Rant #2
Music.
Sound. It is not with our ears we hear. We hear with a mind that organizes the
information received by our ears. Reality is shaped by the software we use to
analyze the data. Mind structures reality. Data has no life separate from the
software that organizes it. There are no observers, only participators. Music
is heard through a set of filters which are your personal mental images and
concepts that shape your hearing. These filters classify, they arrange, they
give names to what you hear - or what you think you hear. They focus on rhythm,
focus on harmony, focus on melody. If you set these filters to narrow, you wont
hear music, only the sound of your intellect bouncing like a superball inside
your mind. Instrumental music needs to be imagined, the same way a book is imagined,
projected inside your mind. This imagining is an active process. The images
are a vision shared with the musicians. The listener is as important an element
to any performance as the artist who performs the music. Musicians and audience
need to be in tune with each other in order to share, in order to be sympathetic
to each other - like the strings of a guitar resonating together. This can happen
in a mosh pit or at a classical music concert. Its a pretty fragile connection
that binds performer and audience, but when it achieves resonance it becomes
awesome.
Interlude:
I have often been asked why I dont like to talk during our shows. There
are several reasons: I dont want to destroy a moment, a musical aftertaste,
by using words which seem so coarse. I also sometimes get so lost in the music
that I actually cant talk. Once I was announcing the trio I had been performing
with for over a year. I mean, these were friends I had known for a while and
yet when I said: On percussion...... I couldnt remember Davo
Bryants name. I dont know how long it took for me to remember his
name, maybe it was just a few seconds of silence, but it seemed like I was somewhere
else, where words and names didnt matter. Singers probably dont
have experiences like this, because they always work with words, but musos might
understand. End of interlude.
Music
is the most mystical experience many people will have in their lives. Much more
mystical than most peoples religious experience, which simply consists
of following their churchs laws and rites. People can experience something
other through music, catch a glimpse of something other. Music is that touch
of otherworldliness, universal-ness. Call it divine if you must. The soul is
the antenna, I am the instrument, the guitar is the amplifier.
Opposites are not contradictory but complimentary. (Neils Bohr)
Speech is an endless balancing act, forever falling off the edge of understanding.
(Darryl Reanney)