Vision

More attention for symbolism.

Symbolism and meaning of music

Symbolism is the key to the music of Alex Ruis. He assumes that meaning in general and symbolism in harmony in particular have more or less influence on people's thoughts. At least you may become aware of this symbolism through monophony, homophony or polyphony. In the latter cases also super- and subordination and dominant to equal parties. These are perceptible even to less sensitive listeners. He experiences equality and freedom when listening to free contrapuntal music. Dictation and subordination through copying behavior in imitative music. Followership, sometimes suppression in homophonic music. Even in no-obligation styles. 

Making music in itself is trying to influence the mind with variations on primal sounds. Therefore, to counteract feelings of unimportance and other psychical disharmony, the music of Alex Ruis strives to build from stylish simultaneous, equal tunes. Which have no intention to imitate each other. So these are free and less dependent of one another than in e.g. canons, fugues. Different tunes express equally different attitudes, feelings, opinions, etcetera. 

Moreover, music is a universal language. A rather mysterious language that can communicate the unspeakable. Which contributes to both its popularity and difficulty in translation. Music is a language of feeling and no word is equal to the feeling it is supposed to express. Compare it to body language. It often tells a different story than words. Anyway, language has meaning for the one who tries to understand it.

Note that there are different views and opinions on everything (see colourful chart). A well-known view of music is that you cannot assign meaning to it. In that case, I certainly would not make music. A well-known view of meaning is that it can be verbalized clearly. Then too, I would not make music.

Of course, music comes from many more easily perceivable components such as sound and rhythm. These have been described in detail in various documents. The content that arises from the composition of those parts is what music may also be about as far as he is concerned.