Well when I was asked to do this TEDTalk, I was really chuckled, because, you see, my father's name was Ted, and much of my life, especially my musical life, is really a talk that I'm still having with him, or the part of me that he continues to be.
當我受邀來TED演講時,我笑了, 因為我的父親就叫Ted。 而我的人生,尤其是音樂方面的經歷, 就像是和我父親之間的對談, 他雖然過世了,但還是永存在我心中。
Now Ted was a New Yorker, an all-around theater guy, and he was a self-taught illustrator and musician. He didn't read a note, and he was profoundly hearing impaired. Yet, he was my greatest teacher. Because even through the squeaks of his hearing aids, his understanding of music was profound.
我父親是紐約人,從事劇場工作, 也是自學成才的插畫家和音樂家。 他一個音符都看不懂, 而且聽力還很差, 但他是我最好的老師。 即使透過他那支支叫的助聽器, 他對音樂的理解和造詣是極其深的。
And for him, it wasn't so much the way the music goes as about what it witnesses and where it can take you. And he did a painting of this experience, which he called "In the Realm of Music." Now Ted entered this realm every day by improvising in a sort of Tin Pan Alley style like this. (Music)
而且對他而言,重要的不是音樂的形式, 而是音樂所能見證的和它所能讓你觸動的。 他曾將這個經驗畫下, 他叫這幅畫「在音樂的國度」。 我父親每天都透過即興演奏進入這個國度, 他的風格有點錫盤街(美十九世紀末風格),像這樣: (音樂)
But he was tough when it came to music. He said, "There are only two things that matter in music: what and how. And the thing about classical music, that what and how, it's inexhaustible."
但他對於音樂挺嚴苛的。 他說:「在音樂中重要的只有兩件事: 如何及為何。 而古典音樂的特別之處在於, 『如何與為何』的答案,有無限多個。」
That was his passion for the music. Both my parents really loved it. They didn't know all that much about it, but they gave me the opportunity to discover it together with them. And I think inspired by that memory, it's been my desire to try and bring it to as many other people as I can, sort of pass it on through whatever means. And how people get this music, how it comes into their lives, really fascinates me.
他對音樂的熱愛就是如此。 我的父母都很愛音樂。 他們對音樂懂得不是很多, 但他們給我機會 和他們一起發掘音樂之美。 可能是因為受我父母的啟發, 我一直希望盡我所能 將音樂帶給更多人, 竭盡所能地傳承下去。 而人們對音樂的領悟,以及音樂如何影響他們的生活, 對我而言是很有趣的問題。
One day in New York, I was on the street and I saw some kids playing baseball between stoops and cars and fire hydrants. And a tough, slouchy kid got up to bat, and he took a swing and really connected. And he watched the ball fly for a second, and then he went, "Dah dadaratatatah. Brah dada dadadadah." And he ran around the bases. And I thought, go figure. How did this piece of 18th century Austrian aristocratic entertainment turn into the victory crow of this New York kid? How was that passed on? How did he get to hear Mozart?
有天我走在紐約街上, 看到小孩在車子和消防栓中間打棒球。 然後有一個大塊頭上場打擊, 他用力一揮,結實地擊中球。 他花了一兩秒看著球飛出去, 然後唱著:「答答答...(音樂) 巴拉答答答... 」 邊唱邊繞著壘包跑。 我心裡想著,還真奇妙了。 十八世紀奧地利貴族的娛興, 昰如何變成這紐約孩子的勝利之歌? 是怎麼被傳承下來的?他怎麼聽到莫札特的?
Well when it comes to classical music, there's an awful lot to pass on, much more than Mozart, Beethoven or Tchiakovsky. Because classical music is an unbroken living tradition that goes back over 1,000 years. And every one of those years has had something unique and powerful to say to us about what it's like to be alive.
