Dreams have fascinated us for thousands of years. They can give us inspiration, true horror, or clarity on a real-life situation; they make us laugh or cry; sometimes they seem to warn us about something, predict the future, or reinvent the past.

Not surprisingly, the very human act of dreaming has inspired all kinds of art and music. Rather than explain the science behind dreams (of which I know very little), let’s dive into a few musical interpretations of dreams.

First of all, a confession – the main reason for this post is that I wanted to include a piece I wrote called Fantasmagoria. It’s three movements long and for flute & organ. The movements document: 1) Fantasmagoria – a calm, pleasant dream that corrupts into a hideous nightmare 2) Oneironautics – the act of being in control of one’s dream 3) Deja Vu – the feeling that you’ve experienced this before (in this case, an unchaning single-note pulse).

If we look at the body of art music, I think we can boil down dream-music into two categories: 1) sweet, gentle, calming works 2) wilder, fantastical visions.

Starting with category 1 – sweet, gentle, calming works. Common characteristics of these pieces include simpler, more predictable harmonies, a consistent, slower rhythmic pulse, and hummable melodies. They are more often written for solo instrument, or for two players. They appeal to our musically conservative side, hinting at music we already know – perhaps lullabies or songs of tenderness. They put our minds in safe places and make us feel love and warmth.

Reverie was one of Claude Debussy earlier works, and captures a delightful, pleasant daydream of sorts.

Francisco Tárrega wrote this gentle dream for solo guitar.

Franz Liszt was known for writing-impossible-to-play piano music, but his Liebestraum is almost manageable. On top of that, its supremely cheesy melody and sentimental mood make it a regular encore at piano concerts or romantic piano CDs.

And speaking of cheese, the master of all sentimental cheese was Robert Schumann. He was so cheesy that Brahms tried to out-cheese him, but failed. So Brahms decided to go after his wife instead.

Let’s just stay in cheese zone for another moment and move on to Gabriel Fauré‘s haunting “Après un rêve” (after a dream).

Alexander Scriabin was a true nut job, and that is historical fact, not opinion. Even so, his music is pretty amazing, and strongly influenced by his interest in philosophy and theosophy.

This first category of dream music is mostly romantic schlock – but there are some modern pieces that fit here, including George Crumb‘s Dream Sequence, which uses a glass harmonica (invented by Benjamin Franklin, no less!)

Now, the second category of dream-music: wilder, fantastical visions. These works are more likely to challenge our musical expectations a bit, perhaps with sudden changes of harmony or meter, broader dynamic range, and lack that singable melody. Like a wild dream, they don’t go where we expect them to go – sometimes making us dizzy, filling us with a sense of dread, or even frightening us into waking up.

Going right back to Debussy – Reverie might have been a child’s innocent daydream, but his later dreams turn much more erotic. Besides the dreamy harmonies and short, gesture-based melodies, the Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune is based on a poem in which a faun gets aroused by nymphs before falling asleep.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzzF21CFJFE

Engelbert Humperdinck might win the award for composer with the funniest name (an old-school Butterscotch Cabbagepatch?) In his most famous opera, Hansel and Gretel, there is a lovely bedtime prayer which is sung, followed by a dream sequence based on the prayer’s hymn-like tune.

Tōru Takemitsu wrote many pieces with “dream” in the title, and most of them paint an impressionistic and atonal dreamscape.

If that was a little too modern for you, the next piece is by the tried-and-true Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. His First Symphony bears the title “Winter Dreams”, and really is more of a typical symphony than a dream-piece, but hey, there must be some dreaming in there somewhere.

Bedřich Smetana wrote a series of solo piano works on dreams. They’re a little more involved than the earlier solo piano works, with a broad range of emotion, which is why I think they belong in the category of wild, fantastical dream music.

Sergei Prokofiev wrote a symphonic poem on dreams – it’s also fairly conservative, but too dramatic to be in the first category.

And of course, no music collection based on dreams would be complete without Hector Berlioz‘s bad opium trip, where he dreams of witches and an orgy around his dead body.

Next up: if you listen to one of these pieces while falling asleep, does it affect your dreams? Happy dreaming!

Which is more valuable: being able to read music or being able to play by ear?

Maybe you’ve had some good armchair arguments on this subject. Team Aural (ear) will point at the multitude of musicians who couldn’t read a note (and no, not all of the musically illiterate were popular or jazz musicians), and were unhindered by this supposed deficiency. Team Literacy*** usually concedes to this, but points out how foolish it is to purposefully not learn something that would be hugely beneficial. The negative stereotypes would be the ear-only rock musician who can only play three chords and a handful of tunes, or the stuffy, classical music reader who merely translates dots on a page into notes, playing without any feeling, and not connecting with the audience.

The truth, naturally, is that both literacy and ear are hugely important. A child can learn stories and life lessons aurally, but it would be ridiculous to use that as an excuse to not teach reading and writing; it is equally ridiculous to reject musical literacy. And just as we teach reading comprehension, musicians must learn to do more than reproduce the printed dots into sound. I need not go into any more detail here – you get the idea.

So when you think about it, the legend of Beethoven‘s Third Piano Concerto isn’t as amazing as it may seem. When it was first performed, the composer himself performed the solo piano part – which had yet to be written down! We have this tidbit from his page turner:

*** I say “Literacy” as opposed to “Eye” because there are many blind musicians who are musically literate – just as braille text books exist, so do braille scores!

Gazillions of hours of human effort are spent trying to keep us motivated as we slog through life. We like the idea that if we work hard enough, eventually we’ll achieve our goals. We are told that “90%*** of life is just showing up,” that we should not give up, learn from our failures, and press on,

Sergei Rachmaninoff had a successful career as a pianist, conductor, and composer. Because his writing was relatively conservative during a time of great experimentation and fragmentation of styles, he was getting a lot of play time with major orchestras while other composers were causing scandals. His Fourth Piano Concerto was one of his later compositions – and as he was a highly-regarded composer, everyone expected another smash-hit (like his previous three piano concertos, his tone poems, and his symphonies.)

Well … the Fourth Piano Concerto was no hit. In fact, just about everybody hated it. Rachmaninoff was deeply hurt, but didn’t give up. He immediately cut nearly 10% of the work, hoping a shorter piece would be a little easier to swallow.

Nope. Another 10% was cut. The work was revised over and over again, until at last, 15 years after it was premiered, Rachmaninoff gave up, despite being unsatisfied with the final version. 90% of life might be just showing up – but that means there’s another 10% lurking around – and what should we do with that?

*** according to some experts, only 80% of life is just showing up.