Author Archives: JRoth

Musicker’s Musing #6: Musical Taste (Again)

Musing #6: Musical Taste (Again)

Think of your top ten favorite musical artists (or if you’d rather: your top ten favorite albums or songs). Do you think there’s another person you know whose list would exactly match yours? My guess is, probably not. How about someone you don’t know? There are about eight billion people on the planet. Surely there would be one who would agree with you 100%. Wouldn’t there have to be?

Maybe.

But what if you did your top twenty? Or top 100. I’d be willing to stake my whole career that there is not another person on the planet whose top 100 would match mine (no matter what order). And I don’t think my taste is particularly eccentric.

We could discuss it and come up with a myriad of answers as to why this might be, but I prefer to leave it as one more part of the great mystery that we call Music.

With the realization that we truly are alone with our unique musical tastes (in the sense that there is no exact carbon copy of that taste), I see no reason to scoff at, look down upon, or feel superiority over another’s taste in music.

Musicker’s Musing #5: Easy Does It

Musing #5: Easy Does It

In the late 1990s, I twice traveled to India. I plead guilty to having fallen under a spell somewhat akin to that which seemingly captured the Beatles and others of that generation: I wanted to get beyond/beneath the material world in a way that seemed impossible through the means presented to me in my own country. It seemed like one could transcend to a higher plane just by setting foot in India.

One evening in India, while visiting the holy city of Varanasi, I was wandering around the ghats next to the Ganges: a sacred place where innumerable souls had been cremated through the centuries; a place beyond my petty comprehension and to be respected more for that. What a shock I experienced when I stumbled across a young Westerner, about my age, strumming the guitar and singing to (what I presumed to be) an impromptu gathering of Indians. Why the shock? Because he was singing Lionel Richie’s “Easy” (ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh, I’m easy like Sunday morning…) For me this was sacrilege. Lionel Richie!? Here!? How dare he befoul this place with such tripe?

(I mean, he could have at least sung the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood” or “Within Without You”.)

I stormed away in disgust.

How to explain what happened after that?

Over the coming years I grew to love that song – cheese and all. Not only did I grow to love the song, it became one of those rare and precious songs that helps me experience some of that transcendence I’d been seeking in India.

I’m not trying to say that that young man in India was a guru-wolf in sheep’s clothing, but some kind of alchemy occurred within me: the mix of the song, the memory, and my reaction to it has turned that cheese into gold.

There’s definitely a lesson there. How to define it? The best I can come up with is: remember to stay as “easy as Sunday morning”.

Musicker’s Musing #4: The Great Unifier

Musing #4: The Great Unifier

I read that during Soviet times, for their “Moment of Silence” on Victory Day (the day when the Soviets commemorated the end of the war we call WWII), they would broadcast a choral version of Träumerei by Schumann.

What, you might ask, is interesting about that?

Well, considering the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany had just traded blow after merciless blow in what has to be considered one of the most brutal wars ever fought on the planet – the fact that after all that the Soviets would chose to sing a song composed by a German (Robert Schumann) on the holiday commemorating that war, I think helps demonstrate (among other things) that music really does have a mysterious and transcendent power.

Of course some music can be quite nationalistic and some even be used as a tool for spreading propaganda. Also, there certainly seems to be much folk music for which the appeal doesn’t reach particularly far outside the boundaries from that place where it was created. But some music does seem to transcend and defy being chained to any time, place, or people. Or to put it another way, I quote Sarah Dessen: Music is the great uniter. An incredible force. Something that people who differ on everything and anything else can have in common.

From a less lofty position, I think of my own travels across the globe – my guitar as my sidekick. So many smiles, so much warmheartedness as the guitar was passed around and we played and sang for one another. Often we couldn’t understand the words of one another, but through the music we connected in what felt like a very meaningful way.

On this, Election Day, we’re all very aware of how divisive things have become. I’d like to believe there’s a song or two that could transcend the divisiveness. I’m not naive and idealistic enough to imagine a Kumbaya moment where we’re all singing together, arm-in-arm. But I feel fairly certain that if we of opposing views were all in a room together and listened to some neutral musicians play a song or two we liked in common, at the very minimum some of that edge of anger and distrust toward one another would be lessened. Seems like a place to start. If only that concert could be arranged…

Musicker’s Musing #3: Prehistoric Mozart

Musing #3: Prehistoric Mozart

If a caveman (or cavewoman) were to somehow magically come across an orchestra playing a symphony by Mozart, how might they react?

