Yes, I like them. Very much actually. I think a big reason why this is is that I rarely read to find out what happened. Well, yes I do, of course I want to know what happens, but that is not why I stick with a book, or why I pick it up in the first place. What I want, what I enjoy is the execution, the description, details, world, development, the immages conjured in my mind, the use of words. That is why I Like a book. I actually do not like reading to find out what happens. I hate it when things are too tense that I rush past the words to get to the climax. When it's like that the reading is no longer fun. It is annoyingly compulsive, but not fun. Thus I like knowing the basics of what is going to happen and how things are going to turn out. Then I don't have to have indigestion from unessessary stress over a book while reading it and am instead free to enjoy the author's turn of phrase and way of going about unfolding the characters, world, and plot. I don't really enjoy wondering what will happen, but I do enjoy wondering how the author is going to bring it all together and make it happen, just so long as I'm assured of the right outcome. Then seeing all the twists and turns that will somehow lead to that point is quite entertaining.
I have to be pretty certain things are going to turn out the way I want them to before I'll invest my time, attention, and emotional energy into a book. I really hate putting so much into reading something, liking the characters, world, or writing style and then not liking how it ends. That is incredibly annoying and makes me very sad and bitter. Therefore, I like spoilers. They make reading ever so much more fun for me.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Saturday, October 23, 2010
People Watching as an Alien
Not to keep harping on the same thing, but after that horrible bus ride yesterday it's hard not to keep thinking about how strange the human race seems to me. Sitting there on the bus looking around at all these people and listening to them is usually a rather mind-boggling experience. I rarely actually people watch because I have little idea what to think about them and sense in them so little of anything I can identify with that instead of being drawn toward watching and supposing about them, I am confused and repelled and thus retreat rather into my own mind.
There are the businessy people with their tailored suits, their phones in hand, their serious expressions, their mundane conversations with their coffee drinking colleagues. I can hardly comprehend being into business like that, wearing the stiff clothes, upholding the current economic system with earnest interest in sales, advertizing, bottom lines, etc. I look at them and wonder, what kind of person is interested in that life? What kind of person finds fullfillment in desks and files and promotions and I-know-not-what?
There are the bums with their tattered miss-matched dirty clothes and rickety cart. And I wonder what brought them to that place. And why, even if they can't afford things, don't they comb their hair with their fingers and try and arrange their clothes to the best advantage they can. I pity them, wish them well, but yet wonder how they could seem not to even try with whatever they have? I wonder, what do they do all day? What do they talk about? Are they simply crazy? Are they unloved? Is no one, not even themselves, able to picture the bright healthy version of them? What would they even want to do or be in life? I have no idea.
There are the highschoolers in their jeans and Ts and hoodies, swarming in packs, talking, laughing, shoving, flirting, eating junk food, planning to hang out. They all look so much the same. They sport various logos, which I don't recognize though I know they must mean something to them, but that seems to be nearly the extent of the variety. They all seem to be talking mostly about other people, or things they saw or did that are supposed to trump someone else's story. I wonder what on earth they think about and do. I can only suppose. It seems like they mostly just hang out with other people their age - whatever hanging out means. It seems to mean just sitting or standing around talking. About what? I have no idea. I guess that they talk about celebrities, sports, movies, music, their friends, their teachers, their families, games they play, their relational issues, their impressions of other people they don't really know. I suppose all in all that's not toooo different from my friends, we do talk about movies and people we know, sometimes anyways, thought it seems to me that the specifics of the various interests such as movies and games and music that I could talk about would be very different from most others. I certainly can't comprehend just spending all my time talking with other people. How boring! I wonder if they do have any other hobbies or tallents that they develope or find joy in.
There are the very common looking ladies in their sweater sets chatting with girlfriends or attending their baby or small child. They look kind and friendly overall, but again I wonder, what do they talk and think about? Their friends? Their family? Their diet? Their fitness center? Their dog or cat? Their plans for the holidays? Their hairdresser? Their interior decorating plans? Their relationships?
There are the Sporty looking guys in their brightly coloured spandex clothes, large waterbottles at hand, helmets, sunglasses, and bikes. I suppose they mostly like to be active, feel the wind in their face or something? Go places, feel the rhythm of their movement, the energy of action? I wonder what they think and talk about. Probably sports. Who knows what else. They seem utterly foreign to me.
