I wonder how much of our time we spend actually listening to music?
I don’t mean seeing a band in a bar (where there’s all kinds of distractions you’re probably focused on), or listening at work or while driving, or kicking up the surround sound when a Dolby sound movie comes on the TV. I mean, sitting still, without trying to accomplish or be 17 other things, without conversation, without dishes to wash. Seems to me that if you consider yourself a music lover, or more to the point call yourself a musician, and don’t spend at least some dedicated portion every day to just listening to music, then it probably takes you longer and longer to get “into it” each time you put it on or play it.
By denigrating music as a soundtrack to more important things, we lose the beauty and magic of music as it truly is — an art for art’s sake, with no tangible benefit other than perhaps temporary change of mood.
Makes music seem more worth doing, because it NEEDS to be done. It is not a sideline, an afterthought or a minor player.
Music is the fabric that defines a culture, makes it technology and achievements worth celebrating, learning, remembering and passing on. Without it, we are left with only philosophies of how to do, and none to tell us why.
14 AUG 2013