First-or-all, let’s take away the powdered wigs and extravagant apparel – in fact, let’s remove the musicians themselves. Those visuals would instigate their own impressions. Let’s imagine these cavemen just heard the music emanating from the sky. They’d hear it but would they hear it? Would they be enthralled? Edified? Perk up like plants in a scientific study or grunt and move away from the annoying sounds as if from a swarm of flies?

Fast forward to Mozart’s time. What if they were suddenly confronted by Jimi Hendrix or Led Zeppelin or Metallica? (Playing at their most rocking and through their amps, of course.) Again, take away the visuals. Would Mozart & Co. shudder and run? Or might some start literally flipping their wigs with the first tentative headbanging motions in history? What would Mozart himself think of such sounds? Would his genius necessitate him to appreciate such alien music on its own terms?

What about music created 100 or more years from the present day? Sci-fi movies and stories try and present us with what that futuristic music might sound like, but I can’t help but feel that they haven’t got it right yet; that it’s going to be something that’s currently inconceivable to us. What if we could hear it now? Would many of us like it? Or is it likely to be as incomprehensible to us as Mozart to cavemen or hard rock to those in Mozart’s time?

Musicker’s Musing #2: Classically Trained

Musing #2: Classically Trained

(*note: for the purposes of this discussion, I’m going with the more generalized use of the term “classical music” as opposed to the specific era in music by that name.)

I’ve noticed an inclination among some musicians: they like to casually mention that they’ve been classically trained. I’m actually referring to musicians who don’t play classical music and who generally don’t seem to want to be associated with those who do (perhaps seeing those musicians as snobby, stiff, antiquated.)

Yet paradoxically, in the minds of these renegades of classical training, it would seem that to have been trained to play classically gives them a certain legitimacy. Almost a kind of “street cred” among fellow musicians, as if having been trained that way but having the good sense to turn from it makes them a little more special – a little more “in-the-know” about making quality music.

And maybe it does.

But in the declaration of their shunned training do I also detect the presence of ego? (*note 2: I fully realize trying to detect and eliminate one’s ego is akin to a dog chasing its tail, but here I go, circling and barking anyway…)

Yes, some ego is sure be present wherever musicians gather, but from my experience, the more a fellow musician allows their ego to get involved, the less likely we are to meet in the music.

So, if you’ve been classically trained, great. If you haven’t, great. The question is: can you get outside (or inside) yourself enough to meet me (or anyone else) in the music?

Musicker’s Musing #1: Musical Taste

Musing #1: Taste

I found this quote:

“I believe that a person’s taste in music tells you a lot about them. In some cases, it tells you everything you need to know.”

Hmm…

My initial reaction is to agree. There are certain artists/albums/songs that have meant a lot to me. It seems whenever I find someone who shares a love for one of those particular works, I feel closer to that person – almost as if we’re part of some secret society.

Then there is some music that – for whatever reason – repels more than attracts me. I admit I have been guilty at times of losing interest in getting to know someone whom I’ve discovered is attracted by the kind music which leaves me cold.

Certainly musical taste is a Thing to be reckoned with, but as I’ve aged, I seem to have discovered there is great nuance here. For example, how many of us share the same musical taste with the closest people in our lives? We might overlap in places but there always seems to be some (if not great) divergence in taste.

I’ve been teaching music lessons for twenty years now and over that time students have made requests for songs they want to learn that are truly all over the musical spectrum. Not uncommonly a request has taken me into a part of the spectrum I didn’t really want to go. Perhaps as a survival technique, I made the decision long ago that I would push – not past, not through – but into the music that repelled me. I would enter the music by learning to play it so that I might share the “way in” with the student who was looking for an entrance. I want to share with them what I’ve discovered: there’s something immensely satisfying about playing a favorite song – crudely or not – with one’s own hands.

And after all these years of entering music that I normally would have stayed clear from, has my musical taste changed? Become more encompassing?

Maybe a little, but truthfully, not so much…

But have I become less judgmental of people and their musical tastes? Yes, I think I actually have. Some say you should try to “see through the other person’s eyes” or “walk around in their shoes”. I think “hearing music with another person’s ears” has been a great empathetic tool for me.