Thursday, March 22, 2012

The sea organ of Zadar

A young Facebook friend of mine (her name is Maggie, I knew her when she was very little girl, her parents raised her well) was upset because one of her college flatmates (they're in grad school at Newcastle University, England) told her hip hop was not music & threw a lot of jiveass learning in her face, making her feel like she couldn't argue back. If we learn anything essentially  wise about music, it's that 1. What we  don't like doesn't make it not music. 2. Music is whatever we perceive as music (an ancient concept, really), & the broader our perception, the more interesting the world sounds.

Also, the people I know who love lot's of different kinds of music tend to ask themselves why they don't like something at first. Music comes in innumerable different languages, from different cultures & creative philosophies. Often it's a problem of not knowing enough of the language of that music. I know people who grew up around jazz & jazz musicians.  It was natural to their ears.  I had to work at it over a period of years. One of the big "shifts" in my comprehension occurred when I encountered (in the classroom) cultures where music was inseparable from spirituality, & spirituality inseparable from the routines of daily life.  The idea that music could exist by & for itself was unknown, yet these cultures didn't seem deprived to me.

So Maggie just ought to say "F*ck you" to the guy, or whatever the British equivalent.

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"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson

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