There are the 'hard core' looking young people with their crazy coloured hair, piercings, tattoos, patched and torn black, camoflage, plaid, and neon striped clothes, heafty looking boots, and various insignias pinned and glued on all over their bags and jackets. Cigaretts in their hands, '4 letter words' spewing from their mouths. Most of them seem to have a bitter sort of attitude toward life and other people. They always seem to look rather dirty, and their skin and faces often look worn. Do they mostly just sit around with others smoking, drinking, complaining about the world, and possibly doing other drugs? Do they listen to loud screaming music which feeds their angry attitude? Do they talk about movies and music? Do they talk mostly about other people or experiences they've had? I really don't know.
I wouldn't have a clue how to approach or engage any of these people, though I suppose I have the most practice with the ordinary looking ladies. Whenever I am out about in public it is continually driven home to me how foreign it all seems, and how little interest I have in being part of whatever it is that most people experience life to be like or whatever it is they fill it with. I am always rather jarred when people actually try to talk to me, and I suppose considering how much I don't pay attention to the world around me and live in the worlds of my mind, you could say for a normal person it would be rather like a three headed man just dropping out of the sky in front of them and asking whether they think brown or grey gryphon eggs taste better. First it is startling, then you have to process the alien standing in front of you, then you have to try to answer something which you don't really have any experience with beyond a vague idea by way of association...well you don't eat gryphon eggs, but since brown chicken eggs don't taste any different from white ones you suppose it really doesn't matter with gryphons anyways....wait, they have eggs? ok whatever. The best answer seems to be a smile and nod under the circumstances. Then you wonder why it was even asking you in the first place.
Yes, that is pretty much what it's like. They are all aliens. :D (or I am)
There are the businessy people with their tailored suits, their phones in hand, their serious expressions, their mundane conversations with their coffee drinking colleagues. I can hardly comprehend being into business like that, wearing the stiff clothes, upholding the current economic system with earnest interest in sales, advertizing, bottom lines, etc. I look at them and wonder, what kind of person is interested in that life? What kind of person finds fullfillment in desks and files and promotions and I-know-not-what?
There are the bums with their tattered miss-matched dirty clothes and rickety cart. And I wonder what brought them to that place. And why, even if they can't afford things, don't they comb their hair with their fingers and try and arrange their clothes to the best advantage they can. I pity them, wish them well, but yet wonder how they could seem not to even try with whatever they have? I wonder, what do they do all day? What do they talk about? Are they simply crazy? Are they unloved? Is no one, not even themselves, able to picture the bright healthy version of them? What would they even want to do or be in life? I have no idea.
There are the highschoolers in their jeans and Ts and hoodies, swarming in packs, talking, laughing, shoving, flirting, eating junk food, planning to hang out. They all look so much the same. They sport various logos, which I don't recognize though I know they must mean something to them, but that seems to be nearly the extent of the variety. They all seem to be talking mostly about other people, or things they saw or did that are supposed to trump someone else's story. I wonder what on earth they think about and do. I can only suppose. It seems like they mostly just hang out with other people their age - whatever hanging out means. It seems to mean just sitting or standing around talking. About what? I have no idea. I guess that they talk about celebrities, sports, movies, music, their friends, their teachers, their families, games they play, their relational issues, their impressions of other people they don't really know. I suppose all in all that's not toooo different from my friends, we do talk about movies and people we know, sometimes anyways, thought it seems to me that the specifics of the various interests such as movies and games and music that I could talk about would be very different from most others. I certainly can't comprehend just spending all my time talking with other people. How boring! I wonder if they do have any other hobbies or tallents that they develope or find joy in.
There are the very common looking ladies in their sweater sets chatting with girlfriends or attending their baby or small child. They look kind and friendly overall, but again I wonder, what do they talk and think about? Their friends? Their family? Their diet? Their fitness center? Their dog or cat? Their plans for the holidays? Their hairdresser? Their interior decorating plans? Their relationships?
There are the Sporty looking guys in their brightly coloured spandex clothes, large waterbottles at hand, helmets, sunglasses, and bikes. I suppose they mostly like to be active, feel the wind in their face or something? Go places, feel the rhythm of their movement, the energy of action? I wonder what they think and talk about. Probably sports. Who knows what else. They seem utterly foreign to me.
There are the 'hard core' looking young people with their crazy coloured hair, piercings, tattoos, patched and torn black, camoflage, plaid, and neon striped clothes, heafty looking boots, and various insignias pinned and glued on all over their bags and jackets. Cigaretts in their hands, '4 letter words' spewing from their mouths. Most of them seem to have a bitter sort of attitude toward life and other people. They always seem to look rather dirty, and their skin and faces often look worn. Do they mostly just sit around with others smoking, drinking, complaining about the world, and possibly doing other drugs? Do they listen to loud screaming music which feeds their angry attitude? Do they talk about movies and music? Do they talk mostly about other people or experiences they've had? I really don't know.
