Make A Joyful Noise
My father-in-law recently blogged about music, and lamented that Western society does not produce music except for the purpose of providing entertaining diversions. While I am sorely tempted to link to his blog, I will refrain. Rather, I wish to simply present my own thoughts on why I consume music.
And consume it I do. I love music. I devour it. It is a part of my being. Gretch and I almost always have music playing in our home, in the car, and when we are working (and can get away with it). I do not know when my love of music first emerged, but I would argue that it has always been with me.
My own father is a talented musician, although I fear there are times when this talent has been hidden from the world. Yet some of my earliest recollections of my childhood include Dad breaking out his amazingly awesome Martin D35 acoustic guitar and playing songs like "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" by The Tokens, "Boogie" by John Hartford, and various songs from the world of classic folk music.
I learned how to read music by sitting in Sunday worship services with my dad, who would use the tip of his tie to point out how the notes in the staff lined up with the words we were singing. I may have been able to sing a melody before I could actually read.
My mother has said that she herself is not a talented musician, and yet I think she has a gift that is just as important, and it is one she passed on to me: the gift of appreciating music. With six boys and two daughters, born over the space of 21 years, the children in my family have brought home a vast array of music. Rather than yelling at us to turn off the garbage, Mum would take the time to listen to what we liked and what we loved. She may not have liked it all herself, but she definitely sought to understand why we did, and she was able to at least appreciate our own appreciation. It is because of her that I have such an eclectic taste in music.
She also encouraged all of us in our musical pursuits. Thus, when I started the fifth grade and had the opportunity to join the beginning band, she encouraged me. She suggested that I pick an instrument that had already been played in my family: trumpet, saxophone, clarinet, or percussion. My best friend was going to be playing the trumpet, so it was an easy choice for me. I became the third Valencic to pick up the small brass instrument. 17 years later, I am still playing the trumpet, having progressed from beginning band to middle school band to high school concert band to high school symphonic winds to university concert bands to where I am now, a member of the Parkland Wind Ensemble, a community group run through Parkland Community College.
I was also encouraged in my desires to join choirs. I started in high school with the Prep Chorus and then became a member of the Concert Choir. I auditioned for the show choir a couple of times, but never made it in. I have been a member of many church-based choirs, as well. Throughout high school, as I delivered newspapers in the early hours of the morning, I practiced my choir pieces and sang songs that I loved. I didn't know until after I left the newspaper business that many of my customers heard me singing, and, fortunately, looked forward to it.
One of the greatest things about music is simply how powerful it is. It is amazing how varied the sources are that inspire us. My friend Gary hates orchestral music, but he says that he has never felt closer to God when listening to the vocal skills of Mariah Carey than at any other time. While I certainly don't hold to his opinion, I do recognise the power found within music. I still remember the day that I first heard Tim Morrison perform on the trumpet (or at least when I recognised him). While I did not write about him specifically in my journal, I did write about the experience:
"Today (tonite [sic]) is the opening ceremonies of the 1996 Summer Olympics. It's the 100th Anniversary. The only way to describe the opening ceremonies is to say it is an over-powering experience. I will never again have a feeling such as this is."
I was watching the opening ceremonies with my baby sister. I was writing during the performance of John Williams' "Summon the Heroes"--a piece that continues to stand as one of my all-time favourites.
I am not just inspired by orchestral music, though. Nor am I only inspired by music that is overtly devotional, although I find much inspiration in hymns and anthems. I find inspiration in all types of music. And I know I am not the only one. M. Norbert Kilmer, a contributor to the LDS-themed blog "By Common Consent" recently wrote about how we can have a groovier Sabbath. Many others on the blog have shared their own contributions to music which was written/performed by a primarily-secular musician, but still devotional in nature. I would go further to say that there is much to be found in the secular world of music that is unintentionally devotional.
I admit that I love listening to music purely for entertainment, as well. There is something absolutely wonderful to me about the parodies by Weird Al Yankovic, the intentionally-awful covers by Me First and the Gimme-Gimmes, and the songs by dozens of secular musicians that are simply enjoyable. I love listening to Metallica when I am working, as the heavy chords and fast drumbeats help me work faster. I recently learned that my mother also loves working to loud music, although I would be willing to bet that, for her, the loudness is in volume, not substance. Turning up the music while cleaning the house is definitely an inherited trait. Many years ago, I spent the summer watching my baby sister. She and I established a routine for the day: we would watch the VH1 Top Ten Countdown in the morning. Then I would put in the complete soundtrack to the musical "Les Miserables" and we would clean the house, with the music blasting throughout all the rooms. Then we would watch movies until everyone got home.
At the end of the day, I guess I can summarise my love for music in this way: Music allows me to communicate on a level that I cannot communicate through the written or spoken word. I love the written and spoken word, but I also love the unwritten, unspoken word that comes through music. Thomas Carlyle once wrote that "music is well said to be the speech of angels; in fact, nothing among the utterances allowed to man is felt to be so divine. It is brings us near to the infinite." I would carry this one step further, and say that music allows us to connect to one another, as well.
So whether it be for inspiring others, inspiring ourselves, expressing our devotion, our love, and our passions, quietly reflecting, seeking entertaining diversion, or for any other reasons that I may not have listed, I hope all of us will take time to make a joyful noise through the wonders that are music!