然而講到古典樂, 要傳承的東西可就多了, 比莫札特、貝多芬、柴可夫斯基還要多太多。 因為古典樂 是超過一千年以來 不曾中斷過的傳統。 而在這當中的每一年, 都能透過獨一無二的語道, 告訴我們活著,是什麼樣的感受。
Now the raw material of it, of course, is just the music of everyday life. It's all the anthems and dance crazes and ballads and marches. But what classical music does is to distill all of these musics down, to condense them to their absolute essence, and from that essence create a new language, a language that speaks very lovingly and unflinchingly about who we really are. It's a language that's still evolving.
當然這所有的原料, 僅是日常生活中的音樂。 是所有的詩歌和瘋狂舞蹈, 民謠及進行曲。 但是古典樂的角色在於, 把所有這些音樂提煉 凝聚出它們的精華, 並用這精華創造出一個新的語言。 這語言以充滿愛和執著堅定的口吻, 傾訴著我們的真實面貌。 這是個仍在演變的語言。
Now over the centuries it grew into the big pieces we always think of, like concertos and symphonies, but even the most ambitious masterpiece can have as its central mission to bring you back to a fragile and personal moment -- like this one from the Beethoven Violin Concerto. (Music) It's so simple, so evocative. So many emotions seem to be inside of it. Yet, of course, like all music, it's essentially not about anything. It's just a design of pitches and silence and time.
經過幾世紀的沿革, 它發展成我們常常想到的大型曲目, 像是協奏曲和交響曲等等。 但是即使是最具有企圖心的巨作, 它的最終宗旨, 仍是將你帶回曾經歷的脆弱、孤單的時刻, 就如這首貝多芬的小提琴協奏曲: (音樂) 它是如此的簡單,如此的令人回味, 之中似乎夾雜著無數情緒。 然而,就如所有的音樂, 它實質上並沒有任何含意。 它僅是音調、寂靜、和拍子的設計組合。
And the pitches, the notes, as you know, are just vibrations. They're locations in the spectrum of sound. And whether we call them 440 per second, A, or 3,729, B flat -- trust me, that's right -- they're just phenomena. But the way we react to different combinations of these phenomena is complex and emotional and not totally understood. And the way we react to them has changed radically over the centuries, as have our preferences for them.
而那些音符,你應知道,只是振動而已。 它們是聲波譜上的一些位置。 我們可以叫它"每秒振440次",或是A, 或每秒振3729次,這是降B -- 相信我,這是正確的 -- 但它們只是物理現象而已。 但是我們對於這些現象的各種組合 產生的反應, 是非常複雜且情緒化的,並尚未被完全解釋。 而且我們對音樂的反應 在過去幾世紀中也有極大的轉變, 對音樂的喜好也是一樣。
So for example, in the 11th century, people liked pieces that ended like this. (Music) And in the 17th century, it was more like this. (Music) And in the 21st century ... (Music)
我舉例來說,在十一世紀時, 人們喜歡音樂有這樣的結尾: (音樂) 但在十七世紀,人們卻比較喜歡這樣: (音樂) 然後在21世紀: (音樂)
Now your 21st century ears are quite happy with this last chord, even though a while back it would have puzzled or annoyed you or sent some of you running from the room. And the reason you like it is because you've inherited, whether you knew it or not, centuries-worth of changes in musical theory, practice and fashion.
你們的21世紀耳朵聽到那最後一個和絃 覺得挺順耳的, 然而在一些年前它可能會使你覺得奇怪或厭煩, 或是使你們一些人奪門而出。 而你會喜歡它的原因 是因為不管你知不知道,你已經繼承了 幾世紀累積下來 音樂理論、實行、及流行的演變。
And in classical music we can follow these changes very, very accurately because of the music's powerful silent partner, the way it's been passed on: notation. Now the impulse to notate, or, more exactly I should say, encode music has been with us for a very long time. In 200 B.C., a man named Sekulos wrote this song for his departed wife and inscribed it on her gravestone in the notational system of the Greeks. (Music)
而在古典樂中我們可以非常準確地追尋這些演變。 多虧於音樂強大而沉默的搭檔, 也是它傳承的機制: 樂譜 想把音樂以符號表示的衝動, 或更正確地說,將音樂編碼, 已經跟著我們很久了。 在西元前200年,一位叫Sekulos的人 為他去世的妻子寫了這首歌, 並以希臘人的記譜系統 把它刻於她的墓碑上。 (音樂)
And a thousand years later, this impulse to notate took an entirely different form. And you can see how this happened in these excerpts from the Christmas mass "Puer Natus est nobis," "For Us is Born." (Music) In the 10th century, little squiggles were used just to indicate the general shape of the tune. And in the 12th century, a line was drawn, like a musical horizon line, to better pinpoint the pitch's location.
