RoR: Forum

Rebirth of Reason

Forum : Article Discussions : Something Better than Rage, Pain, Anger & Hurt

Friday
October 8, 2004

Something Better than Rage, Pain, Anger & Hurt by Peter Cresswell

There’s nothing inherently more rational about a violin than a guitar – as Eric Clapton says, ‘It’s in the Way That You Use It!' It just so happens that over the last three centuries or three most violins have been asked to do more than have most guitars. That’s just the way it is. If art is our shortcut to philosophy then music is our shortcut to our own soul. Good music enables us to hold up a mirror to ourselves and to see what it is our own soul looks like - and it isn’t always pretty, and we’d sometimes rather not know ... (Read more...)
Discuss this Article (104 messages)

Friday, October 8, 2004 - 10:11pm

Hong, I'm not sure the world could handle another little me running around. :)

What struck me as extraordinary was that based upon your original description of your son, it did in fact seem that his passion was formed from within, and not imposed. He has an excellent future ahead of him if he can experience that kind of depth at such a young age.

Can we get a SOLO discount on orchestra seats when the time comes? :)

Friday, October 8, 2004 - 10:33pm

Barbara, your music journey strikes me as very interesting. I can't seem to track my progression in a similar fashion.

When I was a teenager (late 80s, early 90s) I of course listened to those big-haired rock bands (oh, the horror) and really bad pop music. Then in college it was the funkier music like Depeche Mode, or dance music, or that of my then-boyfriend's band. I even sang backup once for him in a Battle of the Bands -- that nightmare of a memory just came flashing back. Egads...

Now, however, my music collection has the air of someone with a multiple personality disorder. Random sampling from my shelf: Eminem, Harry Connick, Jr., Miles Davis, Pavarotti, Christina Aguilera, Francis Cabrel, RUSH, Radiohead, Marvin Gaye, Classical and Latin guitar, Prince, Jay-Z, orchestral and symphonic music, ad infinitum.

But Frank...

Frank is what I put on when the sun is shining and I'm feeling HAPPY. His music is *my* version of Tiddlywink. He makes me laugh, dance, and feel downright giddy. Especially if I am falling in love. "Witchcraft" is a special favorite of mine. ;)

So for me, it's more difficult to track my life stages via the music that interests me. I didn't get into Eminem until I reached my 30s, but I have a better sense of life now than I ever have.

But even when I'm 80, I'll still be rockin' out to Frankie Baby. :)

Saturday, October 9, 2004 - 1:32am

Jonathan,

I largely agree with you regarding Peter and Linz's stances on music, but was it really necessary to be that insulting? :-\

MH

Saturday, October 9, 2004 - 1:38am

Great article, Peter.

I thought this part was interesting:

"But I think in many ways much of rock music desensitises emotions, but it also desensitises our sensitivity to many of the musical places that rock music just doesn’t reach – to many of the places that could provide us with real emotional fuel."

I think it's true that things that are a bit "over the top" do desensitize people. For instance, I've known women who thought they were sensitive to other people's emotions because they're always so open with their feelings. One of there friends would get sad and start crying up a storm, and they'd jump in. Or if someone was angry, they'd scream and throw things. The problem was when they encountered a person who didn't scream to the whole world as loudly as possible how they felt, they had no clue at all. Hanging out with their friends being so wildly openly emotional left them unable to see any subtlety of emotion. So if someone was angry, or depressed, or happy, they would have no clue. They grow accustomed to everything being loud.

For a different sort of example, here's a story I heard (details are fuzzy, so it might not be exact). A couple of girls were watching a movie. A guy and a girl in the movie were in love, but they're romance was very quiet. It was portrayed in how they looked at each other, how they reacted to each other, and that sort of thing. At the end, they got together, kissed and confessed their love. One of the girls watching saw the romance the whole time. The other one was blind-sided at the end. She hadn't expected it at all and said something like "Where did that come from!?!? How weird!". She was used to typical hollywood movies where the guy has to sing to her outside her window, or they have to rip each others clothes off right after they meet, or they have to convince the audience that there is love by repeating the slogan "I love you" until you can't miss the writers intentions. It's like they don't want anyone to possibly miss it, so they reach out to the most insensitive lot.

So this jarring, crude "romance" that's so typical these days does desensitize you. You stop trying to think about what the other person is thinking or feeling, and you expect it to be thrown at you with full frontal nudity. The idea of having a tender romance is gone. The idea of little heartfelt actions are meaningless. They become caricatures.

Now is rock music that way? I'm sure the defenders will rush in and say otherwise. But I think you've made an interesting point here. Thank you.

Saturday, October 9, 2004 - 2:01am

Adam & James - I am just now playing the version I have of the Saint-Saens Organ Symphony: it's the Berlin Philharmonic with Levine conducting. I don't know how it compares with the performances you guys have in your collections, but it spins my wheels.

