I believe that strong music, good music is based off of the artist conveying something that transcends the sounds they produce -- the sine cosine waves that are inevitable reverberation, that are a product of instruments. I mean, making noise is easy, but making good noise, noise with tone, emotion and meaning is incredibly difficult to do. After all, the rest it is just noise, just sound to fill the silence.
I am currently reading, "The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century." it is written by the music critic from The New Yorker, Alex Ross. It begins with the fin de siecle of the 19th century and the decadent movement with the Opera, "Salome"- an interpretation of Oscar Wilde's play by Strauss. It was a huge success. It made Strauss famous-- and more importantly, it made him money. Lots of money. It was also an incredibly complex, beautiful, meaningful, good piece of music.
This was also the time that artistic production began to become a commodity in a Modern, Capitalistic system. Music was now something that was to be consumed. Music was something thrown into the market to make money. This eventually led to a huge socialist push at the beginning of the 20th century/end of the 19th century by many artists. They did not want economics put onto self expression- to art.
The book then goes on to explain all of music in terms of cultural relevancy, of its artistic tonality and various components. Ross makes the reader see music is more than just sound.
As I am reading the time period of Harlem, of Chicago, of Atlanta-- of the blues, the many different types of blues, I see the oppression-- I see the struggle, I see the simplicity, I see the emotion. And, I remember this quote by Jimi Hendrix, "Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel"
The first picture above picture is of Chess Records and its artists. I will not name them because, well, let's face it, if I got one wrong, it would be incredibly embarrassing. But, just look at the faces, the race, the power dynamics, the man behind the desk. Back in July I wrote the following post about the record, "Blues James at Chess"
http://gogorunifyoucan.blogspot.com/2009/07/fuck-yes-moment.html
I know I cannot understand complete cultural oppression, I know I am a white middle class female who has been handed things to me that I have not earned, but goddamnit! I love the blues. I love it because it represents struggle, emotion and freedom-- everything that is wonderful about music, everything that I love about music. For some reason, I feel like this record is going to be symbolic of this time period in my life. It isn't poppy, it isn't pretty, it isn't sugar coated, it raw, its uninhibited, it is honest, it is vunerable, and it carries an air of sincerity and uncertainty. It was recorded in a time of great cultural shift. I know it is incredibly ego-centric to relate music directly to my life, music of great struggle-- a struggle I can never truly understand, but something resonates deeply with me. The music transcends the vinyl, the rotating black sphere on my record player and really makes me feel something. That, my friends, is art.
And that brings me back to the beginning of the post, to the thematic ideas in Alex Ross's book. Music is sound, it is really JUST noise, but it is also, paradoxically, so much more than that. It also ties into the beauty of the moment, to one of the central themes of Strauss's Opera, "Salome" of Oscar Wilde's play, of the decadent movement in which Ross purposively opens his novel with.
And, I tie this into James Whistler (Decadent painter, friend of Oscar Wilde) and his painting I saw in the MET while in NYC.
The painting itself simply represents a human on a boat, fog, a city in the background. It contains nothing more. It is simple. It is a moment. That is beautiful. It made him money, in a Capitalistic system where art was to be consumed. It made him famous, much like Strauss adaptation of Salome, much like the record, "Blues Jam at Chess" will represent the moment of post-graduation confusion, chaos and freedom for me. A mere moment. But, at the same time, it is so much more than just noise.
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