VOICE OF THE SELF

1. In music, the self finds articulation through the voice, both instinctually, with the id, and intellectually, with the ego, the one arguably Pagan and the other effectively Christian.

2. When the id utilizes the voice for purposes of self-revelation, one gets chanting, or something analogous, whereas when the ego utilizes the voice for such purposes the result is singing, which will be less instinctual and correspondingly more intellectual, making use, as a rule, of verbal concepts.

3. The self that finds a musical outlet for itself through chanting, being of an animal disposition, is principally interested in sexual fulfilment, whereas the self that sings, being more fully human, is capable of transmuting ego into soul, albeit providing the will to an emotional end is actively there.

4. Thus whereas the unconscious self, or id, remains partial to an un-egocentric level of vocals which may not even attain to intellectual articulation, the conscious self, or ego, has the possibility of transmuting ego into soul via mind, as when the quantified self, or superconscious, rebounds from selflessness to its emotional core in the soul, or subconscious.

5. The technique of transmuting ego into soul via mind is called vocalizing, and in vocalizing the ego is purged of intellect through emotion, which takes hold of verbal concepts and strings them out ... until they become redeemed by soul, melody duly superseded by pitch.

6. Obviously, this process of transmuting ego into soul through vocalizing can happen at a variety of different levels ... from metachemical and chemical to physical and metaphysical, since there are as many ways of singing as there are elements, and as many types of soul ... from love and pride on the female, or objective, side of life ... to pleasure and joy on its male, or subjective, side.

7. Thus whilst one need not doubt that there are metachemical, chemical, and physical kinds of vocalizing, full justice to the soul will only be done in the metaphysical context of religious music, with or without instrumental accompaniment. For, compared with metaphysical joy, physical pleasure is economic, while, contrasted to physical pleasure, one finds that chemical pride is political and, compared with chemical pride and contrasted to metaphysical joy, it transpires that metachemical love is scientific.

8. Often one kind of singing can be distinguished from another on the basis of pitch, with high pitch at one end of the vocal spectrum and low pitch at its other end, the former superficial and the latter profound, since female singing extends from soprano to contralto via mezzo-soprano, whereas male singing extends from alto to bass via tenor and baritone, the bass totally beyond female parallels.

9. Often, too, technique is significant in enabling one to differentiate a scientific approach to singing from a religious approach, the former expressive and the latter impressive, and to further differentiate each of these (noumenal) extremes from what may, in phenomenal terms, be called a political approach to singing from an economic approach, the former compressive and the latter depressive.

10. Thus we are in effect distinguishing rhythm from pitch on the one hand, that of the noumenal types of singing, and harmony from melody on the other hand, that of the phenomenal types of singing, which owe rather more to volume and mass, in lower-class vein, than to time and space, whatever the axial alternatives one cares to consider.

11. There are also, of course, instrumental combinations and preferences which underlie vocals and make it possible for one to discern a bias towards either metachemistry, chemistry, physics, or metaphysics, as the case may be, with percussion highly prominent in metachemical, or scientific, music; keyboards generally prominent in chemical, or political, music; strings (including guitars and harps) generally prominent in physical, or economic, music; and wind (including pipes) highly prominent in metaphysical, or religious, music.

12. Doubtless most composers aim to establish a parallel between the kind of vocal music and the instrumental accompaniment, since metachemical music, being expressive, is rhythmic, and no instruments can compete with percussion where rhythm is concerned; chemical music, being compressive, is harmonic, and no instruments can compete with keyboards where harmony is concerned; physical music, being depressive, is melodic, and no instruments can compete with strings where melody is concerned; and, last but hardly least, metaphysical music, being impressive, is pitchful, and no instruments can compete with wind where pitch is concerned.

13. Thus we are in effect differentiating the elemental particles, whether metachemical per se or otherwise, of 'scientific music' from the molecular particles, whether chemical per se or otherwise, of 'political music', and each of these objective kinds of music from the molecular wavicles, whether physical per se or otherwise, of 'economic music', and the elemental wavicles, whether metaphysical per se or otherwise, of 'religious music', as between rhythm and harmony on the one hand, and melody and pitch on the other.

14. Of course not all music is vocal, whether completely or in part, although the best of it arguably is, if one associates 'the best', in whatever elemental context, with self-realization, whether expressively, compressively, depressively, or impressively, and accordingly places self-gratification above self-denial through an overly objective disposition towards the not-self and selflessness, a disposition that can only be female even when males follow suit and sacrifice the subjectivity of self, whether selfishly in the id or self-enhancingly in the ego, to the objectivity of not-self and selflessness either literally, by adopting rhythmic and/or harmonic instrumental preferences, or effectively and paradoxically, by treating the melodic and pitchful biases of their own subjective not-self and selflessness, whether physical or metaphysical, in a quasi-objective and, hence, primarily instrumental way, and presumably due to the continual pressure, within a female-dominated civilization, of objective values.

