How Can Music Affect Your Relationship with the Outdoors?

What is music and where did it come from?

In order to decipher where music originated from, it must be defined. There are a variety of definitions, including:

“Music is indefinable by words alone. It is not only something you hear, but something you feel.”

- Urban Dictionary.

“A sound perceived as pleasingly harmonious"

- Oxford dictionary.

“An art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and colour”

- Dictionary.com

With the above in mind, it is difficult to establish when music began, but it is everywhere nowadays. Whether we are driving in the car listening to a CD or strolling around the supermarket, it seems there is no place to escape it. Unless of course, you are taking a stroll in the woods far away from the city. Even then, is it true to say that music in some form cannot be heard? The sound of your footsteps making a beat as you walk. The trees swaying in the background as the wind whistles past you. The tweeting of a bird or the distant noise of a waterfall flowing. Perhaps music came from our ancestors who communicated using sounds, rather than the language we know and use today? Or is it possible that it originated from a combination of the sounds that nature generates.

How has music affected my relationship with the outdoors?

When I listen to music by Einaudi, I find I relate the sound to nature. The music is peaceful and creates a relaxing ambience. Many of his pieces have been described as ‘the welcome sound of stillness in a hectic world.’ This also reminds me of nature, as I frequently find myself enjoying the serenity of natural environments and using them as an escape from the often chaotic day-to-day routine.

Having researched Einaudi, I have discovered that the inspiration behind many of his tracks is linked to nature in some way. For example, his track ‘Le Onde’ was inspired by the view of the sea, and the way in which the waves keep sweeping in whilst reflecting the light which changes with each sweep.
In the album booklet, he wrote:

“If it were a story, it would have been set on the waterfront of a long beach. A beach with no beginning and no end. The story of a man walking along this shore, a man who perhaps never meets anyone there. His gaze lingers from time to time to observe some object or fragment taken from the sea, the footprints of a crab, a lone seagull. The landscape is always the sand, the sky, a few clouds, the sea. Only the waves change, always the same and always different, smaller, larger, shorter, longer.”

- Einaudi

Furthermore, his is track named ‘In a Time Lapse’ is related to the different seasons, and how in every moment of our lives we are discovering what we feel, what we see and what we smell. All of these things then shape the perspective we have on life and the way in which we experience it (Einaudi, 2011).

Music can and will be interpreted very differently by people. A group listening to the same piece of music may all relate to it in a completely different way, and make their own story to it. When I listen to Einaudi, I am reminded of the experiences I have had in the outdoors, and the times where I have had to stop in my tracks to admire the beauty of the natural world. His music therefore helps me reconnect with nature and reminds me of how important it is to sustain and conserve our incredible surroundings. 

To listen to Einaudi album 'Islands' follow this link>>