"You Only Hear the Music When Your Heart Begins to Break"
I love that line, don't you?
Its so quotable!
It feels so right!
It applies to so much!
It requires almost no thought to regurgitate!
You know you fucking love it. Don't lie to me. I can see straight through you.
By the close of this year I'm pretty damn sure I'm gonna hate it with a fiery passion. Not because I dislike the words- no, I love them, trust me. Its going to be seen everywhere, if it isn't already. Icons, videos, fanfic, journals, tattoos, cheesy ass pics of cheesy ass cute things- EVERYWHERE. Again, not the problem, not entirely. Though over-saturation is annoying as fuck.
The problem is this: over half of the people who use that line will not entirely understand its meaning.
Unlike we AP English students with a love of all things pretty and analytical, they will not read with depth. Yeah, sure, they (being the ones who hopped on the band wagon to Trendyville) know how music sounds from one emotion to the next, how what they feel can change the listening experience but that's all they'll get from it. Others, likely the musicians in the bunch, will understand it wholeheartedly but not be able to put it into words. (Like when two musicians meet and start jamming together like best friends. Non-musically inclined people just don't see how it works.)
Then there are analytical, bluntly opinionated, obnoxious people like me who will put it into words for the inarticulate and the idiots (these are not the same thing, mind you). Ready? Warning: things get philosophical and ambiguous from here on in.
What is music? Sound, duh.
So is the sound of typing music? It could be.
We all know Mozart is music- it fits the classical definition.
The spoken word has been described as musical, depending on who is doing the talking.
Drumming is music.
R&B is certainly music. It started with Blues, which started with Jazz which has its roots all the way in the Renaissance! (Do you doubt me? John Dowland used jazz rhythms. I've sung his stuff, I should know.)
Designers can call the way a gown fits a model perfectly music.
Silence is as profound if not more so than most musical works throughout the millennium.
The timbre of your parents' arguments can be music, if you listen right.
Artwork in galleries has been called musical. A picture is music. How weird is that shit?
Are you starting to understand?
Music is ambiguous. Its like using the phrase "They get it" to describe how a person "clicks" with you. Most of the time you never have to explain what "it" is, do you? No. Because whoever you're speaking to understands "it" tacitly or they're too stupid to know its something profound.
The trouble is that most people don't understand until they go through some seriously painful and/or live-altering bullshit. We're all born innocent and dumb. That is a fact. Some of us stay that way, some of us don't. Neither is better or worse than the other (one could argue it both ways), just different.
People who have been hurt and scarred however- just like they learn to understand the "it" connection and sometimes put it in words.
As this pertains to the quote: they can never listen to music in the same way again. Their minds weed out what is not "music"- or what is not meaningful on an emotional level. In the literal sense, this usually tends to mean label-created artists with no sense of self or meaning. It means things that are too self-destructive for too long. Things that turn the innocent and dumb into ruined and dumb. (If you can't guess, innocent and dumb is preferable to the latter.)
The things that are "music"- art, a musty book, poetry, a kid's sidewalk drawing, a collection of trading cards, new crayons, funeral shrouds, photos of bygone times, politically charged graffiti, sunny days- become almost holy. Everything they embody- from reckless breakage of property to snuggling with a teddy bear to lunching with friends on Sunday to wanting to shoot someone for being mean- is understood on a deeper level. It means they can sit down next to a stranger and the stranger will just start talking- spilling all sorts of stories, good, bad, funny, and bizarre- because they know the listener will understand it all.
Oh, and one hugely important thing: These non-innocent, non-dumb people will not persecute what they do not understand either. Why? Well, that hardly makes for pleasant listening, does it? Have you ever heard a song about mass murder or witch hunts or beatings or hatred that made you feel nice inside? I sure haven't. Sure, these things exist- to deny them would be wrong- but who would want to create more of it?
So, in summary: heartbreak teaches you to hear the music. All of the music, regardless of whether you like it or not.
