I know, I know, but we have to call it something.
I was having the usual midweek ZoukFest freak-out. All that exposure to transcendental musicianship, wow! Or oy… On the one hand it was like swallowing holy razor blades, while on the other hand, the antidote for same. At first I started auguring in, like a fighter pilot in a spin — it wasn’t just the overwhelming musical talent, but all my friends were educated and erudite, too. I always thought I was, but somewhere along the line I gave up books for mapping my inner potholes — not that I ever had a choice in that, as I’d blown out all my tires and was riding on the rims. This exploration takes a lot of time, however, which is why my wife sometimes complains there isn’t any room for her. Books would sure be easier on the lady, I have to say.
Anyway, there I was, ready once again to send my parents’ wretched souls to everlasting burning hell for being so damned scared and useless and teaching me to fold. The way this thing isn’t supposed to turn out is that I think about my life at 62 and wonder if it’s all for shit: whom did I help, how did I make a difference, what did I have to show for it all? I could’ve been a Michelanglo, but everything is all fucked up, I’m getting old, and of course it’s someone else’s fault. It always is, except it’s NOT!
Jam session winding down (?) at 4:30 a.m.
And then the transcendental musicianship began to earn its name. The razor blades dissolved and went down easily. A giant relaxation seemed slowly to enfold me. I realized that maybe the purpose of this life for me wasn’t to paint or write a masterpiece but just to be okay. To HEAL myself, forgodssakes, to touch the flaming love of All There Is while the memories fall away. When this doesn’t get passed down with your DNA, when you don’t get zapped upside the heart with holy mojo goodness ’cause your mommy and your daddy love you more than life itself, then you have to find it on your own or take up ugly habits. What happened to me on Wednesday night was I felt like I was off the hook: if all I did from there on out was tell people how much I loved them (when I felt it), that was plenty. For me, I mean. The karmic debt was so enormous, paying it down was ring-the-bells HUGE. In other words, being happy was enough.
This was revolutionary. My God, what if everybody felt this way? The music moved me and I told the performers that it had. I walked up to others that I hardly knew and shared a friendly thought. Before I knew it, people were saying nice things about me as well. I emailed my wife to ask if this was how it was among the sane, and she said “YES!!!”
Yeah, yeah. I came home three days later, had a fit, and wrecked the car, so what.
I remember the last time I climbed a mountain, don’t I?
Comment by K.J. Webb
1 June 17, 2008, 9:12 am o'clock |
I’m a great music-lover and only wish I could also do what you do - that is, make a little of the stuff myself. Nevertheless, the thought has often occurred to me that with all its virtues music can have a baleful effect on one’s life. I mean in this way: The emotional world of music is full of such vitality, passion and intensity that it can easily lead us into thinking that the bad old world that exists outside the music could give us those satisfactions. It can actually do so sometimes, fleetingly and fragmentarily. And of course music itself is part of the bigger world. One might even say that it’s one of the better parts. Yet there’s the other 99 per cent of the equation to be considered and dealt with. A reader of the Book of Genesis might believe that mankind once lived 100 per cent of the time in the sweet zone, but such a reader would also know that a certain event propelled us into a more dangerous, painful, unsatisfactory and tragedy-filled place of abode. Hell, you don’t need to believe in the Bible to know that! Music may give us a taste of paradise, but it’s dangerous in large doses. You don’t need to read Plato to know that! We and the world are not as good as music wants us to believe. Those are words you can take to the bank!
Comment by Carmel
2 June 18, 2008, 9:09 pm o'clock |
I disagree KJ. We and the world are every bit as good as music wants us to believe … but we DON’T believe, and act against our true nature.
Comment by Number 6
3 June 19, 2008, 12:00 pm o'clock |
right on carmel! one must understand the unique magic that is music, and sets it apart from all other “static” art forms (painting, writing, etc) - music ONLY exists in Real Time; it is a process, not an object, that tunes us into the flow and rhythm of the Universe.
Vangelis (Blade Runner, Chariots of Fire, etc etc etc) often says that all music already exists in the memory of the Universe, and by playing it we are really just remembering it, acting as a conduit for it.
or as Dieter Meier (of the Swiss electronic duo Yello) put it:
“The Big Bang.
The ultimate hero of low frequency.
The divine intergalactical bass drum connecting the tribes of our solar system.
If we could communicate from our tiny piece of solar driftwood into another galaxy,
what would we say?
We can send out pictures, symbols, chemical formulas or language.
The magic of music is a sign of consciousness that can be understood on far-flung worlds,
millions of light years from our horizon.
Music is an interstellar language from a highly insignificant planet
One of nine in our system,
which sails through time and space,
till the next one,
the next
inevitable
Big
Bang…”
-Yello, “Solar Driftwood”
Comment by K.J. Webb
4 June 19, 2008, 12:52 pm o'clock |
Carmel, your sweetness of disposition makes me want to believe it could be so. Number 6, you’re a living breathing Twilight Zone. It would be fun to live there.