I wouldn't have a clue how to approach or engage any of these people, though I suppose I have the most practice with the ordinary looking ladies. Whenever I am out about in public it is continually driven home to me how foreign it all seems, and how little interest I have in being part of whatever it is that most people experience life to be like or whatever it is they fill it with. I am always rather jarred when people actually try to talk to me, and I suppose considering how much I don't pay attention to the world around me and live in the worlds of my mind, you could say for a normal person it would be rather like a three headed man just dropping out of the sky in front of them and asking whether they think brown or grey gryphon eggs taste better. First it is startling, then you have to process the alien standing in front of you, then you have to try to answer something which you don't really have any experience with beyond a vague idea by way of association...well you don't eat gryphon eggs, but since brown chicken eggs don't taste any different from white ones you suppose it really doesn't matter with gryphons anyways....wait, they have eggs? ok whatever. The best answer seems to be a smile and nod under the circumstances. Then you wonder why it was even asking you in the first place.
Yes, that is pretty much what it's like. They are all aliens. :D (or I am)
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Wannabe Wierdos
Let me preface this by saying I believe that in general everyone is 'normal' in some ways, and 'wierd' in others. Although by the very deffinition there must be fewer 'wierdos' in any particular realm than there are 'normal' people. In any case, just because someone appears normal doesn't mean he has a lot in common with the general populace. Likewise, just because someone looks different doesn't mean that they aren't in many more significant ways than appearance, 'just like everyone else.'
I was reminded this evening of a line I wish I could quote properly from my friend Joi's days in the dorms. I think it was something like "I thought I/you were wierd, and then I met your roomate!" This is something that has happened to me numerous times in the past. It seemed I would often meet people who thought of themselves as wierd, different, odd, 'the creative type' because they came from families of especially 'normal' people, yet after my first excited 'fellow wierdo' conversation with them I was frequently disappointed. The things they thought were 'wierd' seemed like very common things to me, or they had only a mild interest in less popular interests we shared.
I fancy that perhaps because of my lack of the obvious symbols of rebellion in our culture, my conservative old fashioned preferences in some areas, and my soft-spoken shyness and reserve, people with whom I may have shared a deeper outlook on life in common with, aside from the variance in some of our fashion tastes, overlooked me as a possible friend because they assumed I must be of a very 'ordinary' persuasion personality-wise.
I was recently reminded of a conversation which I have had all too often with others. Somehow music comes up, and I mention that I don't like any popular music. Or I may even use the word 'rock'. To which they emphatically agree. Oh yes, they don't like any of that stuff either. However, the inevitable shows up shortly thereafter: I discover that once again the way I use the words pop/rock and the way others use them are very different. I fully admit that I use those terms in a very awkward unwieldly sort of way, having the barest knowledge of all the sub-genres that have cropped up since the 1950s and even less of an idea what that limited muscial vocabulary actually refers to. In my book, anything beating out a one-two backbeat on a snare drum, and featuring primarilly someone singing backed by guitars is rock/pop, because I experience all such songs as the same. More often than not they start going on about things called "Alternative", "Indie", "Cybertrance" and other names I can't remember. And there they have lost me. I have nothing to contribute to this music conversation afterall, and I smile and nod and move the topic along as quickly as I can. If I let it out that I haven't heard any of these people I will be subjected to samplings. And if it further gets out that I really have no idea whatsoever what they're going on about, well then, they just stare at me flabbergasted.
Of course bringing up one's taste for classical music usually gets one of two responces, either they regard you as a neanderthal who they have just realised doesn't actually speak their language, or they kind of think you're a snob. A less common responce is enthusiasm, after which, again, I am disappointed because it becomes clear that they consider turning on a "soothing classics" CD for studying or sleeping a love for classical music, and any actuall discussion of it is, similar to my case with the "Alternative" people, completely lost on them. They don't like it for the same reasons I do, and thus haven't taken note of any of the same pieces I like, if any at all. They have a vague feeling they like Mozart and Beethoven, because well, everyone admits those two greats, but mention, say, the Moldau and they think you are talking about moldy cheese. Mention it with a earnest passion and they realise you are an alien.
I have very similar experiences when mentioning that I like soundtracks and musicals. They instantly start naming modern musicals, many of which contain songs of a very 'rock-pop'-ish bent. And it turns out they don't like the symphonic scores to movies, but rather the colllections of popular type songs that have made appearances in movies set in modern-day-times (most of which, naturally, I haven't seen so the nature of their 'soundtracks' may not come out right off.)
