The Origin of the Art of Sound
The origin of music is at the origin of our human thinking, where our feeling and our understanding begin. It is also where our hearing begins, for the inner hearing originates where the world of our thinking begins.
Accordingly, the origin of music is not at all of historic nature, but it is permanent, ever-present; it is the "Now," embracing past and future.
Music arises in man from the level of the common origin of feeling, understanding, and hearing. With his sense of hearing, his inner ear, the musical creator pursues the thought that is rising from the silence of his heart, and by surveying it with the help of his sense of hearing, he comprehends its musical structure.
During
this process of surveying, his intellect, on the level of his inner feeling
and on the level of his understanding, registers the experience of his sense
of hearing, evaluates it and takes corrective decisions for the course of
the musical event:
This, really, is the field of practical composing.
Initially, the composer does not hear a finished thought i.e. with his sense of hearing he does not survey a thought that is already produced. From the very beginning already, at the origin of a thought, he decides deep within himself, what and how he will think.
Accordingly, for the musical creator, the inner tone or sound, perceived with his sense of hearing, already is the end of his composing, not its beginning.
Surveying the mental musical event with his inner sense of hearing not only serves the musical creator to personally verify, but also to enjoy his inner concert.