It strikes me there's an article - nay, a treatise - to be written about how under-estimated Saint-Saens was generally, & remains. I'm sure it's because he committed the sin of being tuneful. And cleverly evocative. Carnival is an obvious example. How about the Piano Concerto No. 2? Or Samson & Delilah? The Bacchanale therefrom? Now *that's* what I call music to shake my bootie to!! :-)

As for Strauss' Four Last Songs - I'm curious as to whose version you favour? I've long been attached to Jessye Norman's, & indeed have found her recording of them to be a potent introduction to serious vocal music for the uninitiated. But I wish Anna Moffo had recorded them.

Oh, & Adam - re Mario being "humble": he *was*, but one senses it was under duress. In candid moments, he acknowledged his worth, as in that quote about not being the second Caruso but the first Lanza. Another time, he got even more pissed off with the constant comparisons to Caruso, & said something like: "Caruso? You study *that* ridiculous legend? Why, at my age, he couldn't even whistle!"

Linz

Saturday, October 9, 2004 - 11:28am

I don't know about the whole "desensitization"claim. I have heard some pretty gruesome things in songs, and seen much in movies and paintings...and I still can't watch an animal suffer, or watch someone take a needle, or anything of that nature.

But if you are going to accuse rock music of such things, don't forget that Rand was not above using the occasional gruesome image as a metaphor. I am thinking of a passage in THE ROMANTIC MANIFESTO where she described an aborted fetus wallowing in bloody red froth, throwing it aimlessly. Nathaniel Branden reported that she presented the passage to him, and thinking it was over the top. (It does not matter that she was describing modern art, she could have made her argument many ways, why that way?)
There is also the image of the passengers dying in the Tunnel in ATLAS SHRUGGED. One could claim that passages like that desensitize the reader to any further deaths of Rand's chosen enemies, even if they are only literary deaths.

Saturday, October 9, 2004 - 1:41pm

deleted
(Edited by Irfan Khawaja on 10/19, 4:06pm)

Saturday, October 9, 2004 - 8:22am

For instance, I've known women who thought they were sensitive to other people's emotions because they're always so open with their feelings.

Amazing that "sensitivity" is equated with plain crudity, period.

But to add something to the broader subject: the group of rock musicians that tried most seriously to approach the "total height" of classical music was - ironically - the acid rockers. The closest album to this ideal that I know of in pop music is Days of Future Passed by the Moody Blues - put out, despite the opinion of Time/Life, in 1967.

They did try to play off Cage, which partially explains the cathexis for strangeness. (I trust I don't need to explain the other, more direct, cause.)

There is one admittely slummish attraction of the rock scene, though: speculative gossip, made possible by the writers of pop and rock songs disguising the immediate sources of inspiration for their songs. Here's one for ya:

Patrecia Gullison => Model gab network => Jane Asher => Paul McCartney.

What famous song did Paul McCartney pen and record during 1968?

Saturday, October 9, 2004 - 8:24am

Peter

Thanks for such a great article. Reading your article I found myself saying "Yes! Yes! Yes!" the whole way through, because your words reflect my own experience so well.

As a teenager I was a massive Rolling Stones fanatic. Once I got a bit older, and especially when I fell in love (properly) for the first time, Mick just didn't seem to cut it. Then by chance I stumbled on to Four Last Songs (in the movie Wild At Heart), then the Rach 3 (chosen for me by a violinist I briefly dated), and from there there was no looking back.

Reading your article made me think about the strong emotions I certainly did feel for rock music as a teenager, ranging from the Stones to the Sex Pistols, and yes, Metallica. Mostly I think it was just the raw energy that appealed. I wouldn't call it teenage angst, but more a reflection of a fairly basic set of interests, namely, girls, beer, and rugby. Certainly the appeal did not spring from any complex integration of emotions and ideas.

These days I can get all that raw energy from Beethoven's Ninth, or the Appassionata. But I get a lot more out of those pieces as well. Mick might get a spin on occasion (usually if I'm getting revved up for a big night out), there's just a lot more beauty and depth to those pieces I just mentioned than there is to even the most melodic pop song.

Tim

Saturday, October 9, 2004 - 1:36pm

Matthew asked,
"I largely agree with you regarding Peter and Linz's stances on music, but was it really necessary to be that insulting? :-\"

Matthew,
Unfortunately, yes, I think it's necessary to apply Linz and Peter's insulting methods to Peter's work.