It does have an interesting psychological affect, I think, being found odd time and again by the people who thought they were unusual. To be the thing that blows the mind of the odd-balls puts one in a very lonely place. It drives home a sense, not of being an eccentric, those places are filled, but of truely being an alien dealing with a world and language a universe apart from one's own. One can't help bringing to mind all those sci-fi movies where the humans have to debate over whether to treat non-humans humaely, or if that word only applies to the specific species of Earth. It certainly does not incline one to be optimistic in one's approach to engaging with others. Yet, I sometimes actually forget this vast difference within my little circle of like-minded aliens and the worlds of my mind in which I spend much of my time. And when I come in contact with one of these relatively normal people I can't help feeling a little like a scientist on another planet trying to discover if the creatures there, first of all, are sentient, and second how on earth to communicate with them (or even if they are disposed to communicating with you at all).
I am not trying to make any kind of wierdo-elitist claim to status by this observation, being fully aware that there are others just as strange and stranger than me out there. And recognizing that I may have some core traits in common with 'the masses' which span tastes and interests which would yet allow me to relate better with people in general than many others may find themselves capable of. I cannot really know how normal I am, I suppose, without knowing all the span of different people. So I make this observation only from my very limited experience, and make it purely as an interesting comment on life and the experience of the few who are truely different.
It seems that many of the mildly different people who consider themselves wierd, particularly enjoy the idea of being 'counter-culture' or rebellious, and they relish the exlusiveness of being in a minority. An interesting thing to note is that often, as Joi also once pointed out about fellow art students, their claim to uniquness is betrayed by the motto they seem to live by: "be different like everyone else!"
Tracy and I were recently discussing the affects of being not just the odd one, but the one people can't comprehend in social groups. We are both naturally introverts, but feel that this is greatly reinforced by the fact that even if we did wish to connect with people more, we simply wouldn't be able to find anything we could talk about with them and actualy manage to relate. Thus the possibility of developing more social confidence was never really an option with any attraction. It would seem that our shyness is actually not illigitimate immaginings of insecure minds, but the result of endless try-and-fail experiences where it's not just timidity jamming up the conversation, as opposed to a more normal person's fear of not fitting in, when in fact they do have all the common knowlegde they need to forge conversations and relationships with others. It's not just that we immagine people don't like us, but that they actually don't understand us.
I was reminded this evening of a line I wish I could quote properly from my friend Joi's days in the dorms. I think it was something like "I thought I/you were wierd, and then I met your roomate!" This is something that has happened to me numerous times in the past. It seemed I would often meet people who thought of themselves as wierd, different, odd, 'the creative type' because they came from families of especially 'normal' people, yet after my first excited 'fellow wierdo' conversation with them I was frequently disappointed. The things they thought were 'wierd' seemed like very common things to me, or they had only a mild interest in less popular interests we shared.
I fancy that perhaps because of my lack of the obvious symbols of rebellion in our culture, my conservative old fashioned preferences in some areas, and my soft-spoken shyness and reserve, people with whom I may have shared a deeper outlook on life in common with, aside from the variance in some of our fashion tastes, overlooked me as a possible friend because they assumed I must be of a very 'ordinary' persuasion personality-wise.
I was recently reminded of a conversation which I have had all too often with others. Somehow music comes up, and I mention that I don't like any popular music. Or I may even use the word 'rock'. To which they emphatically agree. Oh yes, they don't like any of that stuff either. However, the inevitable shows up shortly thereafter: I discover that once again the way I use the words pop/rock and the way others use them are very different. I fully admit that I use those terms in a very awkward unwieldly sort of way, having the barest knowledge of all the sub-genres that have cropped up since the 1950s and even less of an idea what that limited muscial vocabulary actually refers to. In my book, anything beating out a one-two backbeat on a snare drum, and featuring primarilly someone singing backed by guitars is rock/pop, because I experience all such songs as the same. More often than not they start going on about things called "Alternative", "Indie", "Cybertrance" and other names I can't remember. And there they have lost me. I have nothing to contribute to this music conversation afterall, and I smile and nod and move the topic along as quickly as I can. If I let it out that I haven't heard any of these people I will be subjected to samplings. And if it further gets out that I really have no idea whatsoever what they're going on about, well then, they just stare at me flabbergasted.
Of course bringing up one's taste for classical music usually gets one of two responces, either they regard you as a neanderthal who they have just realised doesn't actually speak their language, or they kind of think you're a snob. A less common responce is enthusiasm, after which, again, I am disappointed because it becomes clear that they consider turning on a "soothing classics" CD for studying or sleeping a love for classical music, and any actuall discussion of it is, similar to my case with the "Alternative" people, completely lost on them. They don't like it for the same reasons I do, and thus haven't taken note of any of the same pieces I like, if any at all. They have a vague feeling they like Mozart and Beethoven, because well, everyone admits those two greats, but mention, say, the Moldau and they think you are talking about moldy cheese. Mention it with a earnest passion and they realise you are an alien.