Get it?
Its so quotable!
It feels so right!
It applies to so much!
It requires almost no thought to regurgitate!
You know you fucking love it. Don't lie to me. I can see straight through you.
By the close of this year I'm pretty damn sure I'm gonna hate it with a fiery passion. Not because I dislike the words- no, I love them, trust me. Its going to be seen everywhere, if it isn't already. Icons, videos, fanfic, journals, tattoos, cheesy ass pics of cheesy ass cute things- EVERYWHERE. Again, not the problem, not entirely. Though over-saturation is annoying as fuck.
The problem is this: over half of the people who use that line will not entirely understand its meaning.
Unlike we AP English students with a love of all things pretty and analytical, they will not read with depth. Yeah, sure, they (being the ones who hopped on the band wagon to Trendyville) know how music sounds from one emotion to the next, how what they feel can change the listening experience but that's all they'll get from it. Others, likely the musicians in the bunch, will understand it wholeheartedly but not be able to put it into words. (Like when two musicians meet and start jamming together like best friends. Non-musically inclined people just don't see how it works.)
Then there are analytical, bluntly opinionated, obnoxious people like me who will put it into words for the inarticulate and the idiots (these are not the same thing, mind you). Ready? Warning: things get philosophical and ambiguous from here on in.
What is music? Sound, duh.
So is the sound of typing music? It could be.
We all know Mozart is music- it fits the classical definition.
The spoken word has been described as musical, depending on who is doing the talking.
Drumming is music.
R&B is certainly music. It started with Blues, which started with Jazz which has its roots all the way in the Renaissance! (Do you doubt me? John Dowland used jazz rhythms. I've sung his stuff, I should know.)
Designers can call the way a gown fits a model perfectly music.
Silence is as profound if not more so than most musical works throughout the millennium.
The timbre of your parents' arguments can be music, if you listen right.
Artwork in galleries has been called musical. A picture is music. How weird is that shit?
Are you starting to understand?
Music is ambiguous. Its like using the phrase "They get it" to describe how a person "clicks" with you. Most of the time you never have to explain what "it" is, do you? No. Because whoever you're speaking to understands "it" tacitly or they're too stupid to know its something profound.
The trouble is that most people don't understand until they go through some seriously painful and/or live-altering bullshit. We're all born innocent and dumb. That is a fact. Some of us stay that way, some of us don't. Neither is better or worse than the other (one could argue it both ways), just different.
People who have been hurt and scarred however- just like they learn to understand the "it" connection and sometimes put it in words.
As this pertains to the quote: they can never listen to music in the same way again. Their minds weed out what is not "music"- or what is not meaningful on an emotional level. In the literal sense, this usually tends to mean label-created artists with no sense of self or meaning. It means things that are too self-destructive for too long. Things that turn the innocent and dumb into ruined and dumb. (If you can't guess, innocent and dumb is preferable to the latter.)
The things that are "music"- art, a musty book, poetry, a kid's sidewalk drawing, a collection of trading cards, new crayons, funeral shrouds, photos of bygone times, politically charged graffiti, sunny days- become almost holy. Everything they embody- from reckless breakage of property to snuggling with a teddy bear to lunching with friends on Sunday to wanting to shoot someone for being mean- is understood on a deeper level. It means they can sit down next to a stranger and the stranger will just start talking- spilling all sorts of stories, good, bad, funny, and bizarre- because they know the listener will understand it all.
Oh, and one hugely important thing: These non-innocent, non-dumb people will not persecute what they do not understand either. Why? Well, that hardly makes for pleasant listening, does it? Have you ever heard a song about mass murder or witch hunts or beatings or hatred that made you feel nice inside? I sure haven't. Sure, these things exist- to deny them would be wrong- but who would want to create more of it?
So, in summary: heartbreak teaches you to hear the music. All of the music, regardless of whether you like it or not.
Get it?