Dancing about Architecture

There are days I'm not sure I'm up to writing anything useful about music.

And then there are the days I'm REALLY not sure of it.

It isn't just the cold air, and grey skies, the tickle in the back of my throat (though it is these), it is the thought that civilized humans have been having for a long time...is there any point in trying to capture in words experiences which have been conveyed in sounds? And if it is so easy to translate one medium to the other, wherefore the sounds?

Or, as Elvis Costello aptly put it, is it an entirely foreign way to approach things in the first place, explicating one art form by the use of another? What he said was that "writing about music is like dancing about architecture."

Indeed. And, leaving aside those transcendental experiences that certainly can't be captured in any format but the one that gave rise to them in the first place, isn't a parade of words just a way to kill a good moment, explain the joke, pin down the inexpressible, ruin the mystery, make it seem too much like...homework?

And yet, as tempting as it is (and irreplaceable) to simply experience, and then be silent about it, there is one asterisk to add. That is that if the process is unveiled, the mystery explained, the joke analyzed, the unusual brought to light--IN WORDS--then maybe the next time there will be a greater understanding on the part of the listener, a chance that something will be noticed, relished, with greater intensity than before, simply because listening is a skill that can be cultivated.

You certainly wouldn't have approached this blog entry without a guide of some sort in your past. Somebody taught you to read, and to appreciate words, their sounds, their meaning, the way they are wrought, puns, alliteration, meter, all the things that make communicating in words so interesting, not to mention useful. We wouldn't insist that the marks on the page are about only what we can get out of them without presuming to have to know something first, and we might argue that perhaps it is better to know more than less. Then with each passing year a little more is added to the way we can extract substance from apparently lifeless squiggles. Each time, every person, experiences them a little differently.

In the end, explanation doesn't kill the greater mystery. The lesser one, maybe. If your idea of Mozart is that he just took dictation from God without having to think about what he was writing, or that sounds are just pretty and have no structure to be labored over, understood, appreciated, savored...well, you might lose some of your immature fantasies. They will be replaced by others much closer to reality, and filled with far more adventurous content.

In the meantime, joyful listening!