To all Jackson Pollock fans: good evening. It takes all kinds. Some folks stick to what they know and only consume more of it. Some folks try different things when they get bored, only to convince themselves that what they are used to is way more likable, so they scurry back. Some folks will sample everything and rush to the most peremptory of verdicts. Some folks will give it their best shot and listen with their hearts and minds. I don't know that you have to understand a piece of music to like it. I am convinced no one actually is required to understand music, in the broadest sense, to like it. If this was so, a great majority of people who claim to like music but don't have a clue about it, would have given up long ago, and the recording industry would be in even worst condition. Sometimes the most hermetic, least approachable music turns out to be the most rewarding. Liking or loving and understanding are very different things. Part of the enjoyment of music is discovery, and the more run-of-the-mill music you know, the more you have to go off the beaten track to get that sense of discovery. Once you get there, I think you owe the music you find a good listen. One hour for a piece may be stretching things though, if the enjoyment is simply not there. I don't believe in suffering for art that much. Understanding is good, but may be harmful if swallowed. In the end, I fear that, as someone once told me many years ago, " to know a living thing is to kill it". Maybe that's what Sjorgensen means. Now where is that Anthony Braxton album...
Do You Understand Music?
First I want to describe something that repeats happening with me when I listen to the relatively new music to me.
There are a few examples that I want to describe:
1. I've acquired a rare CD of Cluster "One Hour" which contains one track that lasts exactly 1 hour. No matter how hard I've tried to listen to it as whole i was getting tired or just simply did not understand what's going on and was postponing a listening to the next session. Next session something similar happens and in curiosity I'm just trying to fast-forward to the last minutes of the track to hear how it ends. After few more trials to torture myself i quit and exchange this CD to the different offered by one of my best friend(Wobble-Parker). He digged in(meaning was able to listen the whole hour) from the third listening session and reviewed this music as one of the most magnificient projects created by Cluster for what I envy him to have a patience to understand.
2. Nearly the same thing happend with double CD album "Cobra" which is a project of John Zorn.
Some years ago I couldn't understand Ornette Coleman but now I realize that his music is like surrealistic art and has a divine presence. Same I can tell about Kronos Quartet.
Please share with me if you had a similar situations. Would you listen to the music that you don't understand? Would you try to understand it? Would you honor a "different" music and accept it as an art?
For me I'd rather listen to what I do not understand and try later-on to understand instead of just simply go to the Wiz and buy some Ricky Martin or Marc Anthony...
There are a few examples that I want to describe:
1. I've acquired a rare CD of Cluster "One Hour" which contains one track that lasts exactly 1 hour. No matter how hard I've tried to listen to it as whole i was getting tired or just simply did not understand what's going on and was postponing a listening to the next session. Next session something similar happens and in curiosity I'm just trying to fast-forward to the last minutes of the track to hear how it ends. After few more trials to torture myself i quit and exchange this CD to the different offered by one of my best friend(Wobble-Parker). He digged in(meaning was able to listen the whole hour) from the third listening session and reviewed this music as one of the most magnificient projects created by Cluster for what I envy him to have a patience to understand.
2. Nearly the same thing happend with double CD album "Cobra" which is a project of John Zorn.
Some years ago I couldn't understand Ornette Coleman but now I realize that his music is like surrealistic art and has a divine presence. Same I can tell about Kronos Quartet.
Please share with me if you had a similar situations. Would you listen to the music that you don't understand? Would you try to understand it? Would you honor a "different" music and accept it as an art?
For me I'd rather listen to what I do not understand and try later-on to understand instead of just simply go to the Wiz and buy some Ricky Martin or Marc Anthony...