Look, the work of Peter's that I've seen is good. But over the years I've heard SOLOists praise him to high heaven, implying that his work and that of a handful of other Objectivist artists is great enough to lead the world from an aesthetic abyss to unimaginable heights. And that's fine. Encourage your Objectivist pals, and drum up interest in their art. Enjoy it. I'll enjoy it along with everyone else. But when SOLOists insist on tearing down the greatness of others, then, yes, I must be so "insulting" as apply their standard universally and point out that those "lowly" artists and musicians whom they deride have more originality, creativity and talent in their toenail clippings than what highly-praised Objectivist artists have in their entire beings.

Sorry if that's offensive.

J

Saturday, October 9, 2004 - 2:29pm

deleted

(Edited by Irfan Khawaja on 10/19, 4:07pm)

Saturday, October 9, 2004 - 8:22am

For instance, I've known women who thought they were sensitive to other people's emotions because they're always so open with their feelings.

Amazing that "sensitivity" is equated with plain crudity, period.

But to add something to the broader subject: the group of rock musicians that tried most seriously to approach the "total height" of classical music was - ironically - the acid rockers. The closest album to this ideal that I know of in pop music is Days of Future Passed by the Moody Blues - put out, despite the opinion of Time/Life, in 1967.

They did try to play off Cage, which partially explains the cathexis for strangeness. (I trust I don't need to explain the other, more direct, cause.)

There is one admittely slummish attraction of the rock scene, though: speculative gossip, made possible by the writers of pop and rock songs disguising the immediate sources of inspiration for their songs. Here's one for ya:

Patrecia Gullison => Model gab network => Jane Asher => Paul McCartney.

What famous song did Paul McCartney pen and record during 1968?

Saturday, October 9, 2004 - 3:15pm

Jonathan - Thanks for the clarification. Personally when I dislike someone else's behaviour I try not to stoop to the same level, but each to his own :-)

I've no idea whether Linz and Peter will pay any attention to this but I totally agree that Objectivists shouldn't tear down the greatness of others, in fact that's precisely what bothers me about these types of discussions on SOLO. Good faith criticism is fine of course but to be perfectly blunt, taking it to the level that's happened here strikes me as just plain malevolent. To me it simply isn't what Objectivism is about, in fact it conveys the precise opposite. That said, I know both Linz and Peter to generally be good respectable chaps (which is precisely why I'm so stunned at this kind of behaviour).

MH

Saturday, October 9, 2004 - 4:45pm

Jennifer, you wrote:

"But even when I'm 80, I'll still be rockin' out to Frankie Baby."

So will I. I don't think we ever lose our original loves, but we do add other and more complex loves as we grow and mature. Our first musical loves, like our first romantic loves, never quite go away; perhaps an element of this is nostalgia for more innocent days.

Barbara

Saturday, October 9, 2004 - 5:03pm

Rest assured, then, Barbara, that at some point during SOLOC4 Frankie will be played at joyous volume. Perhaps while we enjoy some martinis. ;)

We have an appointment to rock out, my dear. :D

Saturday, October 9, 2004 - 4:55pm

Irfan,
Thank you for your reply.

Stirred by this discussion I've been thinking about emotional development in child. Take my son as example, he certainly has been treated unfairly to some degree (though never severely I hope) in some occasions, particularly from his own perspective. But his reaction is always more of hurt or sad, even a little resentful, but never to the degree of great anger or rage. Maybe it is a build-in mechanism of self preservation. Because children's whole livelihood are completely depend on the people around them, so whatever circumstances are they'd rather adapt to it than feel angry about it.

As for young children's appreciation for classical music. Well, Mozart started to compose them at five. I feel that perhaps the sense of harmony, symmetry, beauty, sensual stimulation, arousing excitement, and whatever qualities that cannot even be named, in those groups of notes called classic music are something that are simple and profound at once, and thus able to please the tender hearts of young children.

(Edited by Hong Zhang on 10/09, 5:50pm)

Saturday, October 9, 2004 - 7:02pm

Many thanks to everyone for your many wonderful responses. (And for the not-so wonderful responses - to most of which I'm pretty confident the answers to your questions and/or objections are for the most contained in the article - just 'thanks.' :-) )

I will respond in more detail to your questions and objections and observations (and even to the insults), but I'm enjoying seeing what you make of the piece on its own, without me saying anything further about it for the moment. :-)

Saturday, October 9, 2004 - 7:08pm

deleted
(Edited by Irfan Khawaja on 10/19, 4:07pm)

Saturday, October 9, 2004 - 7:28pm

deleted

(Edited by Irfan Khawaja on 10/19, 4:08pm)

Sunday, October 10, 2004 - 12:03am

Jennifer, you wrote:

"Rest assured, then, Barbara, that at some point during SOLOC4 Frankie will be played at joyous volume. Perhaps while we enjoy some martinis."

That's a deal. Both Frankie and the martinis.

Barbara

.