Musical vagaries
21 Dec 2005Wednesday night, at the SACS Speech Night, I was reminded of how much I’ll miss the sound of St. Andrews. I don’t even think the music at Speech Night was that great (and stage movements were certainly leaving something to be desired, but that’s another matter), so comment is not being made on the basis of the quality of that… it simply presented a catalyst for entropic ruminations that occasionally (or perhaps more than occasionally) take place in the mind of this particular individual, focussing “random reflection upon the nature of SACS” on the sound of that space. We are bound to the senses, and it is that of aural perception which, at this present moment, defines St. Andrews.
I’ll miss going to some lunchtime concert Tori has been roped into performing at — though secretly she enjoys it, I infer from nervousness and an enunciated indifference to the opinions of any aside from that of her mother: something which I certainly take no issue with, being along simply for the ride and offering perhaps as much eloquent and applicable criticism as the piano stool on which she had sat and played something from another world — hearing music that is undoubtedly beautiful and meaningful and of value, but it speaks in a tongue (spelt correctly) apart from my own. The words drift over, though, and its essence is often (if not always) captured. At least in part.
These chance encounters with Babel are a near-inescapable facet of the life of a not-musician at that school. There is music to challenge. It incites thought, violently. There is something more buried here unseen. But what? No matter, let it speak in its own language. The tongue, of course, varies. Some do not take the mind to task. Others are guttural, cutting: they haul the mind to consciousness and set it to task unseen… and almost certainly not understood. There is a desire, however, to resolve this, such that these velar enunciations might become understood. Then, harsh sounds launch into an eloquent refrain of unparalleled beauty, if it could only be understood!
Comprehension spawns creation. Eloquence is a sign of vitality, whether seen and comprehended or glanced upon and passed over: it needn’t bear understanding the first time. Ever? One would dare to hope. Though it must be said that the work begun by one may, at another’s hands, give way past the precipice of cognition into that dexterity of the mind that comes with a piece falling into place, one last cog enabling a whole series of gears.
And when will this come? Uncertainty pervades this point. With listening. To what, and for how long? Wrong questions. Impatience here is senseless, though some music may encourage it. [Grating sounds of post-modern composition break over the speakers] Yes. Senseless. For what else do you wait? Another piece to similarly rush through? And another? Finite achievement is erudite compared to the superficiality of infinite experience. Such that ‘infinite’ is within this life, within this understanding. Pitiful. Why, in asking ‘when’, the request is put forth: “how long until I may progress, forget this and move onwards?” Thus, that which meanders should be seen as a luminary force, bringing to light impatience, the race towards an unenvisaged goal. The goal, of course, is achieved: being defined only as progression to the next thing. Macro-experience never comes into play, nor perhaps should it. Music is… of the now? And the now is transient, ephemeral, diaphanous. Without clarity even in that instant… or especially in that instant, forming behind once again as the water subsides once a body has been removed from it.
Soundtrack/progression/value-added nothing. More ideas float, but I feel no compulsion to detail them here. Ideas, like music, may continue to exist in the mind. Some will grate, others will linger, still others will drift away when you most desire their company: and triumph against the reticent ones will occasionally come, though not always. Some things are meant to float in the mind, around the consciousness. Uncalled, yet without any desire to push them away once experienced — Evidenced here, you will observe, as I drift from speaking in the first person to the disconnected murmurings of consciousness, and then return once again to analysis. Which, it should be said, is not anathema to music… another way in which it is a great accomplice of the idea. Both are art.