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Thursday, February 12, 2009

Music: serious vs. boring vs. enriching vs. pleasant


Some thoughts on my Roman Bessnow's forum recent exposure... like (many) others I lurked in his nice forum and read posts and get new inspiration on some overlooked classic music and conductors... I also wrote some posts, but, as we say in Italy "I sort-of had the feeling I tasted a rusty chain"... i.e. - a cold, unsatisfying sense behind the WEB obscurities of someone at the other side of the computer simply too confident he almost have no peer among other men, in knowledge, skill and plain intelligence... maybe exagerating, BUT, anyway, I'm writing on the matter to point out, music-sake, about something which embarassed me deeply, while conversating with Roman on his site, about music... something which I wasn't ready to manage as said (written) from a surely brilliant mind: the concept of "serious music".
... is "serious music" only something in written form (is paper serious?), something whose composer and/or performer is deadly dead (deadly sure death is serious enough!), or music coming from an orchestra whose musicians hate dentists, so not having good time, nor smiling to do not show the ugly teeth, maybe?!?
Isn't Miles, or Grateful Dead or Bill Evans or Alex de Grassi or Bert Jansch serious enough?
Isn't a yesterday tune a today classic? Roman wrote he only considers being serious, orchestral music, preferably Barbirolli's conducted, because it's the "only music" able to show a given audio-system flaws or highlights...
Beside the sonic considerations, which sincerely bring me to disagree, I respect his thoughts, BUT from someone who (like he recently confessed) MOSTLY listen to (nice) FM waves - on his top-of-the-line Sansui tuner - from Boston-area radio stations, it appears a lazy, iPod Shuffle-like affaire... maybe lacking the freedom of the choice, thinking about "what" disc, disk, tape, FM or... whatever someone wants to listen to, what mood someone needs or likes in that very moment... that's the "freedom" in music which makes it so human... where is the joy of listening, instead of being "serious"... Well, I sure love being surprised, moved, but also jump like a teenager on Jerry Garcia's notes... otherwise, it reminds me something like... "Silence!!! Stop laughing and let's concentrate: we MUST have good time. it's an order!"-thing.
Saw a recent "opening" on "unserious music" (!?!) with Leonard Cohen's... a GREAT, awesome musician, a poet I'm VERY fond of... BUT... what about the rest of the world?!?!?
... that's why I'd say "some" people should go for a "Blog"-format, instead of a "Forum": an opinion is an opinion and opinions are like cocks = everyone has his own! A "Blog" is, in my opinion, a private, self-act, a buen-retiro from stress and violence of real, every day life, a positiveness bubble where it's possible to freely express, almost filterless, myself. Am I a romantic?
All the above is, SIMPLY, NOT possible anymore in most of Forums I'm aware of, where the politics of relating - i.e. - Admin vs. forumers being NOT au-pair and related power games prevails over expression and thoughts swapping among peers; thus, a question: is maybe the "Forum" as a WEB creation, dated, tired and tiring, for readers and writers, as well?

When I write in my humble, simple, maybe stupid Blog - I'm obeying to an urgence in sharing, also unread, my thoughts and I never tried to establish any Church or cohort: it's a plain & simple diary. Period.

2 comments:

R_Carter said...

Hey, you start writing something about music, but then you close about your urge to share your thoughts with other surfers.
So I gues it's not just about yourself, huh?!

twogoodears said...

... it's a work-in-progress, dear mr. Carter... also fearsome of too lenghty (read: boring) texts... I'm very shy;-))) you know...
... but I'll try to go deeper, as per my possibilities... a BIG task, indeed: as you know "there is no scientific proof of the existence of music";-)