Music?
The great majority of my free time between 9 am and 5 pm, give or take a few hours (past midnight, before 7:30, if I'm up), is supposed to be dedicated to studying and practicing music these days. This is an interesting goal for a person who can hardly spend more than fifteen consecutive minutes focusing on something he considers deeply enjoyable. It's the focus and distraction factor here at play, which tends to mean I just find some kind of tangent which leads me elsewhere in the middle of my work....this is another topic, and ironically, in itself a tangent that broke away from my purpose in writing altogether...
But what is music, that we can study it, practice it, learn it? I grew up beleiving music is: a hobby, a pastime, a goofy magically thing, something too simple to consider academic, something drop outs who can't find a real job do in hopes of suceeding on a pipe dream. Likewise, and hence, music just isn't: anything you can study, all that complicated, a serious subject, something intelligent people should invest too much of themselves in.
The more I study music, the more it daunts me beyond calculus. And I've taken calculus, and I aced it. Music is something wholly other. When you think you've looked at just one measure of music in one way, you see that you are missing out on about three other ways you can look at it, and probably quite a few more than you could as well if you weren't so ill informed concerning it's deeper and deeper inner workings. Music is the hardest language I've ever tried to learn, it is the most complicated form of communication I've ever tried to do so with, it is the job with the most amount of multitasking required I've yet encountered, and it is both beautiful and ugly. It's math is exhausting, it's possibilities -- all based soley on only 12 possible notes, played at any given moment which can range--give or take a few--along seven to eight octaves, creating a total of only around 90 notes from lowest to highest that the ear can percieve, with a million different timbers and tools to do so.
Music is realistically an amazing thing, not just because the 13 year old kid with headphones at the bus stop utilizes it for cool. There really is much more past the hype, the illusions, the trendiness, and all the other baggage that comes along with something so widely loved, commericalized, simplified and at times watered down. I don't mean music as in the product, I mean the hard-to categorize thing itself. There is something there that seems worth spending time, trying to know, and remaining mystified about. It seems that if ever one is bored with it, it is simple due to narrowness and inability to touch upon it's vastness.
But what is music, that we can study it, practice it, learn it? I grew up beleiving music is: a hobby, a pastime, a goofy magically thing, something too simple to consider academic, something drop outs who can't find a real job do in hopes of suceeding on a pipe dream. Likewise, and hence, music just isn't: anything you can study, all that complicated, a serious subject, something intelligent people should invest too much of themselves in.
The more I study music, the more it daunts me beyond calculus. And I've taken calculus, and I aced it. Music is something wholly other. When you think you've looked at just one measure of music in one way, you see that you are missing out on about three other ways you can look at it, and probably quite a few more than you could as well if you weren't so ill informed concerning it's deeper and deeper inner workings. Music is the hardest language I've ever tried to learn, it is the most complicated form of communication I've ever tried to do so with, it is the job with the most amount of multitasking required I've yet encountered, and it is both beautiful and ugly. It's math is exhausting, it's possibilities -- all based soley on only 12 possible notes, played at any given moment which can range--give or take a few--along seven to eight octaves, creating a total of only around 90 notes from lowest to highest that the ear can percieve, with a million different timbers and tools to do so.
Music is realistically an amazing thing, not just because the 13 year old kid with headphones at the bus stop utilizes it for cool. There really is much more past the hype, the illusions, the trendiness, and all the other baggage that comes along with something so widely loved, commericalized, simplified and at times watered down. I don't mean music as in the product, I mean the hard-to categorize thing itself. There is something there that seems worth spending time, trying to know, and remaining mystified about. It seems that if ever one is bored with it, it is simple due to narrowness and inability to touch upon it's vastness.