Notes on notes

Well, I think I'm finally starting to get it.....

Get what you ask? Life? Relationships? Spirituality? some deep understanding of people, the world, the universe or myself.... NO!! of course not ... all that stuff is still mysteries to me. I'm talking about Radiohead. Been listening to "OK Computer" a number of times this week & I'm reaching a point where I'm connecting with the music & really enjoying it & feeling the multiple textures to the music.

This is perhaps not a great thing to 'get', but at least it keeps me in the club (i.e. the music loving people won't kick me out so far).

Not that I really 'get' it in the sense of understanding it (least of all 'Fitter Happier'), but at least I can say I'm enjoying it & now when people talk about 'Paranoid Android', I can say, "Yeah, what a great tune!" instead of looking on with blank stare......

... I'm realizing music listening has changed for me. My first album (a tape, yes, yes, I'm old) was back in, oh, '92 or something. My first album was Rich Mullin's "The World as Best As I Remember it, Vol 2." (well, that & a Twila Paris tape, but I try to not admit to that). I listened to that tape over & over & yeah.... back in those days & for the longest time, I was a lyrics guy. I listened to music for what the message of the words were. I was looking for something with substance, something that said something, meant something.

Over the course of the years, my tastes have evolved. I moved from more blunt lyrics (songs that said one thing & no matter how many times you listened to them still said, well, just the same thing as what they said the first time) to more & more poetic or vague lyrics. Some of this was from listening to Rich & the songs he sang that spoke in images & pictures as much as they did in trying to just say something specific.

But still it was a lot about the lyrics. I had time then to read liner notes & go through every word & contemplate it, study them. I never could understand how people could listen to a song & not know the words. What was the point I figured if you can't understand the words, why bother, you've missed the whole message of the song......

Well, times have changed. I don't usually have time to read liner notes. Part of it is life, part of it is the volume of CD's I'll pick up, some is that it doesn't matter as much anymore. Listening now is more of a whole body experience than just an ear/head thing. Music is this rich media of communication. Certainly most of sound is felt by our ears, but our bodies, too, feel the vibrations of the music and respond. Music, beat, rythm, they have a way of invoking movement into us. The songs we hear tease us, tempt us.... they call us away from stillness & from complacency & lure us, woo us, into movement, into expression, into joy & laughter... the wild freedom of hearts & bodies & souls unchained....

There is something profound about just notes. I'm sure there is some great science behind it all & people much wiser than me will have to plumb those depths, but it amazes me how a single note, one tone can evoke an emotional response....... as mentioned in a few posts before, I love 'wandering piano' - for me notes & chords now speak so much to me, or maybe it is in the stillness of just hearing a melody that my soul is open to hear from somewhere beyond me.... I find it amazing that I can be emotionally moved by just a melody - this confounds the part of me that thought the only value was in the lyrics - not to say that lyrics aren't valuable & very much part of the storytelling of song - but I find it amazing that so much can be said in a song, with no word ever being spoken. Listen to violin, or cello, or other stringed instruments & there is this mournful, beautiful, haunting quality to the music.

It would be neat to know the science behind it all. In engineering there is this world of crystals, things that naturally vibrate in the world. We use them at work to make 'clocks' - little tiny crystals keep resonating at a certain frequency, keeping perfect time which drives every action, every one and zero that flows through the digital technology of today. Other things have 'resonant frequencies' - where if you put vibrate something at the right frequency near the object, the object, once still, will start to vibrate at the same frequency. Sometimes this has good effects, sometimes disastrous. I've seen pictures of bridges where a windstorm caused the bridge to hit it's resonant frequency & the bridge literally tears itself apart from the vibrations.

I wonder if as humans, as beings of flesh have our 'vibrations', our 'resonance'... What is it about a melody that will leave one person stiff, still & unbending, or cause them to cross their arms & will reduce another person to tears... What is it about some melodies that bring so much joy, others so much sadness.

How does a song come together? How do melodies find their way from the beyond, to the creator/creative, to the page or piano or strings.... these are mysteries to me...

but yeah, all that to say that I now try to 'feel' music as much as I do listen to the words. The marriage of lyrics to melody is an amazing, mysterious thing, too - not unlike the marriage between two people - but yeah, I'll leave that rant for another day.

On that note (hee hee, bad pun), other music I've been enjoying lately (other than what's been mentioned in previous posts):

- Joni Mitchell's "Dreamland" - gorgeous, gorgeous album. I sort of have to save it for special occasions when I can savour it

- Pretty Girls Make Graves "The New Romance": Recommended by Andy Wilson. Fantastic alternative album, with some great layering of tones, notes & chords/dischords...

- 'Stranger than Fiction' soundtrack: excellent album & again, lots of great 'texture' to the music

- Niyaz's self titled album: mixture of Persian & Indian sounds with electronica. Beautiful album, fun, great background music

- Ruthie Foster's "Runaway Soul": I'm not sure how to describe it. Blues. Spiritual. It's deeply spiritual in the sense that these are songs that touch the reality of spiritualty, they feel like old songs (& some are) & there feels like a progression in the album from slavery to freedom (& finds freedom all the way along)

- Dubblestandart's "Are you Experienced": Dub music. Imagine reggae where they treat the base player like the lead instrument.

- City & Colour's "Sometimes": My roomie Dan introduced this one to me (& Regina Spektor). Gorgeous voice & sounds. I'm usually melancholy by album's end, but, hey, that's sort of a default state for me

- Little Axe's "Champagne & Grits": Again, great layering of sound, surprisingly spiritual with some great lyrics in it. Love the "Go Away Devil" song which quotes out of Psalms 1:1

- Dar Williams & Eliza Gilkyson: while not maybe the most musically experimental (i.e. it's folk music with guitars & pianos & stuff, folk usually doesn't try to do what 'Pretty Girls Make Graves' would try to do). Lyrically (& musically) they paint beautiful pictures from people who have lived life & have watched much & felt much.... Dar's "February" reduces me to a wreck nearly every time I hear it & helps remind me just how hard it is to keep the 'winter' from our relationships & those we most love (I hope the woman I love never will be able to forget what a flower is).

- Neko Case: a voice that is simply, wow. So much power in one person's voice. Her voice has so much texture & richness to it...

-K'Naan's "The Dusty Foot Philospher": for all those of you who hate rap, this is a great album - he has something to say in this one & it's worth the listen. (my brother Preston introduce me to this guy).

- Kathleen Edwards' "Failer": I know I hyped this one before, but great album....& Canadian, too :)

- "Setting Sun": it's, uhm, an album you can't find in stores, but I was lucky enough to be given a copy. I'm maybe biased towards it, but love the album. Vocals, lyrics, the whole flow of the album (when the songs are in the right order) is breathtaking. Rich textures to the album & a real celebration of life & the stuff we gain & lose when those we love go away.