而一千年後, 我們寫下音樂的慾望演變成完全不同的型式。 你可以想像這是如何發生的。 聽聽這些片段,取自聖誕彌撒 "Puer Natus est nobis" (拉丁文) " (嬰孩) 為我們誕生" (音樂) 在十世紀,扭曲的小線條 用來表示曲調的大概形狀。 然後在十二世紀,增加了一條線,像是音樂的地平線, 用來更準確地指出音調的位置。
And then in the 13th century, more lines and new shapes of notes locked in the concept of the tune exactly, and that led to the kind of notation we have today. Well notation not only passed the music on, notating and encoding the music changed its priorities entirely, because it enabled the musicians to imagine music on a much vaster scale.
然後於十三世紀,有更多的線條和不同形狀的音符, 將曲調的概念更加準確地具體化, 並演變成我們現今擁有的記譜系統。 記譜不只是讓音樂傳承下去, 將音樂記下並編碼完全改變了音樂的重心, 因為它使音樂家們 能於更加遼闊的規模想像音樂。
Now inspired moves of improvisation could be recorded, saved, considered, prioritized, made into intricate designs. And from this moment, classical music became what it most essentially is, a dialogue between the two powerful sides of our nature: instinct and intelligence.
如此一來即興的演出 就能夠被記錄、保存、研究、給予優先順序, 並加以構成精密的設計。 從此刻開始,古典音樂就形成 它最根本的特質, 也就是我們本性最重要的兩面: 直覺與智慧, 之間的對話。
And there began to be a real difference at this point between the art of improvisation and the art of composition. Now an improviser senses and plays the next cool move, but a composer is considering all possible moves, testing them out, prioritizing them out, until he sees how they can form a powerful and coherent design of ultimate and enduring coolness. Now some of the greatest composers, like Bach, were combinations of these two things. Bach was like a great improviser with a mind of a chess master. Mozart was the same way.
從此刻起,即興創作的藝術 與作曲的藝術之間 開始有實質的不同之處。 現在,即興演奏家感受並演出下一個很酷的招數, 但是作曲家卻能夠考慮所有可能的路數, 一個個嘗試、評斷 直到他看出它們如何形成一個強大連貫的設計 充滿著最絕對與持久的「酷」。 然而世界上一些最頂尖的作曲家,像是巴哈, 是這兩者的組合。 巴哈就像是一個擁有西洋棋大師般縝密思維 的即興創作家, 莫札特也是。
But every musician strikes a different balance between faith and reason, instinct and intelligence. And every musical era had different priorities of these things, different things to pass on, different 'whats' and 'hows'. So in the first eight centuries or so of this tradition the big 'what' was to praise God. And by the 1400s, music was being written that tried to mirror God's mind as could be seen in the design of the night sky. The 'how' was a style called polyphony, music of many independently moving voices that suggested the way the planets seemed to move in Ptolemy's geocentric universe. This was truly the music of the spheres. (Music)
但是每一個音樂家在信念與邏輯, 直覺和智慧間,會取得不同的平衡點。 而每一個年代的音樂 對於這些東西的優先順序也有所不同。 傳承著不同的東西,不同的「如何」及「為何」。 在這個傳統的前八個世紀左右 最重要的「為何」是去榮耀上帝。 到了十五世紀,人們開始創作音樂 來揣摩上帝於設計夜晚星空 所表現出的思想端倪。 而「如何」表現則是一種叫複音音樂的風格, 它由許多獨自移動的人聲組成, 用來象徵托勒密的地心宇宙觀中 星球移動的現象。 這真正是星體的音樂: (音樂)
This is the kind of music that Leonardo DaVinci would have known. And perhaps its tremendous intellectual perfection and serenity meant that something new had to happen -- a radical new move, which in 1600 is what did happen. (Music) Singer: Ah, bitter blow! Ah, wicked, cruel fate! Ah, baleful stars! Ah, avaricious heaven!
李奧納多‧達文西可能聽的就是這種音樂。 而搞不好這種音樂的知性完美及寧靜 代表著某些新穎的作品必須出現-- 革命性的新舉,而這在十七世紀時的確發生了 (音樂) 男聲: 阿,嚴酷的打擊! 阿,邪惡又殘酷的命運! 阿,凶煞之星! 阿,貪婪的上天!
MTT: This, of course, was the birth of opera, and its development put music on a radical new course. The what now was not to mirror the mind of God, but to follow the emotion turbulence of man. And the how was harmony, stacking up the pitches to form chords.
這正是歌劇的誕生, 而它的發展將音樂引往全新的軌道。 那時的「為何」不再是揣摩上帝的心意, 而是追尋人類如漩渦般的複雜情緒。 而「如何」則表現於和聲, 把音符堆疊起來變成和絃。
And the chords, it turned out, were capable of representing incredible varieties of emotions. And the basic chords were the ones we still have with us, the triads, either the major one, which we think is happy, or the minor one, which we perceive as sad. But what's the actual difference between these two chords? It's just these two notes in the middle. It's either E natural, and 659 vibrations per second, or E flat, at 622. So the big difference between human happiness and sadness? 37 freakin' vibrations.
他們發現和弦可以表現 驚人的多種不同情緒變化。 最基本的和弦我們現在仍在使用, 就所謂的三和弦, 可以是大調的, 我們覺得聽起來是快樂的, 或是小調的, 而我們感覺它是難過的。 但這兩個和弦之間的不同到底在哪裡? 其實就只是中間的這兩個音符罷了。 它可以是還原E, 每秒振動659次, 或是降E,每秒622次。 所以人類快樂與悲傷的不同到底在哪裡? 就那37個振動而已阿!
So you can see in a system like this there was enormous subtle potential of representing human emotions. And in fact, as man began to understand more his complex and ambivalent nature, harmony grew more complex to reflect it. Turns out it was capable of expressing emotions beyond the ability of words.
因此在這麼一個系統中, 你可想有多少細微變化和潛力 來表示人類的情緒變化。 事實上,當人們開始更加了解 他們自己複雜又模稜兩可的本性時, 和聲便隨之演變得更加複雜。 人們發現它能夠描繪 言語無法傳述的情感。
Now with all this possibility, classical music really took off. It's the time in which the big forms began to arise. And the effects of technology began to be felt also, because printing put music, the scores, the codebooks of music, into the hands of performers everywhere. And new and improved instruments made the age of the virtuoso possible. This is when those big forms arose -- the symphonies, the sonatas, the concertos.
所以擁有了這無限可能, 古典樂真正開始飛黃騰達。 這就是那些主要的作曲形式開始發展的時代。 並開始受到科技的影響, 因為印刷技術將樂譜,音樂的編碼書, 放入世界各處的演奏家手中。 而更新改良的樂器, 造就了演藝精湛的音樂家世代。 那些大型的音樂型式就是這時開始崛起-- 如那些交響樂、奏鳴曲、協奏曲。
And in these big architectures of time, composers like Beethoven could share the insights of a lifetime. A piece like Beethoven's Fifth basically witnessing how it was possible for him to go from sorrow and anger, over the course of a half an hour, step by exacting step of his route, to the moment when he could make it across to joy. (Music)
而在這些跨越時空的結構中, 像貝多芬這樣的作曲家就能夠與別人分享他一生的經驗。 如貝多芬的第五號交響曲, 讓我們見證它如何能夠 由悲傷和憤怒 在半個鐘頭之中 一步一步,精確地, 走向喜悅的那一剎那。 (音樂)
And it turned out the symphony could be used for more complex issues, like gripping ones of culture, such as nationalism or quest for freedom or the frontiers of sensuality. But whatever direction the music took, one thing until recently was always the same, and that was when the musicians stopped playing, the music stopped.
而且交響樂也可以用來表達更複雜的領域, 像是文化, 如民族主義或是對自由的追尋, 或是人類性情的邊境。 但無論音樂的走向是如何, 一直到最近,有一樣東西一直都不變, 那就是,當音樂家停止演奏時, 音樂也隨之靜止。
Now this moment so fascinates me. I find it such a profound one. What happens when the music stops? Where does it go? What's left? What sticks with people in the audience at the end of a performance? Is it a melody or a rhythm or a mood or an attitude? And how might that change their lives?
這一刻一直令我十分感興趣。 我認為它意義深遠。 當音樂停止時,會發生什麼事? 它跑去哪裡?它留下了什麼? 當表演結束後,觀眾腦海裡還遺留着些什麼? 是曲調,是節奏, 還是一種情緒或是一種態度? 而這會如何改變他們的生活?
To me this is the intimate, personal side of music. It's the passing on part. It's the 'why' part of it. And to me that's the most essential of all. Mostly it's been a person-to-person thing, a teacher-student, performer-audience thing, and then around 1880 came this new technology that first mechanically then through analogs then digitally created a new and miraculous way of passing things on, albeit an impersonal one. People could now hear music all the time, even though it wasn't necessary for them to play an instrument, read music or even go to concerts.
對我而言這是音樂最深切、私人的一面。 是那個傳下去的部分,那個「為什麼」的部分, 對我來說這才是最重要的。 這大多都是一種人和人之間的互動, 像是師生之間,或演出者與觀眾之間。 但在1880年代一個新科技誕生了, 先由類比而後經由數位訊號 創造了一個奇蹟般傳承音樂的新方法, 然而它不是透過人際傳達的。 現在人們隨時都可以聽音樂。 他們不需要 會演奏樂器,視譜,甚至是去聽音樂會。
And technology democratized music by making everything available. It spearheaded a cultural revolution in which artists like Caruso and Bessie Smith were on the same footing. And technology pushed composers to tremendous extremes, using computers and synthesizers to create works of intellectually impenetrable complexity beyond the means of performers and audiences.
科技把音樂帶給了人們,使之民主化,大眾化。 它引起了一場文化革命, 在此中聲樂家Caruso和藍調歌手Bessie Smith 的地位是相當的。 而科技也將作曲家的靈感逼到最極限, 利用電腦和合成器 創作複雜得令人費解的作品, 超越演奏家和觀眾的的想像。
At the same time technology, by taking over the role that notation had always played, shifted the balance within music between instinct and intelligence way over to the instinctive side. The culture in which we live now is awash with music of improvisation that's been sliced, diced, layered and, God knows, distributed and sold. What's the long-term effect of this on us or on music? Nobody knows.
科技同時經由 替代樂譜過去扮演的角色, 轉移了音樂裡直覺與智慧的平衡, 遠遠的到直覺那邊去。 我們現在的文化 充斥著即興組合的音樂, 被重複切割、組合、複疊 還有,誰知道,被發行販售。 這對我們和音樂的長期影響是什麼? 沒有人知道。
The question remains: What happens when the music stops? What sticks with people? Now that we have unlimited access to music, what does stick with us?
而問題仍存在: 當音樂停止時,會發生什麼事? 哪些部分留在了人的的腦海中? 如今我們可以無限享受音樂,什麼部分會跟隨我們?
