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Listening to Music With Your Whole Body

As mentioned in the last post, an important part of this project is to explore how we talk about music. In addition, it is also important to discuss how we listen to music. The comments section of last week’s post provided some really interesting conversation. In particular, Karen wrote:

On one side of this dichotomy, I argue, is the experience of music (and life) through the mind. On the other is the experience of music (and life) through the body. And I believe that we in the West (Western ethnomusicologists included and academics in particular) generally favor experiencing life through the mind.

In response to this comment, I would like to point you towards the video posted above. It is called “Evelyn Glennie: How To Listen to Music With Your Whole Body.”

In this soaring demonstration, deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie leads the audience through an exploration of music not as notes on a page, but as an expression of the human experience. Playing with sensitivity and nuance informed by a soul-deep understanding of and connection to music, she talks about a music that is more than sound waves perceived by the human ear. She illustrates a richer picture that begins with listening to yourself, and includes emotion and intent as well as the complex role of physical spaces -- instrument, concert hall and even the bones and body cavities of musician and listener alike.

If you have time, please watch the video and share your thoughts.

The Terrorist of Fun

I used to be fun at parties, but those days are gone.

It was a cold New Year’s New York City Eve in 2007. I was riding the rails from Brooklyn to Queens to celebrate with friends. The subway was crowded with dressed up strangers who were going to the same place, but in a different location. I hung both my hands on a strap and stood my ground and read the black marker commentary written on top of the advertisements. The windows were etched with the graffiti tags that I don’t understand. The placards above reminded me that “if I see something” I should “say something.”

It was good to be home.

The party served up a mix of hipsters, artists, educators, graduate students, thespians, pretentious assholes, writers, graphic designers, and filmmakers. They were young adults chasing their dreams while wrestling the harness of credit card debt, procreation, and some lady named Sallie Mae. They were young people that have not given into the suburbs--not yet. They like to talk, drink, smoke cigarettes, dance, smoke marijuana, and most importantly, they like to laugh. It is these eclectic drug fueled gatherings that empowers their urban dwelling. The conversations are in the deep end but remain on the surface.

In New York people don’t necessarily “talk to each other” they “talk to top each other.” This occurs in a variety of ways. One which I particularly enjoy is called “playing the dozens” or “banter.” Someone starts a thread of conversation and the group riffs off of it. Belly laughs are usually the end goal. It is a game of wit. Carried out correctly, the conversation can push the boundaries of a subject like John Coltrane pushing the boundaries of “My Favorite Things.”

As midnight approached, I found myself in a circle of several semi-intoxicated friends. The banter was flowing. Suddenly, I was interrupted by an Armenian musician who wanted to know about ethnomusicology. So, I abandoned “the banter” and shifted gears to talk to (this is the moment where I became the pretentious asshole at the party) the first person I have met who could pronounce the word ethnomusicology. I felt myself talking with my hands, rolling my eyes into my head and using words like problematic, polyphony, meta-language, intertextual, genre, classification, communitas, contextual, detextualize, social construction, folkloristic, and diasporic. It was like I was in a trance. My friends and Queens colleagues rolled their eyes at me and cleared the room as I dropped jargon like a hammer. In the empty kitchen, with my jargon, my confused and bored audience of one, I became the terrorist of fun.

This jargonization when talking about music is something that has been happening at these music listening groups since their inception. It is not unique to the transient “Hoosieratti” of Indiana. Back in Boston, there were some people who just loved to deconstruct the music put in front of them. Meanwhile, there were those who found this analysis offended their sensibilities; it sucked the life out of the experience. This worked both ways. It took people out of the conversation and experience. These two sensibilities went to war.

At the past few Community Listening Project happenings I have paid particular attention to this phenomenon. There have been references to modulation while listening to Sheena Easton’s “My Baby Takes the Morning Train.” The term duple-meter has been applied to a Metallica song. Sometimes, it is not only jargon but theoretical analysis that moves the conversation towards the cerebral. For example, while discussing an Elvis Costello cover of a Beach Boys song, a discussion ensued about Costello’s hidden agenda in aligning himself with the Beach Boys and the pop music elite. In these situations, I have seen the same rolling eyes and mutters of frustration that I saw in Boston and witnessed in that Queens apartment which I terrorized.

I would like to emphasize that there is nothing wrong with either of these approaches. While at the same time, it makes me wonder…

Are we lecturing or communicating? Who are we talking to? Are we aware of whom we are talking to in a group setting? What, if any, are the motivations of our comments? How do we meet in the middle when communicating? Are we aware of our audience? Are we just "playing the dozens?" Are we riffing off of each other? Are we talking to top each other?

Are we the terrorists of fun?

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