One of the ways I define myself is as a music lover.
I´m not one of the people that says that I´m listening to everything... because I don´t and I believe that anyone who says that is a liar.
No. What I´m saying is that I love the concept of music. Its something to our cultures which is pure in many ways where words and poetry fail us.
No matter what kind of music is playing, there will always be someone loving it and understanding it in a different way than others who are listening. That's mainly the reason why I think of it as a sore subject.
Let me explain.
If you are on a first date, one of the most common things to ask about when the conversation stalls is music. "What music do you listen to?" then he or she is almost bound to answer "Well... everything"- in order to save face and situation. Both you and the other person knows its a fail-bait to talk about it, even if you don´t think it, and therefore tread lightly before answering, trying to uncover the other persons taste first.
The catch is that the chances of you going home with that person falls dramatically after he or she finds out you like something that they do not. And the other way around.
Of-course, you may get lucky, I´m not making a rule here, but I will venture out and say that music is important. God knows what happens if you find out the person in front of you is a madman and doesn´t listen to music at all!
This is interesting though. Why is music so personal and secret? A person studying musical theory might answer that question more clearly than I, so I won´t go to deep into it.
What I find fascinating though, is the fact that as people, we love putting other people in boxes... Sum them up out of what little information we get from them. And music? Thats a huge and important box in most cases. "Oh, lord. She listens to Aqua. That shit was popular in 1985 so shes clearly crazy! RUNAWAY!"... or at least that would have been my response. Some people like that crap. And I don´t blame them. We all know what its like to put our list of favorite songs on the speakers in front of friends. The gentle tugging of uncertainty. The thought of what will be said about you if the majority in the room hates your choices.
I recon most people think they don´t care much. Or at least I think they think they don´t care much, when really; they do. Its easy to glips the sudden defensive posture put up when you start to comment a song, and the person you are talking to happens to be the one who vouched for it.
Like the guy that wanted me to play Macarena the other day. He´s still pissed at me for rejecting him. WHY is that? I wasn´t impolite to the douche... I just said "No" slowly and with care to make sure it got through his drunken skull... then I may have turned away and resumed whatever it was that I was doing, trying to ignore the fact that he just asked me for Macarena.
Weird reaction of me, though. It was like I was taken offense at his request. But he didn´t do anything really. He just asked me for a crappy song he could jerk of to. So why the stern rejection and cool attitude?
But that´s beside the point. The point I´m trying to make here is that music is important to us on many different, and rather intimate, levels. Much like religion and politics... and values...?
Its interesting to observe though. How music can draw people together. How it can make them sing and dance and become close even though they met a few seconds before. Ah, no, you don´t have to be drunk to achieve this. All you need is the ecstasy of the moment.
People who can´t dance dance like hell. People who can´t sing, sing like they were kings and queens of the opera. People who don´t have a shred of impulse get inspired to rap... the list goes on.
I like to think its because music is a way of communicating that goes beyond language. As I think of it, language in itself is a hindrance, a barrier where we force our mouth to translate whatever we are thinking. It´s both our greatest tool and our greatest catalyst for confusion. But music in itself rids us of that and lets the individual draw his or her own picture. It allows us to draw different meanings out of it and makes us use other senses in order to draw meaning.
Thats why I´m always looking for the perfect beat. And I think thats why I like music without vocals the best. Its like a painting being made in front of you, but you are the only one who can see it... which makes us vulnerable when we tell of our perspective to others.
The picture may look like a blob of poo to the other person you know.