Comment by Number 6
5 June 19, 2008, 1:39 pm o'clock |
then quit yer whinin’ and DO SO!
it really is just that easy (even though you seem to want to stubbornly insist otherwise…).
suggestion: go get yourself an instrument, ANY instrument, and START MAKING SOME NOISE! don’t care so much what it sounds like, the important thing is what it FEELS like (and it’s not necessarily all about feeling “good” as it is about being ruthlessly GENUINE to your True Deep Self; all emotions, good, bad and ugly (*especially* “ugly” - those are the ones that need it the most, and that music has the greatest power to transmute)). you don’t need “training” or any of that over-thinking bullshit, just DO IT. you might surprise yourself…
get a guitar and teach yourself 2 chords. get a synthesizer and make Far Out Space Noizes. bang away on a piano, beat on some drums…
(and no lame excuses about disturbing spouses and neighbors, that’s what headphones are for - just GO FOR IT!)
come on in, the water’s fine!….
“Don’t think, feel. Trust your instincts.”
-Qui-Gon Jinn, “Star Wars Ep. 1 - The Phantom Menace”
Comment by Carmel
6 June 20, 2008, 11:14 pm o'clock |
Er … what sweetness of disposition would that be? The one that envelops me after making music?
Comment by K.J. Webb
7 June 21, 2008, 12:08 pm o'clock |
A deep question for philosophers - does the sweetness precede the music or the music the sweetness? Or are sweetness and music correlatives of one another? –I’m gonna stick with my characterization of the Carmen who shows up in words apart from Carmen the music maker. (Pardon my presumption!)
On this matter of music’s benign influence, remember that the guards at Auschwitz loved their Beethoven and Schubert. They weren’t otherwise notably sweet guys. Come to think of it, much of Beethoven could hardly be called sweet. The man himself was damn near inhuman. The last quartets are about as harsh, astringent and unwhistleable as 19th century music can get. That sort of stuff appeals to a guy like me with a taste for edge and irony. It doesn’t sweeten my disposition, but it does seem in some tangential way to be “true”. So I’ll give, if not three cheers, then two and a half cheers for the glories of music.
Comment by Carmel
8 June 21, 2008, 4:09 pm o'clock |
Talk about mistaken identity … you’ve even got my name wrong
Americans, I’ve noticed, have problems with ‘Carmel’ as a christian name.
You make a lot of good points. And of course, everyone who likes music is not sweet of disposition. There’s a difference between liking music and making music, but as you point out … not everyone who makes music is sweet of disposition either.
However, in general, my experience has shown that music has a positive effect on most. I’ll mention some examples from my own experience.
Years ago I used to teach music in a small school. The teachers all said that when the children came back to their class they were better behaved, more alert, and performed their other lessons better. (Hmm … it could be argued that it was contact that the sweetly dispositioned Carmel that did it
For over 20 years I’ve been attending the Woodford Folk Festival. It has grown very large, and extends over 5 days and nights. Alcohol is served onsite. People of all kinds and ages and colours attend the festival. In all that time I’ve never seen one person drunk and disorderly. Nor have I seen one person get angry at having to wait on long queues. The children don’t even cry. This despite stinking hot weather, or tropical downpours. How much influence this has on the rest of attendees’ lives I can’t say.
For a number of years I’ve been attending a Monday-evening singing session with a group of about 20 people, led by the wonderful Margret RoadKnight. There’s nothing formal about the group, no performances, no concern with making mistakes, no annoyance at the people who sing offkey. The camaraderie which has developed within this group is amazing. Recently Margret returned to her home state (Victoria). I thought the group would disband, but it didn’t. There was determination to keep going … clearly the feeling within the group was as important as the singing itself.
As Margret is fond of saying, “When you’re happy, sing. When you’re sad, sing louder.”
It’s possible that the act of making music together, as opposed to solo performance, has the sweetening effect.
Comment by Carmel
9 June 21, 2008, 4:18 pm o'clock |
Incidentally, I’ve been singing since I was a child. This certainly wasn’t because of a happy childhood. But I FELT happy when I sang. I think it got me through a difficult childhood.
In more recent years life has been very difficult. I realised I hadn’t sung for a number of years. I started going to those Monday night sessions and have to say it made an ENORMOUS difference to my outlook on life and my ability to handle stressful circumstances.
Comment by K.J. Webb
10 June 22, 2008, 4:37 am o'clock |
Apologies for the screw-up of your name, my dear C. I must have been free-associating you with a certain femme fatale of Opera, given that the subject was music.
In light of your further thoughts, and upon re-reading Number 6, I’ll up my semi-reluctant applause level to 2-3/4ths cheers!
The only singing I ever did was croaking out “Onward, Christian Soldiers!” and suchlike on Sunday mornings. I remember the preacher saying in an uncharacteristic witticism that we ought to bellow out those good old hymns to spite the devil. “We can’t let old Nick have all the best tunes!” Christianity - and all the great faiths - have known and used the power of music. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I resist it.