The Gurdjieff Movements by Wim van Dullemen

Author:Wim van Dullemen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hohm Press

What kind of music was this with the power to evoke the same feelings in the hearts of people who were supposed to be each other’s enemies?

LOOKING TO GURDJIEFF’S OWN WORDS

Another possibility for examining the theme of “objective and subjective art” is to scrutinize the content of the words that Gurdjieff himself used, and from the range of meanings that each of these words could have, only to perceive the most likely intended meaning. In doing this, we relieve ourselves of all the undertones that these words evoke in us, and perhaps we will better understand the topic. Again, in this exercise, I will limit myself to music.

Gurdjieff used common words to proclaim his ideas, such as “art,” “subjective,” “objective,” “mathematical formula,” “scientific” and “consciousness.” Each text with these kinds of words is a labyrinth without Ariadne’s thread to lead us. To begin with, the collective word “art” in this chapter is, as I note above, limited to the word “music.” There are countless types of music, and a comparison with the multiplicity of languages that are spoken on the Earth, currently more than seven thousand, does not fall short.

To create some order in this mosaic it is useful to think in terms of three types of music: ritual music, folk music, also known as ethnological music, and the types I call “cultural music,” an inadequate term, but I know of no better one. This categorization must not be seen too rigidly. These three types of music are points of concentration in a field that is constantly in flux. They overlap and influence each other, and their mutual relationships are different in each culture. Even so, these three points of concentration have an essentially different core and another social function; and what is especially different is the way in which the listener responds. The inner point of contact in people is different, and it appears that each of these three forms of music cause movement in a different part of the inner self.

For example, in the case of ritual or folk music, it is the whole person who participates in the music, just like with national costumes, traditions, passed-down stories and dances from a certain group of the population. Everyone, child or adult, in a community in which these traditions still exist knows this music through and through, and they do not consider their music, focused on the highlights of human existence—birth, marriage and death—as “culture” or something that is separate from actual life.

Cultural music, a description that covers almost all music we hear and continue to hear, such as classical music, jazz music and all their derivatives, causes movement in a different part of the inner self. It is sufficient to limit this category to Western classical music. This has an honorable tradition; and one characteristic of it is that a lengthy, dedicated study is required to be able to play it. In the centuries in which such classical music was formed, it always reflected the social developments. It

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