Difficult Music

Difficult Music

Music has always been an important part of my life. I’ve found comfort in sound and played instruments from the time I got my first guitar in my early teens. I was never much of a singer and wasn’t particularly spectacular on anything I played. Piano lessons were an ordeal. My parents often told me that someday I would thank them for making me learn how to play – and they were right.

My approach to music has always been similar to the way I treat the rest of life. I’m a generalist. I like to try as many different flavours as I can. This tactic has the disadvantage of not allowing me to become a real expert at anything. My vet career was like this. I treated everything from kittens to whales. It was a great adventure, but I know that if I had only looked at cows, I would have been a better cow vet. I’m happy with the consequences of my decisions.

My tastes in music are similarly broad. I love rock and good pop (don’t get me started on the Beatles) but I also enjoy folk, classical and metal. While not an aficionado of the styles, I can appreciate good country and rap.

A big part of my music collection (I’m old fashioned enough to have a bunch of CDs and vinyl) is made up of what I would call difficult music. I love King Crimson, Henry Cow, John Zorn and edgy electronic music.

Many people would insist that most of this is noise rather than music. Much of it consists of bleeps and blips and doesn’t have much in the way of melody. Unlike most of what we hear on the radio, this music needs to be listened to carefully. Understanding it takes some effort.

I recently saw a wonderful documentary called “Sisters with Transistors” about the history of women in electronic music. The film suggested that women were early adaptors of this technology because there was no room for them in traditional music and because these particular women didn’t worry about whether anyone cared about their music. One of the composers profiled talked about the idea of deep listening. She was inspired by the unlikely music of bombers flying over Britain during the second world war.

The idea that we can find music in the world around us if we listen hard enough is inspiring. If we sit still and carefully take in the wind blowing through trees and wires, there is beauty there. There is no melody and maybe not even a discernible rhythm, just complex evolving sound. Not everyone will appreciate this as art and very few will want to buy music that comes from this kind of understanding of reality.

I think there are similar kinds of sensibilities in other types of creativity. There are abstract paintings that have no discernable models from the real world and there are books that are difficult to appreciate.

Works like Finnegan’s Wake and much of the writing of William S Burroughs aren’t easy to get through. As well, they aren’t easy to create. That kind of writing takes special skill and requires a confidence that allows the writer to not care what anyone thinks of their work. Not many writers are willing to venture out onto those precarious branches. Most of us want people to tell us they love our stories.

I’m inspired when I read authors like Murakami, DeLillo and Auster. It’s obvious to me that these writers don’t care much what anyone thinks about what they do. They observe the world and write down what they see and hear with no concern for rules or fashion. And their books are wonderful.