Getting your love of music back

My Thoughts:

The way I see it, God skipped giving us ‘earlids’ for a reason. Our domineering sense of sight can sometimes overwhelm us with input, and for the sake of our peace of mind needs to be shut down occasionally. But what is often considered our second-strongest sense, hearing, is unremittingly on-the-clock 24-7. Ever wonder why?

While perhaps a less-complex mechanism than sight, the sense of hearing is our perpetual connection to our surroundings. Our eyes can only provide us that which is sufficiently well-lit and within our unobstructed line-of-sight (and a mere veil can render what we see indiscernible). However, our sense of hearing instantly and accurately clues us to happenings all around — in another room, around the corner, over the hill, or miles away.

Mystics report being able to tune into celestial sounds, eg the “music of the spheres”. Can’t claim to have ever heard such a sound, but who am I to argue its existence?

Incidentally, I usually have music playing at a low volume all night as I sleep (I prefer ambient music, especially the Drone Zone on Soma.fm). Occasionally, a piece of music will actually intrude upon my slumber, demanding that I wake up to give it a listen. It’s always been that way for me.

Music is where you find it,
and what we generally think of as “music”
is but the tip of the aural iceberg.

Many folks relish in the sounds of birds singing, waves upon the shore, or the wind in the trees, and the memory of a child’s murmuring sleep can stay with us all our lives. I also find certain other sounds pleasant to listen to (even oddly musical in a way) that others would think mundane, or even dismiss as mere noise.

For instance, I like to hear the whisper of my moccasins pressing into the earth in the forest out back; the soft pop of tires slowly turning on a stone driveway; the sigh of a nice bottle of Cabernet yielding its cork; the crack of a well-seasoned piece of oak violently exposed to the sun and air by my splitting maul (joined on the down-beat by a gentle grunt of satisfaction); the promising basso-profundo rumble of a well-tuned Harley. In addition to all the organized vibrations we call music, we’re bathed in sound all our lives… we should listen up and appreciate the gift God gave us.

But to speak of music specifically — I can only recount my own experience with it. Early in life, I became addicted to music, and subsequently, to making it on a guitar. I listened to everything, all styles and genres, relishing the good stuff and dismissing the not-so-good (all such determinations being entirely subjective, of course). In my quest as a musician I went down dozens of musical rabbit holes, learning to play quite a bit of classical, jazz, flamenco, country, bluegrass, rock, Celtic, etc etc. I became a jack of all trades and a master of one, you might say… LISTENING.

Musicians don’t listen to music in the same way as non-musicians. Musicians obviously love music, otherwise why spend all those hours practicing? But in addition to being, for lack of a better word, an ardent “consumer” of music, musicians listen more with an ear to structure, to hearing something new, and learning something from it. You’ll notice this trait in every musician you meet.

Once I could understand and play something, I still might enjoy merely listening to the piece, but by inclination I would want to move on to something more challenging to further my growth as a player. It’s a constant quest, and if one intends to make a living at it, to a certain extent begins to function independently of one’s original and innate love of the music itself. In a way, music became for me a personal and professional commodity, the currency I collected and used to make my way through life. I’m still sorting out how I feel about that realization.

Like my buddy Joe and many others, today I’m a podcast and YT video maven as I continue my studies on a wide variety of topics. Music is more often than not a component of these productions, but incidental to my reasons for taking in the content. I don’t listen to much music on the radio, nor seek out new music, and haven’t for at least 30 years. I’m content with whatever good music I stumble across, but couldn’t tell you much of anything about most of the current performers, bands, albums, concerts and tours.

There are many other things in life besides music, I’ve learned, so it has been supplanted somewhat by other interests. I do believe that if I never see a live concert again, it wouldn’t bother me in the slightest… another strange realization to process.

Perhaps it’s because I’m getting to be a old man, but my need for music on a daily basis is clearly not what it used to be. I often feel that music is this weird thing that is both deeply profound and spiritual, yet at the same time a bit frivolous and self-indulgent, and when it comes to being “in the music biz”, most certainly self-aggrandizing to one degree or another.

To succeed in the biz (especially as an independent — ie, unsigned — artist), one is constantly in promo-mode: writing and rewriting one’s bio; doing photo shoots looking for the killer shot; improving your performance skills; contacting and pitching and negotiating the sale of musical abilities which were probably developed for other reasons entirely. In essence, you are the product. I’ve always found this focus on constantly promoting oneself a bit distasteful… which no doubt goes a long way toward explaining why my career in music has been so modest.

And finally — to answer Joe’s question of how to get his love of music back — Knowing you, my friend, you’ll figure it out… and I doubt this rant will help much. While I confess the joys of mastering an instrument are great, there’s something to be said for maintaining a more casually absorbent relationship to music. In my experience, if you listen with discernment, you’ll find good music everywhere… though not necessarily where you have might have expected it.

Just be thankful that you haven’t made music the center of your professional life. If ever there were an industry more equatable to a crap shoot than the music biz, I can’t think of it. Compounding the heartbreak is the fact that many musicians LOVE their music so much that they will sacrifice almost anything for it, resolutely resigning themselves to accept the loss of marriages, families, friends, fortunes, and their very health and sanity for the sake of doing this one thing for which they feel an almost overwhelming passion.

Such devotion may constitute the life of any artist, but for those in the performance arts (music, dance and theater), it often seems to me to be the passion to end all passions.

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