Comments
Where I get off the bus, however, is when you say "Music allows me to communicate on a level that I cannot communicate through the written or spoken word." While I think I understand what you mean by that, when I read this passage, I have to wonder what exactly does a musician think he communicates when he plays an array of notes written by someone else? He might interpret through inflection what is written, but I argue that he merely parrots the composer, and that composer, performer, audience are all locked in a set relationship that cannot vary too much from what is set down in music theory and determined by the character of the composer's ability.
Why not break out of that relationship through improvisation and--even more dramatically--through a redefinition of the role music plays in our social and private lives? Why not pick up your horn or guitar or kazoo, and make a musical statement that truly is your voice coming through? I would be interested in knowing if your Dad ever picked up his guitar and tried playing something that came solely from his own soul, rather than from the Tokens. I would bet he probably did now and then.
Why not elbow the prating angels aside and claim music as the voice of mankind?
By the way, I did just remember one tune that is associated almost universally in parts of the West with ritual: Taps.
Are there others?
No one can copy how Tim Morrison sounded as he performed the trumpet solos in "Summon the Heroes" - but Tim Morrison can never sound the way that my friend Jon Smith sounded, either.
The composer really has very little control over the final product. He merely provides a guideline. The conductor and the individual members then create something that is wholly unique to them, both as individuals and as a group. This is where Western music is so amazing to me. We are more than just the sum of our parts.
Why do I not improvise? Because, honestly, I am terrible at it. It is really that simple. I am very grateful that there are men and women in this world who can create musical concepts out of their own minds. I find I have a talented for taking their initial offerings and making them my own. But I cannot create on my own. At least, not in a way that I find at all satisfactory, to myself or to others.
Incidentally, yes, my dad does write music. In fact, his gift for my mother this past Christmas was a song that he wrote just for her. It was pretty awesome.
That last point is true of indigenous music, too, but not according to the same standards of taste as we find in the west.
So essentially, here is what I'm interested in, my dear SIL, just so we don't fly too far off the point: I am interested in using music to more fully express my own ideas in a language other than spoken language. My ideal here is to pick up a flute and have the technical and spiritual ability to say perfectly what is in me, without any necessary reference to another person's musical ideas--though "sampling" could definitely play a part in this musical lexicon. I want music to work for me rather than on me, but I don't want to feel constrained by musical theory, as a composer might feel constrained to obey such laws. Improvisation is not exactly what I have in mind, but it's the best word I've found so far to reflect what I have in mind here. I want to be free to enter into this great musical conversation without feeling I must parrot others to participate.
Now, as far as your ability to improvise is concerned, I understand your concerns, but when you are ready to let go of the rope and trust the water of living musical expression to sustain you, you will have the power to stride across the sea of music in any direction you like. Perhaps we could make that journey together.
As for free time, what I observed from the examples I listened to (Philip Glass Metamorphosis, Erik Satie Gnosienne, and Radiohead Hunting Bears), is that it works best with one instrument, and that it is not necessarily "without rhythm" in the sense of approaching chaos. Of course, as a listener without a score in front of me, I am unqualified to judge how much actual free expression is coming from the performer--when the performer is different from the composer.
Free time is most found in free improvisation and free jazz renditions. So, I would conclude that free time is a meter that would most likely express what I have in mind about musical communication--probably not for a large ensemble, unless the object was cacophony--the term "noise music" comes to mind. One interesting thing I also discovered is that free time is not typically used in popular rock and roll, probably because the rhythm and cohesion of a group playing together are usually essential elements of that kind of music.
I would have to say that free time is not beyond the experience of a beginning musician--except for the fact that one of the first things music teachers do is teach exact meter. Not with the goal of freeing the student from counting, but to cement him firmly into the mindset of keeping the beat, so that the group can play together, so that the song can be played exactly as intended. If a student were encouraged to pick up his horn and begin to play whatever comes into his head until he works out statements that make musical sense to him without reference to composed music, free time would make considerably more sense.
While I do not deny that such a development would be worthwhile, I, personally, do not want to listen to it.
I think that, once we detach ourselves from the idea that music is for performance, for entertainment, for mood modification; once we begin to see that music is a language we might use to say new things, things unique not just to the composer, but to the performer, things that issue from the being of the one with the horn or flute or drum in his or her hands--only then will we begin to see the most powerful music being performed.
One question that comes to my mind, though, is whether such freedom will lead to music that is sacred to the individual becoming part of meaningful social rituals in which the community plays a part? What if, instead of sober eulogies at a funeral, the mourners had the capacity and will to sing or play special songs of their own creation, telling stories in music of the life of the dead? What if, instead of bowing our heads and confirming our obedience to God with a somber affirmative, we replied with music? Well, the thought makes reason stare, doesn't it? Because music and the truly sacred, dynamic moments of our lives are separate.
Perhaps you will counter with something about sacrament hymns or that new-age sound track they play in the temple nowadays as examples of music at sacred moments, but I will only reply that at the height of both sacred rituals in our tradition, there is silence when we do the deed. I hypothesize that this is because in our culture, music does not go with us to the mountain.
But maybe it would if we released the connection between music and entertainment.