Music Makes An Altar

Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Book review, The Musical Life by W. A. Mathieu

W. A. Mathieu is a composer and a teacher who believes that being musical doesn’t really have to do with knowing how to play an instrument or to sing in tune. It is, he says, “a way of being aware, an angle of perception, a tilt of the ear.” Mathieu’s The Musical Life: Reflections on What It Is and How To Live It is a spiritual masterpiece that speaks volumes about meditative listening, the bounties of life, the joys of creativity, and the mystical oneness of all things.

“The secret of the musical life,” Mathieu writes, “is to be open to vibration at every level, to appreciate it wherever you find it.” The hum of traffic, the samba in brushing your teeth, the thumping of your blood are always within earshot. “Every sound,” according to the author, “is like the first Word, a creation story in itself. Sound is the audible form of vital energy that passes through your life.”

Music is within us; music is all around us. That is why a certain song can spark a memory and we are transported to the past. That is why the phrase, we make sweet music together describes a good thing… And that is why we can refer to a mystical experience as something akin to the music of the spheres.

Mathieu compares music to fireworks—”ephemeral constructions that hang in the sky and heighten our senses.” He moves a step closer by defining music as “an exchange between souls.” When Mathieu describes what it is like to be a composer, it sounds like being a holy man. Perhaps that’s because the author has played tambourine at the center of Sufi dancing for 25 years.

So what do we have here? A celebration of life where sound, music, harmony, and melody are all around us. “Music,” writes Mathieu, “makes an altar in our ears.” We approach it by becoming sensitive, open, generous listeners.

—Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Book review, The Musical Life by W. A. Mathieu

We begin our lives listening to the many sounds surrounding us in the womb. When we are dying, the last faculty to shut down is usually hearing. In between, there is so much to see that we seldom take the time to cultivate the art of listening. Listening uses other practices: attention, being present, openness. It is holy work, involving in the inventive phrase of W.A. Mathieu, a Sufi musician, “making an altar out of our ears.”

—Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat