Question: Does each musical note have its own significance?

Sri Chinmoy: Each higher note and each lower note has its own significance. Again, you cannot say that each note has only one significance. It depends upon the performer. If a novice musician touches a particular key on the piano, for example, it will sound one way, but if a master musician touches the same key, it will sound very different. Again, if a spiritual musician touches the same key, the sound may be the same, but the music will reach an inner height that the others cannot reach.

When an excellent singer sings, each note has its own resonance or inner beauty. But when soulfulness enters into a particular note, it has its own dimension, its own reality. The sound that is coming is the same, but a spiritual person will be able to know when the musical note touches a particular realm because of the soulfulness that has entered into that note. A spiritual singer will sing one particular note, and an ordinary singer will do the same. The pitch may be exactly the same, but the ordinary singer will not reach the same inner height, no matter how famous he or she is, because their consciousness is not the same.

So each note, in a broad sense, has its own significance. Again, the significance of each note depends on the consciousness of the singer or musician at that moment.