiential realities of music, realities which when we experience them convince us positively that a life in music is life itself, is beautiful, the fullness of living. In other words we feel these things, but we can’t explain them; we can’t give them an intellectually cogent, coherent definition.

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I am convinced we musicians need science’s help. A more profound understanding of music depends on a more complete understanding of the workings and dynamics of the mind; and perhaps then, working at the very frontier of consciousness where mind and matter meet, we will begin to understand the creative act, what we call “inspiration” but have not been able to describe fully or define; understand how auditory perception, the acquisition of the skills related thereto, really functions.

How close . . . artists and . . . scientists can be, and at the same time how deep the symbiotic relationship between man and his environment can be, is exemplified in this oft-quoted and most touching statement and revelation of Einstein . . . : “The theory of relativity occurred to me by intuition, and music is the driving force behind this intuition. My parents had me study the violin from the time I was six. My new discovery is the result of musical perception.”

Gunther Schuller