Listen More

I was considering the other day how much music shapes the experiences of our lives. This rather ordinary opening statement, bordering on the weak, soft and/or silly, is, I am thinking now, something we should examine closer. Perhaps in the same manner that we critique the movies we see, the books we read (or don’t) and the art we admire. A very good friend of mine once went to the extent, on a night of philosophical debauchery, to insist that the only way to really know for sure if a piece of art was good or not, is if it speaks to you. Or not.

Like a song speaks. Or sings, or shouts or uses various instruments to replace the voice. What is it saying to me? What is my emotional response? How deep can I get with it? Or even the most elementary and banal of all methods, can I dance to it?

I am walking the dogs on the beach on the first decent day in two weeks. The wind is calm, the water smooth and the grey clouds are giving way to occasional patches of blue. The dogs are happily moving driftwood to discover the source of whatever scents attract them, and a chevron of geese egg each other further and faster with a series of syncopated honks. Nature’s cacophony adds a worthy score to my beach combing day-dream.

And I wonder, again, if I am missing something. I will admit that I have tried, tried really hard, to ‘get’ jazz, but not even Miles, Coltrane or T. Monk could make it work for me. Brubeck is close, but reserved for the softest, potentially intimate, romantic circumstances.

Rap is too violent and atonal, and not being a fan of the synth or, worse, drum machines, I don’t care if Eminem can adlib lyrics by the truckload, it doesn’t fill my sails. Although I did like 8 Mile. I have never listened to a complete JayZ, 50Cent or Drake song. Maybe I am just not trying. I apologize if this is so.

I like the occasional big band, first hearing its clever nuance in college while a music major, but it only satisfies under a tiny set of circumstances. Like a free lunch concert for example.

I love classical music. Adore and respect it. I am listening right now to our local classical FM station where some tasty violin and cello licks are describing a moon, reflections on still water, birds in flight and star crossed lovers. There might be chocolate mousse in there as well. And champagne.

I don’t need to bore you any longer about my feelings for rock n roll.

With this simple musical landscape as backdrop it could come as a surprise, or not, that my final and official 2019 New Year’s Resolution is, paradoxically, to…

Listen more.

You can take that as a metaphor or accept it as face value. Listen more. And listen better. And listen deeper.

But listen more. (I wonder if that confession implies talking less?)