Music is the basis of a good life

After a particularly inspiring piano trio concert, the four friends gather for a glass of rosé and a small dessert before heading home. This time, the musician, the philosopher’s wife, joins them.

Theist: Many philosophers were music lovers. You, my dear friend, only became one around the age of 30—and then went on to marry a classical musician.

Scientist: I envy you for that. The deeper we peer into the matter that forms our reality, the more we realise that everything is in motion. Everything vibrates.

Atheist: Including us, of course, since we’re made of the same matter as our reality. Vibrations play a crucial role in our emotional life, our feelings, and our thoughts. When we listen to music, it doesn’t just influence us—it structures us in many ways.

Theist: It’s hardly surprising that people who specialise in supporting their own and others’ well-being often turn to music. Music therapy is a term that’s spreading, finding applications in various spheres of human activity. But we Christians have known this since the earliest days of Christianity, weaving music into our worship and religious life across every tradition.

Philosopher: My dear friends, music has always been a mystery to me. I sensed its boundlessness, which is why I hesitated to explore it until I met the woman who became my wife.

Musician: I can confirm he’s taken a keen interest, and it hasn’t waned. He’s even learning to play the piano himself now.

Philosopher: To offer a contrast, I also find pleasant lift music quite delightful—it’s good for the soul and creates a different setting for brief encounters. Background music, in other words. That said, I want to make a bold claim: a good life has a musical foundation.

Theist: Now I’m eager to hear you elaborate.

Philosopher: You’ll recall our discussion about words and the importance of understanding them. Well, music, based on my philosophical reflections, operates on a different level, affecting our souls and thoughts. Of course, words can be sung and blended with sound, but that’s not the kind of music I mean when I say a good life has a musical foundation. I’m talking about wordless music—the finest we’ve produced as humanity, once called art music and now better known as classical music. Yes, this music is classy—exceptional, in fact. I believe the term “classical” stems from this, tied to the era of Classicism, a phenomenal period of human endeavour when art music emerged. I find this era remarkable because it was driven by a desire to emulate and understand the ancient Greeks and Romans, building on that understanding to create something even better. Such a worldview is healthy—we don’t want a tabula rasa, a fresh start without history. Instead, we seek to understand history and build on its best elements, creating, thinking, and acting further. We aim to compete with the best of our past. In doing so, we feel a vital connection to our ancestors, moving on the same wavelength as them.

Atheist: I thought he was veering off-topic, but then he ties it back with “wavelength.”

Scientist: That word—wavelength—might help us grasp what he means by a good life having a musical foundation. If waves are a fundamental part of our reality, the matter we and our surroundings are made of, and if words in our thoughts are separate, self-contained constructs, with thinking being the act of connecting and delving into these words and their relationships, then we can see thinking itself as a form of music-making. Our words are like musical notes, our sentences like musical phrases (they’re even called that), and so much more.

Theist: You’re starting to sound like a philosopher.

Atheist: But what does this get us? Good music has a beautiful melody and pleasing harmony. Music has no words, so when we listen to it, it activates our thinking. We try to grasp it, to turn it into concepts, but we can’t fully do so. It stirs our thoughts, perhaps sparking new ideas or untying some of the Gordian knots in our souls.

Philosopher: Exactly. Music cannot be stopped, controlled, or turned into something concrete like a word or concept. This interplay in our thoughts brings us closer to the essence of the reality we live in—it grounds us, bringing us nearer to the foundation of that reality. It seems to me now that there’s a kind of field permeating everything, within which we exist and move. Music allows us to merge with this field, so to speak. I’m slowly learning to let music work on me rather than trying to comprehend it. I take it in; it’s nourishment for my soul’s depths, satisfying my subconscious in a way nothing else does. But it’s more than that—it creates peace and calm wherever it acts, provided you learn to open yourself to it.

Musician: I’m biased, of course, but I’ve long felt that if we want to live a truly good life, we should make music a part of it.

Theist: That’s less than what your husband claims. Perhaps he’s muddling things, projecting his reliance on you as the foundation of his emotional life onto music? That said, I like the idea of an all-permeating field. We Christians have a term for it—the Holy Spirit.

Philosopher: My dear friend, my wife is my closest companion on this journey. You know well that the foundation of my path is firmly anchored in God, that God is my cornerstone, even if our relationship with Him differs.

Theist: It’s good to hear you speak of God now and then.

Philosopher: Nevertheless, I find music essential. I recommend not only attending concerts, learning an instrument, engaging with musicians, and supporting musical organisations, but also talking about music regularly. Our reality feels like a vast sea, always in motion, always connected. No matter where or at what we listen, something is always moving, always happening—sometimes creating small waves, sometimes large ones, but the motion never stops. Music is both a mystery and not. It’s a wordless language that speaks to the deepest depths of our souls, connecting us to our reality and the God of our reality like nothing else.

Scientist: Those are grand claims, hard to pin down. In physics, we see music as sound and vibrations, but what exactly it sets in motion and how it affects our inner life is fascinating. Music can influence physiological processes—heart rate, breathing, muscle tension—thus indirectly affecting bodily movement or activity. On a deeper level, it impacts the particles we’re made of. Recent neuroscience studies using imaging techniques have shown striking results: many brain regions are involved in music-making, and classical musicians’ brains show distinct traits. Brain scans reveal that musicians have a more developed corpus callosum, the connection between the brain’s hemispheres, and more grey matter in areas responsible for motor skills, auditory processing, and spatial-visual perception. There’s no single “music centre” in the brain—music activates multiple regions simultaneously, engaging hearing, sight, touch, and fine motor skills. Studies even show the Broca area, one of the brain’s language centres, is involved in music processing, impacting cognitive and emotional development. Musicians have significantly more grey matter—neurons where information processing, sensory perception, thought formation, and motor commands occur. Music undeniably does something wonderful to our brains and is highly recommended for children’s education, especially singing.

Theist: Fascinating. Cheers! And here comes our dessert, right on cue.

The friends raise their glasses and turn to the beautifully presented dessert.