Music

Music is the only art form that has not been philosophized about in any meaningful sense. Adorno wrote a few things, Rilke wrote an amazing poem, but essentially it's just weirder, more amazing, and harder to speak about than other forms.

I remember being in the worst class ever, well the worst until last semester in my PhD program - but that's a whole nothing post. The class was called something like Aesthetics I: Philosophy of Art. And man I was stoked. I had moved over from the music department to the philosophy department. Now I could think, but I didn't know shit about philosophy. In fact I didn't really know that "philosophy" meant the history of the thoughts of 20 or so people. Nonetheless I was excited. And in this class I realized quickly, because I had met my intellectual hero Orus Barker, that this was what was called Analytical philosophy. In this class we read a bunch of people trying to define art. Somebody would say something like "Art is art if it has significant form." And I would raise my hand, rather shittily, and say "What about music? It has no lines and no spaces?" And then I was brushed off.

Then someone would say art is art is and only if it has (I really just can't remember the dumb definitions) shapes and colors?" And I would say "Music has no shapes and colors."

Eventually in a class I raised my hand - again I was a bit of a shit in these days - and I said "I don't get why we haven't looked at a single piece of art in here? Wouldn't it make sense in a philosophy of art class to start with art?" And the teacher goes, I do remember this, "Are you saying you don't like the way I'm teaching the class?" And I said - "It's your class, you can teach it anyway you want."

Anyhow, I got a B+ in that class. And that was probably what I deserved. But I realized somewhere along those lines that music was this weird thing - it never tried to represent. Music was always/already about affect. Music always was the voice of God.

So when I now think about music, years after I have seriously played classical music - I was a solo classical guitarist for an orchestra in 2006 and that was the last time I had a high-pressure classical gig - I think about dirt, the earth. Real music comes out of the ground. Blues, jazz, bluegrass, hip-hop. These are folk musics. Folk music comes from a people. Pop music, which I also love, and this becomes tricky for me, exists everywhere, usually. There are exceptions. Billie Joel feels distinctly like New York to me and Randy Newman always feels like, hell, now that I'm trying to finish that sentence I don't know. But it always feels authentic. Springsteen feels like workers and Waits feels like Vagabonds.

Woodie Guthrie wrote a song that I used to think was beyond hokey: This Land is My Land. Then I learned about him and watched that biopic with David Carradine. All of a sudden that song felt real, for the first time. The same way that Pete Seeger's song Waist Deep in the Big Muddy made me realize the beauty and profoundness of folk music, even more so than most of Bob Dylan's music.

So hell, what's the point? I don't know. This is all off the cuff. But I think the point is that music is the art that we need the most. Music is like smell - it instantly transports us, seemingly in a way that bypasses everything else. We never hear a piece of music and ask if it really looks like or sounds like a piece of music.

Where music messed up is when it tried to become atonal. Music become intimidated by these other art movements - those wonderful people like Cezanne - and said, well maybe we should get weird too. The problem, the mistake, was that music was always/already weird. It didn't need to catch up - the other forms were catching up.

And if anyone needs evidence let's just mention the name Charlie Parker.