15. For it does seem - and Western civilization provides ample confirmation - that an objective hegemony in society will tend to condition music away from the self, and hence vocals, towards the not-self and selflessness, and hence instrumentals, whether in rhythm and harmony or, less straightforwardly, in melody and pitch, making for an instrumental bias over vocal music.

16. Thus people come to identify music, in an objective society, primarily with instrumentals and only secondarily with vocals, even though, as the most subjective of art forms, music is more suited to a primary definition with regard to vocals, and hence to self-realization, and to a secondary definition with regard to instrumentals, and hence to self-denial through affirmation of not-self and selflessness, power and glory, will and spirit, at the expense of form and contentment, ego and soul.

17. Of course, vocal music can also be less a matter of self-realization through the ego than of self-affirmation through the id, where chanting rather than singing is its principal manifestation, and there is no question but that this can exist, as a kind of pagan outsider germane (in its 'alternative' bias) to some kind of cultural 'underground' or sub-culture, within societies which are predominantly objective and hence mechanistic, with greater respect for instrumentals, and by implication the materialism of musical instruments, than for vocals.

18. But even egocentric vocal music will always be something of a second-class citizen and comparatively uphill struggle in mechanistic societies, where the self counts for less, in the objective scale of things, than the not-self and selflessness of a female hegemony.

19. Nevertheless vocal music is still possible in such societies and continues to be composed and sung, if predominantly more on a metachemical (jazz) and chemical (pop) basis than in relation to physical (operatic) and metaphysical (ecclesiastical and/or traditional) alternatives of arguably a more male-biased, or subjectivistic, persuasion.

20. And the better the vocal music, the more will ego be transmuted into soul, with an ascending spectrum of emotional merit ... from love to joy via pride and pleasure.

21. Although, as a Messianic philosopher, I am not overly in favour of music, be it instrumental or vocal, on account of my metaphysical bias being towards respiratory sensibility, and hence transcendental meditation conceived as the salvation of metaphysics from airwaves to the breath, outer and 'once born' to inner and 'reborn', I am not so wildly optimistic as to suppose that, at least for the foreseeable future, mankind could live without music, since whilst it may not be the greatest or highest 'art', it is arguably the greatest art form, and one that holds an irresistible charm for people, whatever their age or sex.

22. What I am cautiously hopeful about is that music will become, in the future, less instrumental and more vocal, as society becomes less objective and more subjective, less Superheathen and more Superchristian, with a corresponding shift of emphasis in the self from id-based vocals to ego-centred vocals such that will intimate, no matter how paradoxically compared to meditative sensibility, of emotional redemption in the soul.

23. And I feel that whereas classical music was - and still is - largely acoustic and 'naturalistic' in its orchestral bias, what may be termed 'superclassical' will be electric and synthetic, by which I mean bearing testimony to a synthetically-modified abstraction and/or extrapolation from naturalistic precedent, which will allow for the emulation and/or transcendence of orchestral sounds - as, indeed, of virtually any instruments which owe more to concrete nature than to abstract supernature.

24. Thus it inevitably follows that comprehensive synthesizers will figure prominently in the superclassical overhaul and effective eclipse of classical music, as Superchristian criteria replace Christian criteria in the advance of civilization towards its supernatural peaks, aided and abetted by computers and - crucial to egocentric 'rebirth' - the availability of various symbols on screen from which music and/or text can be read and duly transmuted upwards via such vocalizing, itself synthetically modified, as would be requisite to the exemplification of a soulful end.

25. If art is the 'handmaiden of religion', then synthetic vocal music, in particular, will be the art form which most panders to the ideological religion of Social Transcendentalism, becoming, at its highest level, a pitchful intimation, duly vocalized, of meditative praxis for those who would be unable to completely transcend music, and hence the airwaves, in the interests of meditation upon the breath.

26. But pitch needn't necessarily be high, or fast, since it seems to me that the deepest pitch is the most impressive, confirming one in the notion that the 'tieferness', so to speak, of things lies in the basso profundo of that which exemplifies the most joy in Om-like vein, a joy at once metaphysical and male in its calm subjectivity.

27. For just as the male voice stretches beyond the female one in terms of its depth and profundity, the bass overhauling not only the baritone, tenor, and alto of male vocal alternatives, but leaving the contrasting female shallowness of soprano, mezzo-soprano, and contralto in the wake of its plumbing of the soulful depths, so should the profoundest music aim to re-create an impression of profundity through depth, the bass register mystically freed from magical or mechanistic subversion, and enabled to deliver to the voice that pitchful accompaniment which would be at the core of the synthesizer ... pretty much as the bass voice itself is at the core of musical soul.

28. But if the bass voice is beyond the range of most people, men as well as women, then the baritone and the tenor on the male side of the gender divide and the mezzo-soprano and the contralto on its female side ... would still have a place within the triadic Beyond of 'Kingdom Come' which, though less metaphysical than physical or chemical, would enable melody and harmony to act as a support for pitch in its plumbing of the utmost cultural joy, a support largely, if not entirely, beyond rhythmic expression.