I have very similar experiences when mentioning that I like soundtracks and musicals. They instantly start naming modern musicals, many of which contain songs of a very 'rock-pop'-ish bent. And it turns out they don't like the symphonic scores to movies, but rather the colllections of popular type songs that have made appearances in movies set in modern-day-times (most of which, naturally, I haven't seen so the nature of their 'soundtracks' may not come out right off.)
It does have an interesting psychological affect, I think, being found odd time and again by the people who thought they were unusual. To be the thing that blows the mind of the odd-balls puts one in a very lonely place. It drives home a sense, not of being an eccentric, those places are filled, but of truely being an alien dealing with a world and language a universe apart from one's own. One can't help bringing to mind all those sci-fi movies where the humans have to debate over whether to treat non-humans humaely, or if that word only applies to the specific species of Earth. It certainly does not incline one to be optimistic in one's approach to engaging with others. Yet, I sometimes actually forget this vast difference within my little circle of like-minded aliens and the worlds of my mind in which I spend much of my time. And when I come in contact with one of these relatively normal people I can't help feeling a little like a scientist on another planet trying to discover if the creatures there, first of all, are sentient, and second how on earth to communicate with them (or even if they are disposed to communicating with you at all).
I am not trying to make any kind of wierdo-elitist claim to status by this observation, being fully aware that there are others just as strange and stranger than me out there. And recognizing that I may have some core traits in common with 'the masses' which span tastes and interests which would yet allow me to relate better with people in general than many others may find themselves capable of. I cannot really know how normal I am, I suppose, without knowing all the span of different people. So I make this observation only from my very limited experience, and make it purely as an interesting comment on life and the experience of the few who are truely different.
It seems that many of the mildly different people who consider themselves wierd, particularly enjoy the idea of being 'counter-culture' or rebellious, and they relish the exlusiveness of being in a minority. An interesting thing to note is that often, as Joi also once pointed out about fellow art students, their claim to uniquness is betrayed by the motto they seem to live by: "be different like everyone else!"
Tracy and I were recently discussing the affects of being not just the odd one, but the one people can't comprehend in social groups. We are both naturally introverts, but feel that this is greatly reinforced by the fact that even if we did wish to connect with people more, we simply wouldn't be able to find anything we could talk about with them and actualy manage to relate. Thus the possibility of developing more social confidence was never really an option with any attraction. It would seem that our shyness is actually not illigitimate immaginings of insecure minds, but the result of endless try-and-fail experiences where it's not just timidity jamming up the conversation, as opposed to a more normal person's fear of not fitting in, when in fact they do have all the common knowlegde they need to forge conversations and relationships with others. It's not just that we immagine people don't like us, but that they actually don't understand us.
Monday, October 04, 2010
some thoughts on music and the 'many'
In reading Lewis' analysis of the 'few' and the 'many' in regards to appreciating various art forms, I think I have found some further insight into popular music. I find myself quite incapable of understanding how so many people can like this stuff....all this popular stuff from about the 1950's untill today. As quoted in my earlier post, he mentions that what the many want in music is a tune they can hum, a beat they can dance to, and a starting point for their immagination or feelings.
While for myself I have rarely found it difficult to remmeber and hum the tunes from symphonies and other things that weren't written specifically to be sung, I suppose it would follow that songs written primarily for voice would be more easily hummed by other people.
I also noted in his discussion of how the 'many' read, that he mentioned them liking books which have just the right ammount of words. They do not pay much attention to the words, but they also need enough of them so as to not tax their immagination with coming up with all the details on its own. He described their approach to wording as reading hieroglyphs. They look for certain phrases, often clichés, which put them in mind of specific bits of....stock immaginings, I suppose you may call them. They want the wording to be familiar, short, quickly interpreted into immages and emotions, and tend to prefer overstatement because anything less doesn't capture their attention.
These ideas suddenly translated themselves into the context of music in my mind and suddenly all the popular rock music (and hundreds of subgenres thereof) made more sense to me. The idea behind readers liking overstatement has a striking resemblance to my experience of music with a strong beat. I find drumbs beating out the rhythm to feel like extreem overstatement of somthing that is entirely obvious - it feels like being talked down to, or like over-enunciated words. It feels as though these bands have never gotten past the need for a metronome. In addition to that aspect of overstating the beat, there is of course the dance aspect mentioned by Lewis. For whatever reason (and this I still don't entirely get) people seem much more compelled to move their bodies with a beat than with a melody. So they need a strong beat to first grab their attention, and to secondly to induce them to dance - to engage in the music through bodily movement.