Well let me show you a story of what I mean by "really sticking with us." I was visiting a cousin of mine in an old age home, and I spied a very shaky old man making his way across the room on a walker. He came over to a piano that was there, and he balanced himself and began playing something like this. (Music)
讓我跟你說一個故事,來講明 "跟隨著我們"的意思。 我之前去養老院拜訪我的表兄, 然後看見一個顫抖的老人 正移著助行器走過房間中央。 他走到那裡的鋼琴前, 他坐好後開始彈類似這樣的曲子: (音樂)
And he said something like, "Me ... boy ... symphony ... Beethoven." And I suddenly got it, and I said, "Friend, by any chance are you trying to play this?" (Music) And he said, "Yes, yes. I was a little boy. The symphony: Isaac Stern, the concerto, I heard it." And I thought, my God, how much must this music mean to this man that he would get himself out of his bed, across the room to recover the memory of this music that, after everything else in his life is sloughing away, still means so much to him?
然後他說:「我...小時候...交響曲...貝多芬」 然後我忽然間聽懂了, 然後我說:「這位朋友,你是不是想試著彈這個?」 (音樂) 他說:「對,對,我那時只是個小男孩。 那首交響曲: Isaac Stern (小提琴家), 那協奏曲,我聽過。」 然後我心裡想,我的天啊, 音樂對這位老先生而言是多麼重要, 使他從床上爬起來,走過房間, 就為了喚回這首曲子的記憶。 在他生活中所已的事物都慢慢流失時, 這對他來說仍如此重要?
Well, that's why I take every performance so seriously, why it matters to me so much. I never know who might be there, who might be absorbing it and what will happen to it in their life.
這就是為什麼我如此嚴肅的看待每一場演出, 為什麼這對我來說這麼重要。 我無法知道誰會在現場,誰會將之吸收, 已及他們的命運將會如何。
But now I'm excited that there's more chance than ever before possible of sharing this music. That's what drives my interest in projects like the TV series "Keeping Score" with the San Francisco Symphony that looks at the backstories of music, and working with the young musicians at the New World Symphony on projects that explore the potential of the new performing arts centers for both entertainment and education.
但是我很興奮,因為從來沒有如現在如此多的機會 來分享音樂。 這就是為什麼我有興趣參與 如和舊金山交響樂團合作的"Keeping Score"電視節目, 來探索音樂背後的故事, 或是在新世界交響樂團與年輕音樂家合作 開發能運用新演奏廳的潛力 之類的計畫, 來促進娛樂與教育。
And of course, the New World Symphony led to the YouTube Symphony and projects on the internet that reach out to musicians and audiences all over the world. And the exciting thing is all this is just a prototype. There's just a role here for so many people -- teachers, parents, performers -- to be explorers together. Sure, the big events attract a lot of attention, but what really matters is what goes on every single day. We need your perspectives, your curiosity, your voices.
當然,新世界交響樂 衍伸出YouTube交響樂已及其他網路上的計畫, 讓世界各地的音樂家及觀眾一同參與。 而且令我興奮的昰,這只是雛形而已。 這領域有空間讓更多人參與, 老師、家長、演出者, 一起成為探險家。 沒錯,那些大型活動吸引很多人的目光, 但真正重要的是每一天發生的事。 我們需要你的觀點,你的好奇心,你的聲音。
And it excites me now to meet people who are hikers, chefs, code writers, taxi drivers, people I never would have guessed who loved the music and who are passing it on. You don't need to worry about knowing anything. If you're curious, if you have a capacity for wonder, if you're alive, you know all that you need to know. You can start anywhere. Ramble a bit. Follow traces. Get lost. Be surprised, amused inspired. All that 'what', all that 'how' is out there waiting for you to discover its 'why', to dive in and pass it on.
而且我也很興奮能夠認識新的朋友, 登山客、廚師、程式設計師、計程車司機, 有些我從來沒想過會如此喜愛音樂的人, 他們也將音樂傳承下去。 你不需要擔心你什麼都不會。 如果你擁有好奇心,如果你能夠接受驚喜, 如果你活著, 你就已知道你所需的所有東西了。 你可以從任何地方開始,隨處看看。 尋跡而覓,迷路,讓它令你驚訝、會心一笑、感動。 有無限的「如何」及「為何」 待你發現它的「為什麼」, 來一頭栽進去吧!並一起傳承。
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)