the rix mix

So how does one get culture if one isn't raised in it? By culture I mean broadening one's tastes in fine arts. There's also the culture of, say, The NJ State Council On the Arts, for which a man is permitted a well-groomed beard but must purchase a new tuxedo every few years to wear at receptions, galas, & benefits. One has to have & nurture two qualities: natural curiosity, & a willingness to force feed oneself with unfamiliar art & music. It's like people who love to travel; they're always looking for new places to go. I'm especially that way with music.

I "naturally" encountered only two kinds of music of a kid, top 40 radio & movie music. As a teenager, I collected movie & TV soundtrack LPs. Those set my ears up for turgid late romantic classical music (Ben Hur etc.) & big band jazz (Peter Gunn, Man With the Golden Arm), & some American classical (The Magnificent Seven). My oldest brother had a small but very diverse record collection that included early whiz zap bing syntheziser music, Thelonius Monk, "The Planets" by Gustav Holst - which sounded great played very loud; he had Phase Four "Pass In Review" albums, which were parades marching in stereo from one speaker to another, very odd - different kinds of bands plus entire armies of soldiers. But my family was really artless middle class. We all got piano lessons if we wanted them - a left over from an earlier parlor era when someone in every family could perform an intermediate level classical piece after Sunday dinner & play most any four part arrangement from a hymnbook. My grandmother knew by heart a wonderful version of "I'm Looking Over A Four Leaf Clover" but I can't recall her playing anything else.

I think what most drove my desire to learn more about music was wanting know why I liked certain chord progressions or phrases much more than others - there was a code to be cracked, & to find more bits of music that pleasurable. Many people get this sensation, it's what a lot of music intends, so they spend the rest of their lives looking for & listening to those same few sorts of things that give them the same old thrill without needing to know how the machine works. Later in life they are quick to tell you all the kinds of music they hate. I remember, in my 30s, getting hold of the piano sheet music to the "Theme from Mr. Lucky," which I loved as a kid, & finally playing the last 8 measures, which I loved most of all, & seeing how Henry Mancini brilliantly yet simply ended the lovely but peculiar tune. I'd never been able to figure it out by ear, listening to the record.

What I'm trying to say here is that if you don't feel that there are entire worlds of music & art that are unknown to you but which can be known & enjoyed, you'll never get to them. They don't just come to you. To use but one example, Beethoven composed 9 symphonies & if you want to know them you have to listen to them, many times. & if they seem strange, even impenetrable in many parts, you have to listen to them until they are as familiar in their way as some pop song. Although the difference is that a Beethoven symphony never quite gives you everything it has to give, is never performed the same way twice except on a specific recording, even so you never hear it the same way twice, & that's why when you grow to love them you keep going back to them. You go to live performances. You develop opinions. & a lot of music really is crap that gets shoved into your ears, & people consume it & think it's terrific. I didn't really listen to Beethoven until I was 19 years old. which was the same year I first heard Balinese gamelan music. & the year I fell for an electronic music work, "I of IV" by Pauline Oliveros. & the same year I tried to get at John Coltrane - he had died the year before. I was working in a great record store, & in the midst of all that music, & staff & customers more expert in their genres than I'll ever be, since I spread myself across so many, I understood that to really appreciate new countries I might have to struggle with new languages & unfamiliar customs. & that's how you get culture.