The almost constant presence of words in popular music also plays into the need for overstatement, as well as the desire to use music as a starting point for the mind's activities. If the sounds of the music communicate some emotion or 'story' the addition of words (on top of what is already stated) clearly spelling out what the music wants to evoke in you is a most extreem form of overstatement. The words also provide a much more specific, concrete direction for the mind so that it doesn't have to come up with it's own immages and events to go with the sounds of the music.
The note that the 'many' want familiar hieroglyphic type phrases and not too many words makes me wonder if this desire for the easily recognizable might explain the frequently small number of instruments usually employed in popular music, both in actual number and in type. It might also explain my impression that it all sounds alike - because a certain form (with plenty of repetition built in) is generally used, as well as the same basic beat drummed out over and over across songs, bands, and subgenres.
I will grant of course that while having been subjected to a great deal of this popular music in my lifetime, I have not made much of a conscious effort to really 'get into it' and thus my observtions cannot be said to be in depth. I am certain that the 'many' would accuse the music I like of 'all sounding the same' as well. My guess at why they would think this is that 1) they have trouble connecting with any music that doesn't have words because they simply do not know what it wants them to think about without being told by the words - so it has no affect on them, 2) without a strong beat to grab them and force their feet to tap they do not feel like they are a part of it and thus find their minds easily wandering away from the music, 3) without specific recognizable instruments playing designated parts and a simple familiar form they do not, in a sense, understand the words or phrases spoken by the sounds of the music, and thus find themselves unable to engage and follow along with it.
The need for repetition in music, I think must be partly because of the desire to be able to hum the tune, and repetition makes it all the more memorable. You can listen to the first verse and then when it comes around again you can whistle along, and after the first time you can actually sing the chorus each time it comes up after. But another possible reason presents itself in Lewis' idea that the 'many' use any art form as a spring board for the immagination or emotion, focusing not so much on the art itself, but what they do with the basic idea it presents in their own minds. If their attention is only periferally taking in the artwork while their minds focus on their own reactions to it's ideas, then a listener who catches the begining of the song and then is lost in their inner impressions for a few moments, if he turns his attention back to the music and doesn't find what he first heard becomes confused and nolonger knows where he is. Is this the same song? What happened to it? He wants to hear the part that got him thinking again in order to maintain the particular reverie he was enjoying, but instead finds himself being thrown into a different set of thoughts entirely. Furthermore, this can explain the overall similarity between the general sound of all the songs on a particular album or by a particular band, or indeed on a particular radio station. The overall similarity allows one to tune in and out as much as one likes without becoming disoriented in what the music is directing you to experience.
The drastic changes in tune, emotion, intruments, and style even within one classical piece, one symphony, concert, or classical radio station could, I immagine, seem to the marginally attentive to be like trying to understand a TV program where every 3 minutes the dialogue switches to a different language. Of course people listen casually to classical music as well, but those who are well aquainted with it and often do pay it full attention will find themselves more at home, more able to recognize a particular section of a piece, or more able to predict how an unknown piece will proceed. Others who listen to it casually do so precicely because they do not know how to fully engage it and thus use it as background noise when they do not want to be tempted to dance or sing along. It is my impression that one need not ever attend closely to popular music or have many songs stored away in memory in order to feel in familiar territory when turning on the radio and being plunged into the middle of a song at random. The basic beat is almost always exactly the same (and even if not it's being hammered into your ear so it's hard to miss), so you can immediately begin tapping with it, and the singer is there telling you what it is about. The tune is probably short and catchy and you'll probably hear it at least once more before the song is over.
It seems to me that while there are indeed patterns in classical music, they tend to span a much longer time frame than is normal in popular music, and therefore demand a longer attention span to understand what is going on and grasp the pattern. Often, especially in soundtrack music which is less structured by rules, being guided rather by the actions occuring in a film, the main theme may only be stated in it's simple form once, and after that one hears only snatches of it, or variations upon it. Such a structure could hardly be understood if one was not attending to the whole of it.
A hypothetical illustration of how the forms of popular vs. classical music require different levels of attention.
Immagine, if you will, an art gallery and people walking through it. In one room they encounter a series of 6 paintings, the same two alternating. Both of them depict the same subject in two different poses, and both use nearly the same color palate. When they leave the room the people are asked to describe the paintings they saw. Having seen each of them 3 times, they will probably be able to recall them with relative ease, or if they saw the first and last while breezing by the rest, they will still have taken in all there was to see.
