The disc of music and nature

" To search for models in nature is... to seek the most effective use of freedom, the measure of this effectiveness being joy, whose conquest is one of music's missions, and which is nothing but power over oneself and one's things." So writes François-Bernard Mâche in Music, Myth and Nature (Harwood Academic, 1992), one of a handful of existing books on our theme. Finding music in nature lures us into experiencing the echoing wonder of the world, how beautiful it can be, how much meaning can be heard in the most unusual of places. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with calling it power. I would instead prefer to think of it as a gentle sense of mastery: knowledge tempered by humility-admitting that there is only so much we can know. But without knowing exactly what they're trying to tell us, we can play and improvise and make music with the world's sounds. That's the most at home music can make us feel.