One reason why music amazes me

I have to get this down before I forget. We had a visitor who was talking about how he liked ‘artificially’ generated music, as opposed to those from ordinary acoustical instruments – largely because, if I got it right, it is just not possible to make these sounds in the ordinary, traditional world.

And that made me think of why I liked electronic music. And in some sense it is for the same reason – the artist can do so many many things that are just outrageously creative – 3D rolling, spinning shapes that burst from nowhere and wrap around the listener then dissipate slowly into the air, for example.

And that is true. But then I thought the core of why I like electronic music, and acoustical music, is the way and the mystery of how a musician can use this ‘THING’ and make people feel things.

How and why can a violin sound so very poignant. In some sense it invokes a baby’s cry – but is that all there is to it?

Why does rock-and-roll induce adrenaline and testosterone production?

How about something as simple as drums? Mimicking the heart beat? Is that all there is to it?

And then there is the human voice. Singers. Love. Angst. Anger [rap is great at that. Don’t even have to listen to the words to know that Someone is Pissed Off].

Do all musical instruments mimic the human voice, and the rhythm the human heart beat?

I have been amazed my whole life at the variations of meanings different accents and tonal colorations in spoken language. For a VERY crude example: How are you? HOW are you? How are YOU? etc.

Frank Herbert must have thought about this when he came up with the Bene Gesserit in his book ‘Dune’. One can watch politicians and newscasters and try and figure out what they REALLY think. One listens to Frank Sinatra and can tell when he REALLY means what he is singing [his early years], and when he is really BORED.

It is these cues that we learned somehow, sometime in our lives and that we want our stereo systems to reproduce. This is the underlying message, the underlying truths that we are used to hearing.

We may not pay attention to this other ‘language’ all the time – and some musicians, let’s face it, just do not have the talent to add this subliminal subtext to their music.

But it seems it does not take maturity to produce this, nor always a great system to hear it. And often groups will have a general subtext in all their songs.

The Beatles, for example, have that youthful exuberance, that tongue in cheek, the world is a giant playground attitude that comes through in almost all their songs – no matter what words they are singing. Radiohead has this ability, but they are unfocused and tease us and play with us. Rap music just focus on anger and frustration. Classical music has lots of subtext – but it is ethereal and sophisticated.

Just playing around now [and your guess is as good, or better, than mine]: Led Zeppelin – exultation. Pink Floyd: early days – LSD [exploring strange new worlds, seek out new life and civilizations…OK, Pink Floyd is not sending their subtext to me very clearly – but I consider this to be some of the best live music ever – so I am too close to it to see clearly?], DSOTM and after – humans living with the purity of the machine. Neil Young: Sweet Angst. Grateful Dead: We are all human.

OK, well that was fun.

The point is that we seem to be programmed to recognize sound, sound that is not composed of words, as another carrier of information. And that these subtle and not so subtle sounds may have many, many layers of meaning that we do not consciously understand, nor recognize in our day to day lives, but exist nonetheless. And to truly understand what music is communicating – we need to hear it all, all the layers, from our high-end audio systems.