Sad Songs

When I hear a piece of sad music and become sad, is there some quality of sadness implicit in the music? How do I know that the author of this music was actually sad when he wrote it? Did he transfer his sadness into the music? If he did not, then there is no proof that the music contains any emotions, and it is an accidental reaction of my brain to the sound waves produced by the music. Or is it a little more elegant than that? Is a feeling something which can be transmuted from its raw substance in our heart to any number of forms: a musician’s voice, a drawing, a series of words? Is it the pattern of feeling which we find transfigured into manifold forms, or is it the accidental coalescence of atoms, waves, or phonemes which causes the actual feeling in us?

Now Playing : Tracy Chapman's Let It Rain album

Favorites so far : Broken and Goodbye