Now they walk into the next room and encounter a series of 4 paintings. Each of them is different, though in some ways similar. The first and last are particularly similar to eachother, but not quite exact copies. While the subject of the last is the same as the first, the colours are slightly different, the lighting is brighter, the background is more busy, and many of the details have been changed. The second is a contrast to the first, and the third seems to be a contrast to the seccond. When the people leave this room they are again asked to describe each of the paintings they saw. Having seen each of them only once they are less likely to remember them as well, and they may only be able to recall the first and last as a combined immage. The middle two may even be almost completely forgotten.
I Think I should note that, while I do not personally experience much in the way of depth while listening to popular music, there are people who do insist that it does have depth and variation, and being more avid listeners I will believe them. I think, however, that the overall rock/pop genre of music is more designed with the 'many' in mind, designed with what that type of listener looks for as the center or formost criteria. It is created first for the 'many' and anything extra that might please the 'few' in it is an extra bonus. I think that, on the other hand, classical/symphonic music is designed to be listened to and understood by the 'few' and if the 'many' find something in it they can connect with that is simply a bonus.
While for myself I have rarely found it difficult to remmeber and hum the tunes from symphonies and other things that weren't written specifically to be sung, I suppose it would follow that songs written primarily for voice would be more easily hummed by other people.
I also noted in his discussion of how the 'many' read, that he mentioned them liking books which have just the right ammount of words. They do not pay much attention to the words, but they also need enough of them so as to not tax their immagination with coming up with all the details on its own. He described their approach to wording as reading hieroglyphs. They look for certain phrases, often clichés, which put them in mind of specific bits of....stock immaginings, I suppose you may call them. They want the wording to be familiar, short, quickly interpreted into immages and emotions, and tend to prefer overstatement because anything less doesn't capture their attention.
These ideas suddenly translated themselves into the context of music in my mind and suddenly all the popular rock music (and hundreds of subgenres thereof) made more sense to me. The idea behind readers liking overstatement has a striking resemblance to my experience of music with a strong beat. I find drumbs beating out the rhythm to feel like extreem overstatement of somthing that is entirely obvious - it feels like being talked down to, or like over-enunciated words. It feels as though these bands have never gotten past the need for a metronome. In addition to that aspect of overstating the beat, there is of course the dance aspect mentioned by Lewis. For whatever reason (and this I still don't entirely get) people seem much more compelled to move their bodies with a beat than with a melody. So they need a strong beat to first grab their attention, and to secondly to induce them to dance - to engage in the music through bodily movement.
The almost constant presence of words in popular music also plays into the need for overstatement, as well as the desire to use music as a starting point for the mind's activities. If the sounds of the music communicate some emotion or 'story' the addition of words (on top of what is already stated) clearly spelling out what the music wants to evoke in you is a most extreem form of overstatement. The words also provide a much more specific, concrete direction for the mind so that it doesn't have to come up with it's own immages and events to go with the sounds of the music.
The note that the 'many' want familiar hieroglyphic type phrases and not too many words makes me wonder if this desire for the easily recognizable might explain the frequently small number of instruments usually employed in popular music, both in actual number and in type. It might also explain my impression that it all sounds alike - because a certain form (with plenty of repetition built in) is generally used, as well as the same basic beat drummed out over and over across songs, bands, and subgenres.
I will grant of course that while having been subjected to a great deal of this popular music in my lifetime, I have not made much of a conscious effort to really 'get into it' and thus my observtions cannot be said to be in depth. I am certain that the 'many' would accuse the music I like of 'all sounding the same' as well. My guess at why they would think this is that 1) they have trouble connecting with any music that doesn't have words because they simply do not know what it wants them to think about without being told by the words - so it has no affect on them, 2) without a strong beat to grab them and force their feet to tap they do not feel like they are a part of it and thus find their minds easily wandering away from the music, 3) without specific recognizable instruments playing designated parts and a simple familiar form they do not, in a sense, understand the words or phrases spoken by the sounds of the music, and thus find themselves unable to engage and follow along with it.
The need for repetition in music, I think must be partly because of the desire to be able to hum the tune, and repetition makes it all the more memorable. You can listen to the first verse and then when it comes around again you can whistle along, and after the first time you can actually sing the chorus each time it comes up after. But another possible reason presents itself in Lewis' idea that the 'many' use any art form as a spring board for the immagination or emotion, focusing not so much on the art itself, but what they do with the basic idea it presents in their own minds. If their attention is only periferally taking in the artwork while their minds focus on their own reactions to it's ideas, then a listener who catches the begining of the song and then is lost in their inner impressions for a few moments, if he turns his attention back to the music and doesn't find what he first heard becomes confused and nolonger knows where he is. Is this the same song? What happened to it? He wants to hear the part that got him thinking again in order to maintain the particular reverie he was enjoying, but instead finds himself being thrown into a different set of thoughts entirely. Furthermore, this can explain the overall similarity between the general sound of all the songs on a particular album or by a particular band, or indeed on a particular radio station. The overall similarity allows one to tune in and out as much as one likes without becoming disoriented in what the music is directing you to experience.
