Beautiful Ground

I youtubed one of my favorite Grandaddy songs.  This was the first result:

Seeing Music (Synesthesia)

At the bottom of the last post John asks if I have ever put on headphones and “seen” music.  I can say that this has happened minimally before, but I could never figure out if I was making it up or if it was just happening.  There was one time when I was listening to a Chemical Brothers cd in my bed in Pennsylvania.  I was almost asleep and began concentrating on one specific sound.  I started trying to find it and I did, it was a number of pink opening and closing doors that were apart of a much larger collage.  But once I realized that I was actually looking at the music it was gone.  

A while back I saw an episode of 20/20 on Synesthesia.  That wikipedia link on it is pretty intense.  I remember specifically that one of the theories as to why this happens is that the senses never fully grow apart, implying that when we are born and do not know how to use our senses, they are all blended together.  Touch would evoke sound, color, smell, and taste.  As we grow we learn how to utilize these senses for optimal survival, and they are separated.  Since there is no survival value in seeing a sound or tasting a word this ability of our brains is shut off.

Aldous Huxley concentrates on this phenomenon in his book “The Doors of Perception”, which he wrote about his experiences on the drug Mescaline.  I am ripping the wikipedia article here but the book’s title comes from a quote from William Blake:

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern.” 

Here is the quote from the book that I am referring to:

“To be shaken out of the ruts of ordinary perception, to be shown for a few timeless hours the outer and inner world, not as they appear to an animal obsessed with survival or to a human being obsessed with words and notions, but as they are apprehended, directly and unconditionally, by Mind at Large— this is an experience of inestimable value to everyone and especially to the intellectual.”

Huxley’s realizations during his Mescaline trips led him to a pretty low opinion of art:

“I strongly suspect that most of the great knowers of Suchness paid very little attention to art…. (To a person whose transfigured and transfiguring mind can see the All in every this, the first-rateness or tenth-rateness of even a religious painting will be a matter of the most sovereign indifference.) Art, I suppose, is only for beginners, or else for those resolute dead-enders, who have made up their minds to be content with the ersatz of Suchness, with symbols rather than with what they signify, with the elegantly composed recipe in lieu of actual dinner.”

Musicians have it easy.

I went to see a show last night which I thought was going to be a rap show.  It turned out to be a Samba percussion band.  There was a pretty good two-man opening band though, and it made me think about music as an art form.  I have come back time and time again to the divisions in genres of art and the divisions between entertainment and art.  I am jealous of musicians.  For one, I really want to learn to play an instrument, but I have no rhythm, and two, because the musical medium is so experiential.  It’s primary purpose is to make one feel something; for it to sound “good,” or “interesting,” or “beautiful.”  It is pure aesthetic communication.  Some could argue that there is a language or vernacular that is adhered to, and that music from different times and cultures sounds different or strange to outsiders, but rhythm and melody need no translation.  I’m guessing a few cave men could have joined that Samba band last night and not had a problem beating a few rocks together to the beat.  I am a little out of my element on this because I know nothing about music except that I enjoy it.  It seems though that most contemporary art, aside from a few subgenres (abstract painting, abstract photography), always has to have context, meaning, social significance, etc.  

I’d like to ask my good friend John Brown, who is an extremely talented musician, to weigh in on some of these issues.  He comments on this blog now and then, usually pointing out, correctly I might add, when I am wrong or contradicting myself.  I don’t have any specific questions, I’d just like to see what he has to say about music as a genre, it’s “purpose,” and it’s relation to other genres of art.

I found this video of Mogwai on conscientous, listen to it loud all the way through the 7 minute mark and imagine yourself being there:

John writes:

Josh, I think you know more about music than you give yourself credit for. You’re probably thinking us musicians have this sort of profound inside knowledge to music, which really isn’t the case. Other than the fact that musicians have the gift of having good ears to discern the patterns/elements that make up what sounds good, we really don’t have any clue as to why music is so divine. We can give you the notes, the chord structure, the rhythm, and all the technical details that make up the exoskeleton of a piece, but the “music” is all on your own. I think you already got the gist of it, but I’ll give you my personal take on the whole business.

You said that music is “pure aesthetic communication,” and this is true. We’ve all heard that music is the universal language, but that statement seems to have lost it’s punch (is the Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind melody line really all that’s needed for cosmic communion?). Let’s go a little further. Each sound has a certain meaning, or if not meaning, then a certain essence. What do I mean by that? Lets say for example you’re sitting there with a cup of tea, and you hear a train go by in the distance. For most, the sound of a train is a calming experience. But to say it’s a “calming experience” hardly does it any justice. When you hear the sound of a train, your brain immediately and subconsciously works through a calculus of memories, associations, and emotions, all of which are added up to evoke a visceral sensation that can only be described as the “sound of a train going by.” Another example is the slide on a resonator guitar which we usually associate with western music. I don’t know what it is about that stretch across two or more notes that makes it heart-aching and lonesome, but it just is. In other words, each sound has it’s own depth and porosity with other sounds. “Communication” in the musical sense attempts to short-circuit the form/content dilemma and go straight for the essence. What makes music “good” is its ability to incorporate all the available elements of sound into something that resonates with us personally. We listen to different music for different moods, obviously. Some music you can just put on and chill to, other music requires intellectual and spiritual commitment. Some music is healing and hypnosis-inducing, other music commands you to get up and go. I wouldn’t say it’s a more efficient way of communicating, but its deeply more spiritual. Really, to conclude: I know nothing about music except that I enjoy it.

 

On music’s relationship with visual art: ever put on headphones and close your eyes and “see” music?

Art is what you can get away with.

My hard for ydrive recently crashed.  So I lost a bunch of work.  I’m not diligent enough in backing up my files.  BACK UP YOUR FILES.  I still have the film so it’s not a huge deal but I did drawings on the photos, and I lost that and all my source material.  Bummer, but maybe it is a blessing.  I certainly won’t be able to apply to grad school now, and maybe another year is what I need.  Get in some shows, get rejected by some, etc.

On another note, and in reference to the title of this page, I just came across yet another post over on conscientious in which Jorg Colberg slams Damien Hirst for being a hack.  To me, the fact that so many people hate Damien’s work with a passion, just makes it that much better.  I can’t remember the last time I loved or hated any of the work on Conscientious, it’s all just…nice.  Art that can put the art world in an uproar has got to be good. 

Hirst’s best known work “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living” is a floating tiger shark in a tank of formaldehyde.  I don’t really understand how people can just write this piece off.  First of all, it is freaking cool!  And I mean that in the sense that an 11 year old boy means it when he first sees a dinosaur skeleton.  To walk up to a giant floating tiger shark in a place where you are suppossed to look at paintings has to inspire at least some sense of wonder, or are these people’s imaginations all dried up?  Furthermore, the title is often dismissed as a kitschy one-liner accompanied by an “excessive visual aid.”  I would have to have a pretty strong will to resist the implications of that title after reading it.  Personally, my brain launches into a thousand different directions.  The statement is a profound and simple truth of existence, that has far reaching implications.  To confront some thing’s non-existence with one’s present existence evokes thoughts on religion, souls, morality, the brain, individuality, fate, and consciousness, just to name a few.  The fact that there has never been anything that looks like the piece in an art gallery before, and the fact that the sale and appropriation of Damien’s work is such a circus, is just an added bonus.