Musical Object Lesson Part One
I am the kind of person who isn't comfortable not knowing why I feel certian ways about certain things. Por ejemplo; Music has always been a big part of my life. I used to wonder as a kid why I loved certain song I heard on the radio. I would try to love the other songs as well and they usually grew on me 'cause , hey, I'm a kid and I don't know any better.
As I got older and started to pick up the guitar, this slowly stopped working. I started to wonder what was different about the music I loved and the rest of the music that I didn't love. Or the music that I heard and liked at first but then I got tired of. Or the music I din't care for at first but then grew to love. I didn't realize it at the time, but, what I was searching for was a kind of philisophical holy grail: unity in diversity. We get the words universe and university from these two words. The job of the university was to find unity in diversity. In other words I was searching for the unifying factor in the diversity of the music that I loved.
I have always had eclectic tastes so stlye went right out the window right away. I did notice a strong theme in the meledy. Meledy in a song/composition was always what drew me in so I tried to analyze writing styles and though maybe the melodies of the songs I loved were composed first and then the harmonies were added or maybe the lyrics were written first and then the music was added, but none of these theories comforted me. I could use these as a yardstick to judge new music I heard to tell that it would have staying power.
Then something funny happened a few years ago. I had stopped even thinking about the whole thing when it started to make perfect sense. I guess the psychologists call it the byscociating mind. I got comfortable when I started thing about the people behind the music I love. The unifier was in the artist not in the art. What is the artist about? Good philosophy? Gifted musician? What do they value? Do I consistanly love the work of their entire career? I also noticed how similar these answers where to the answers I would give to these questions in regfard to myself; the artists I love were alot like me. Not across the board but in general. I also noticed the nigh amounts of critical aclaim my favorites got. Like Zappa, Steely Dan, Rush, Gentle Giant, Ben Folds, Seal, Mike Keneally, and others. I realized that I had found a rule to gauge pretty quickly weather some new music I heard, or I should say some new artist I heard would last with me.
Stay tuned for part two!
As I got older and started to pick up the guitar, this slowly stopped working. I started to wonder what was different about the music I loved and the rest of the music that I didn't love. Or the music that I heard and liked at first but then I got tired of. Or the music I din't care for at first but then grew to love. I didn't realize it at the time, but, what I was searching for was a kind of philisophical holy grail: unity in diversity. We get the words universe and university from these two words. The job of the university was to find unity in diversity. In other words I was searching for the unifying factor in the diversity of the music that I loved.
I have always had eclectic tastes so stlye went right out the window right away. I did notice a strong theme in the meledy. Meledy in a song/composition was always what drew me in so I tried to analyze writing styles and though maybe the melodies of the songs I loved were composed first and then the harmonies were added or maybe the lyrics were written first and then the music was added, but none of these theories comforted me. I could use these as a yardstick to judge new music I heard to tell that it would have staying power.
Then something funny happened a few years ago. I had stopped even thinking about the whole thing when it started to make perfect sense. I guess the psychologists call it the byscociating mind. I got comfortable when I started thing about the people behind the music I love. The unifier was in the artist not in the art. What is the artist about? Good philosophy? Gifted musician? What do they value? Do I consistanly love the work of their entire career? I also noticed how similar these answers where to the answers I would give to these questions in regfard to myself; the artists I love were alot like me. Not across the board but in general. I also noticed the nigh amounts of critical aclaim my favorites got. Like Zappa, Steely Dan, Rush, Gentle Giant, Ben Folds, Seal, Mike Keneally, and others. I realized that I had found a rule to gauge pretty quickly weather some new music I heard, or I should say some new artist I heard would last with me.
Stay tuned for part two!
posted by Geoff at 1:11 AM
2 Comments:
Por ejemplo
The correct, snobby way of massacring this English locution is to write it in French. That's "par exemple."
You have to admit that Spanish quotes evoke an avunvular Mexican barkeeper in a noisy joint, at best. Whereas reading French immediately brings to mind images of distinguished Rive Gauche intellectuals sipping Beaujolais over their escargots while discussing Sartre.
Damn, scratch that. Now this image is stuck in my mind and I can't stand it. I hate Sartre. I hate these Parisian pseudo-intellectuals. Bloody Leftists, I hope they choke on they snails!
OK, you win, keep your Mex joint.
-- The Masked Frenchman
That actually just came out when I was writing it. I think I had Strong Bad on the brain er-something.
Is that you Fred?
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