Think about songbirds in the morning, a quiet rain in the forest, or the steady roar of the surf. The chirping of many birds, pitched high and low, distant and far, is an avian orchestra. Droplets of rainwater, striking leaves, stones, or a tin roof, belt out a harmony, even better when accompanied by occasional percussive rumbles of thunder. And the ocean, the sound of the ocean, penetrates the soul with peace and calm.
When sounds in nature are in accord, they resonate in our very beings. That’s why so many people find solace in the wilderness and seek out quiet and wild places. But there is nothing in nature in the same league as music, not even among the birds.
In fact, music is unrivaled by anything else in the human experience. Music has the power to enthrall, inspire, and bring to tears. It can play our emotions like a marionette. Like many treasures in creation waiting to be found, the discovery of music electrified humanity and gave it a means of expression and beauty like none other.
And people didn’t merely discover music. We have made it one of the most complex phenomena in existence. It’s remarkable how many instruments we have invented to generate the notes of music. Equally remarkable is that these notes follow patterns of pitches based on specific frequencies, whose fundamentals double with each octave. Add tempo to bring the element of time into a piece, often carried by percussion. And timbre is where the same note, played on a string, woodwind, or brass, takes on distinctive qualities shaped by the instrument’s unique resonance. When human voices chime in, the result is ofttimes heavenly. Those who truly understand music theory can explain the mathematics behind it; let’s just say it’s brilliant.
I think that music, affecting people in such powerful ways, is one of the best attestations of a Creator. A beautiful aspect of being a living soul is feeling emotions like love, joy, awe, hope, gratitude, and wonder; even guilt, hurt, envy, anger, loneliness and fear, while hard, remind us of our humanity. We read in scripture many emotions attributed to God, and this is one of the prime ways we are made in His image. When emotion is expressed in music, perhaps nothing on the planet makes people feel more real.
One cannot discount the Creator’s role in the inception of music. He created a world in which the totality of the music experience is possible. For one, invisible air transmits vibrations, and people have made a plethora of interesting instruments to set the air in motion—strings, horns, woodwinds, percussions, and electronic devices. God gave us ears to hear; the gift of hearing is exquisite engineering. How a tiny cochlea in each ear, filled with fluid and stuffed with nerves, can convey the whole cacophony of an orchestra at once to your brain in stereo, is astounding. And ultimately, you are a being who can interpret and be moved by what we call music.
God made a world, and in that world, He made human beings, beings who were gifted with the intelligence to discover noise-making things, refine them into instruments, and coordinate tones into tunes that could even harmonize with the emotional states of other human beings. I would have to say that’s really loving of God to make a world fine-tuned for the creation, development, and sheer enjoyment of music. But even if the only sounds you hear are the quiet, still sounds of a forest, that should remind you that being able to hear and to appreciate the sounds and music that permeate your soul, are gifts from the Father above.
From time immemorial, whether it was the angels singing during Creation (Job 38:7), a hymn shared by Jesus and His disciples the night He was betrayed (Matthew 26:30), “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” penned by Martin Luther, or “What seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, crying out, ‘Hallelujah!'” (Revelation 19:1), Almighty God has been praised and always will be praised. There is no Being like God, “awesome in glorious deeds and doing wonders (Exodus 15:11).”
You might be one gifted in songwriting, playing instruments, or singing like a bird. Consider the One who created the Earth and everything in it and lift your praises, music, and songs to Him. “Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth! Sing to the Lord, bless His name; tell of His salvation from day to day. Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous works among all the peoples!” (Psalm 96:1-3)
The cover photo was from a set of production stills I had the opportunity to take for Arthur Rasco (Journey Light Creative) in 2017 for his Unto Us movie trailer. Unto Us was a concept for a modern day retelling of the Christmas story, set in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Boone, North Carolina. See Unto Us Production Stills Gallery for more photos and to see the trailer.
