Why am I starting a blog…

Well I suppose that’s how you’re supposed to start your blog, right? Oh boy, off to a dry start here.

But really. I feel like I have to start writing. And this seems like the thing to do. So here I am. Blogging. Oh boy. Starting is hard… I’ll just jump right in I guess.

I am unendingly curious about music.

I geek out to my friends in The Stereotypes constantly. About art (Leo and I got into a yelling match last summer over Rothko’s Orange And Yellow ). About modernity (I once led a Stypes warmup where we learned a tune and then said “everyone pick your own tempo - go!”). About singing, and (increasingly) it’s physicality (yet another Stypes warmup where we built the big ascending cluster in Whitacre’s When David Heard (start at 9:40), and then messed around with vowel morphs and dynamics - molding music like it was clay!). About John Cage (Shouldn’t we appreciate each sound for what it is? How about each silence?)

But wait. Let me stay on that for a minute, because if you’ve known me at all this semester, you know, well… John Cage:

Everybody has a song which is no song at all: it is a process of singing and when you sing, you are where you are. All I know about method is that when I am not working I sometimes think I know something, but when I am working , it is quite clear that I know nothing.
–John Cage, “Lecture on Nothing”, Silence (1961)

No sound is the right one, and as the last few decades of ethnomusicology and the modernist pillar of individualism have both shown us, nor is any song or tradition correct or more valid. It need not be anything more than making noises, because that necessitates the making. of. music. - the trait of physically producing sound when you sing. Why should any process be right, or any stage in that process for that matter? Harmony (i.e. concord, or agreement among any thing provided it affects form, however temporarily) does not necessitate the materials or the outcome, simply, a song is a song because someone is singing it, and in the act of singing then and there not because it is beautiful or means anything, or even because it finishes, but because someone is currently in touch with music, that ephemeral, transient and wonderful thing - therefore it is a song.

Phew. Tangent done. Now, wait.. where were w- oh, right! I geek out about a lot of things really, and I tend to ramble, too. I mean… elaborate, cough cough.

Those two traits alone seem to make for a good blog as it is!

But until now these meandering notions and observations have just been quirky insights - small ways in which the world makes a little more sense to me - and have been shared with a grin and usually laughed off.

Then again, I guess I’ve always been committed to pursuing what makes me happiest, or if necessary finding something captivating in even the most mundane task so that there is functionality (important ) but also fulfillment in all of life’s actions. That makes sense, pondering art and culture is something that I love doing and writing is an obviously necessary component of blogging. But still, - preparing for a career (even more, a life) in music and academia is intimidating…
I guess you just have to

Follow your bliss.

That’s a little motto I like to try and live by. I got it from the days in a metal band in high school (there’s an interesting thing to write about sometime…) when I ardently listened to Sense’s Fail. I suppose there’s something about passionately pursuing what makes you happiest that’s hopelessly romantic. But it’s more than that:

It’s bliss.

It’s the sublime.

It’s elevation to a status greater than yourself.

It’s transcending normal human experience and connection: the aural goosebumps of being engrossed in sound by a rapturous hundred-strong chorus in a religious rendition of the final movement of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony; the emotional bond of singing with your closest friends, pouring heart and soul into a musical product that is intimately shared, and the fact that sometimes it’s concurrently shared in a wholly different meaning with an audience that is hardly as invested as you; and the particular stillness that dangles in the air after a gentle and ambiguous finale - powerfully captivating an entire hall on the edge of their imagination but delicately snapping at the first murderous joining of tragically over-enthusiastic hands.

It is music that has enriched my life and piqued my curiosity, and it is this very subject that I’d like to talk about in this blog. But not from the consumer perspective of billboards and trends. Not of music as commodity, where it is a product to be consumed. There is value in the economic function, but the purpose of this blog is to think about

Music as bliss.

I want to know what makes chords crunch;

why (and what) do I feel when I sing; and,

what role does music and music-making play in our everyday lives.

As I enter the last year of my undergraduate career I am beginning to look ahead at applying to graduate school and the nerdy delight of committing full-on to academic study. I have had the fortune and pleasure of many wonderful and some truly transcendental experiences, inspiring mentors who have taught me what I know, and a collection of amazing friends/collaborators who are willing to geek-out and explore musical curiosities with me.

You may find my train of thought to combine the view of the theorist, who derives analytical delight from drawing neat parallels and relationship between notes, chords and form - music in thought; the historian, who examines the state of music (specifically singing) as it is now, and the historical precedent that brought us to this point - music in culture; and the performer, who revels in the experience of music, enjoys the tactile thrill of music-making, and engages in a complex expressive relationship with the text while working in an (arguably) even more complex social space - music in life.

Still, and I think this will be a developing theme in my writings, music is a lived experience and as it begins to emerge for me from the conventional and authoritative word of the text into the subjective and individual experience of the present I hope to gather my thoughts and opinions to contribute to a better understanding of this wonderful art.

I welcome any constructive feedback! Also, I’m a voracious reader with a large appetite. I see myself posting about what I am currently reading, but if you have any suggestions please email me!

This is my musical life.

How I see it, think about it, and live it,

Embracing noun and verb.

Living, makes sense, finding some bliss,

Lost in a word, an idea or a sound:

Opportunity to revel in each moment.

I hope you’ll join me in the process.