The Spooky Month of October and the Ancient Madness We Call "Music" ...

Well, it's the haunted month of October, again. In honor of the mystery that beguiles us this time of year, we redesigned one of our banners (above) to give our blog a bit of spooky...

In recent years, particularly since the death of my eldest son, I've been interested in the belief (of the Catholic Church and native religions the world over) ... that the 'dead' intervene in the affairs of the living. Behind the phenomenon of the saints, lies the Church's requirement that in order to be considered for 'sainthood' a deceased person must produce 'miracles' in response to appeals from the living. The deceased must, thereby, be solicited by the requests of the living before these miracles can occur and be attributed to a specific person.

This is a round about way of saying that the Church both encourages and acknowledges "communication with the dead", particularly with those who aren't yet 'saints'.

Meanwhile, the Church is peculiar in its tendency not to be straightforward on the matter of communication with the dead. And, the Evangelical assertion that, though the dead are 'alive in Christ', they neither see, hear, nor communicate...has created confusion on the matter for average Christians.

This is a music oriented blog. Nevertheless, I'd like to discuss the relationship between music ... and miracles, and the phenomenon of music as an ancient vehicle for our experiences in a wholistic respect. Today, it is very easy to become immersed in the technical aspects of music production. I've observed this tendency of musicians to become preoccupied with software and gear. This produces an atmosphere where music suffers from what I like to call..."brain drain". From reading 400 hundred page software manuals to fiddling endlessly with software, the process of making music has suffered in recent years despite enormous technological advances.

These days producers tend to know more about software than they do electronic components, and even less about techniques of arranging. Rather than 'producers', it may be more apt to call some of these recordists. They know how to 'record' using computer hardware, but they know surprisingly little about the disciplines of melodic structure and harmony.

I am convinced that the overwrought necessity of having to study so many manuals and to endlessly tinker with computer issues in the face of a widespread lack of musical studies... is draining and creates music that considerably lacks those aspects of artisanship that are in evidence in developed talent.

The famine of good writing, of melodic and harmonic effort - is universally recognized by the consumer now, too. Consumers complain about this lack of quality music, complaints that can be read across the internet, from all over the world. The emphasis on technology has forced aspiring musicians to overfocus their studies on software engineering, but the same has NOT been true of aspects of music that require technical exploration.

The National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) has also had a hand in creating an atmosphere where new equiptment is the constant focus. This over emphasis on consumerism is evident in the psychological message manufacturers sell musicians: that buying music gear will result in the consumer's ability to actually make better music. No where is this more true than among software design companies. Software is nothing but 'code' and requires little tangible manufacture. The production of software is very cheap (it need only be mass copied and packaged). Thus, the software industry is rife with poor product and the unspoken belief that the 'next update' will be "better" than the previous version of a program. The addiction to software is a carefully engineered marketing phenomenon meant to produce repeat customers.

Equiptment marketing is about sales figures and the heaven sent phenomenon of "pseudo-hardware" (software plug ins and various forms of virtual music equiptment which are software based) has been of great interest to music manufacturers. All manner of promises are made to the consumer about this software - to the extent of consumer fraud in many cases; the presence of "bugs" can render it almost unusable. Yet, few companies ever 'recall' their software as is the case in hardware based musical products.

In this atmosphere, music itself has taken a back seat to the tools used to create it. What I call the "brain drain" is the culmination of all of these attitudes: when equiptment monopolizes the process of creating music. One is constantly reading manuals for new software: there is hardly time to actually study music when these tools challenge us with ever evolving interfaces.

As for the role of music in expressing the spiritual: music is a language, and all that musical equiptment is for speaking that language. Certainly, equalizers can aid us in defining a 'mix', and plug ins can assist us in producing timbres that speak to the listener, but these are not a replacement for developing one's command of musical language. It is through practice that we learn to speak. The language of music is not different in this regard, though some people have natural imitative talent. Mastering this is more critical to the career of an artist than the hoarding of equiptment and competitive attitudes acquired by the consumer as a result of incessant exposure to NAMM marketing.

No one has yet fully explained the phenomenon of music. Like spirituality, it dates back to the foundation of human civilization. Like the soul it speaks to, music is an ephemeral expression of what it means to be fully human. Therein lies the spiritual mystery of "music": it is an instinctual expression. It must be 'felt' to be truly experienced, rather than just listened to.

Music is also a craft - decidedly more worth studying than any software. Software can randomly generate music, but the "music" so easily created by pasting looped phrases into a timeline is usually as crude (among musicians) as the sound of a vacuum is compared to the Shakespearean monologue.

The ongoing famine of quality music is proportional to the musical talent among writers and particularly - writer producers. It is common for arrangements to extend to 150 tracks (whether for Lady GaGa or My Chemical Romance), but these expansive arrangements often offer little in the way of harmonic and melodic development between tracks and movements.

I'll be addressing these subjects in weeks to come. Until then, go make some great music...