The drastic changes in tune, emotion, intruments, and style even within one classical piece, one symphony, concert, or classical radio station could, I immagine, seem to the marginally attentive to be like trying to understand a TV program where every 3 minutes the dialogue switches to a different language. Of course people listen casually to classical music as well, but those who are well aquainted with it and often do pay it full attention will find themselves more at home, more able to recognize a particular section of a piece, or more able to predict how an unknown piece will proceed. Others who listen to it casually do so precicely because they do not know how to fully engage it and thus use it as background noise when they do not want to be tempted to dance or sing along. It is my impression that one need not ever attend closely to popular music or have many songs stored away in memory in order to feel in familiar territory when turning on the radio and being plunged into the middle of a song at random. The basic beat is almost always exactly the same (and even if not it's being hammered into your ear so it's hard to miss), so you can immediately begin tapping with it, and the singer is there telling you what it is about. The tune is probably short and catchy and you'll probably hear it at least once more before the song is over.
It seems to me that while there are indeed patterns in classical music, they tend to span a much longer time frame than is normal in popular music, and therefore demand a longer attention span to understand what is going on and grasp the pattern. Often, especially in soundtrack music which is less structured by rules, being guided rather by the actions occuring in a film, the main theme may only be stated in it's simple form once, and after that one hears only snatches of it, or variations upon it. Such a structure could hardly be understood if one was not attending to the whole of it.
A hypothetical illustration of how the forms of popular vs. classical music require different levels of attention.
Immagine, if you will, an art gallery and people walking through it. In one room they encounter a series of 6 paintings, the same two alternating. Both of them depict the same subject in two different poses, and both use nearly the same color palate. When they leave the room the people are asked to describe the paintings they saw. Having seen each of them 3 times, they will probably be able to recall them with relative ease, or if they saw the first and last while breezing by the rest, they will still have taken in all there was to see.
Now they walk into the next room and encounter a series of 4 paintings. Each of them is different, though in some ways similar. The first and last are particularly similar to eachother, but not quite exact copies. While the subject of the last is the same as the first, the colours are slightly different, the lighting is brighter, the background is more busy, and many of the details have been changed. The second is a contrast to the first, and the third seems to be a contrast to the seccond. When the people leave this room they are again asked to describe each of the paintings they saw. Having seen each of them only once they are less likely to remember them as well, and they may only be able to recall the first and last as a combined immage. The middle two may even be almost completely forgotten.
I Think I should note that, while I do not personally experience much in the way of depth while listening to popular music, there are people who do insist that it does have depth and variation, and being more avid listeners I will believe them. I think, however, that the overall rock/pop genre of music is more designed with the 'many' in mind, designed with what that type of listener looks for as the center or formost criteria. It is created first for the 'many' and anything extra that might please the 'few' in it is an extra bonus. I think that, on the other hand, classical/symphonic music is designed to be listened to and understood by the 'few' and if the 'many' find something in it they can connect with that is simply a bonus.
Saturday, October 02, 2010
Pie
The point of Pie, in my world, is the crust. The object of eating pie is to eat crust. Crust is wonderfull, but on its own, it is rather bland. So the filling and the whipped cream or ice-cream put on it, is like the jam or butter you put on toast. The filling exists to enhance the crust. :D
Background Noise
I think some music is designed with a kind of "somebody else's problem" field (rememebr Hitchiker's guide?) which continually directs your attention away from it so that it is impossible to actually listen to it. It is, actually designed as complete background noise. Yes. I am convinced of this. How else could I try so hard, so many times, and still not know what I've been listening to!
I keep trying to listen and pay attention to this one album and it all keeps sounding the same so that my mind wanders and I never actually find out if it is indeed the same tune over and over.
This is a problem common to new age music and also some soundtracks. You have a sense of liking the album and it creates a nice atmosphere or mood, but when you try and actually pick out tracks you particularly like it defys all attempts to distinguish one from another.
I keep trying to listen and pay attention to this one album and it all keeps sounding the same so that my mind wanders and I never actually find out if it is indeed the same tune over and over.
This is a problem common to new age music and also some soundtracks. You have a sense of liking the album and it creates a nice atmosphere or mood, but when you try and actually pick out tracks you particularly like it defys all attempts to distinguish one from another.
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