Klarinet Archive - Posting 000151.txt from 2009/01

From: "Alexander Brash" <brash@-----.edu>
Subj: [kl] Raptasm
Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2009 09:25:38 -0500

I thought you might find this helpful. It's from a book I'm writing
which will be out in March. This bit is still under heavy editing,
so I'm aware it lacks a certain tightness, fair warning:

Raptasm

“For anyone who's ever been through shit in their lives
Till they sit and they cry at night wishin' they'd die
Till they throw on a rap record and they sit, and they vibe
We're nothin' to you but we're the fuckin' shit in they eyes
That's why we seize the moment try to freeze it and own it, Squeeze
it and hold it, for we consider these minutes golden”
-Eminem

A few days ago, I started suggesting to people that if Mozart were
alive today, he would be a rapper. There are a few things I'm really
good at - being an asshole is one of them. The debate was
exceptional, and led to a very healthy discussion about the nature
of music and the definition of art. I was also called everything
from "genius," (hah, right) to "hilarious," to a "stupid cunt" (forgive
me for
the language). Now, maybe I'm a fool, but I'm also fully aware that
my rhetoric incites - that’s the intention(any dispute don't
hesitate to produce handguns?). As I've talked about previously,
classical musicians can get passionate about the silliest of matters
(screw adjustment on the oboe), and lose completely the passion for
the core of their art. To be great, you need to not simply accept
that what you do is a high calling, you must again and again prove
it to yourself. You can't see past anything if you don't know, and
live, the "Why?" Why me? Why now? Why this?

I believe in very few human, universal, constants, other than those
we choose to create locally to make our lives more bearable
(marriage)...and except in exceptional cases of commitment, even
these are transient today. Throughout my (short) life though, there
are two things which I've come to believe are truly inherent to our
condition: 1) that we have an unbearably cruel capacity to hurt the
people we love, and who love us the most, 2) that we have a
limitless capacity for forgiveness. This essay is about music, about
performance, and how it taught me the depths of our ability to let go.

The lyric above is from Eminem, but to me, it's the Brahms Requiem.
I was in college, and to quote a VERY respectable TV show, nothing
in my life could ever be as important as that. Nothing could be more
important than what was going on right then, in the moment, next to
a pile of textbooks. Yeah, living for free and having to go to class
and stuff was really hard, ugh, like one day maybe my teacher would
give an extra hard test and I wouldn't do as well and my friend was
like omg my boyfriend cheated on me so i'm going to listen to Sarah
McGloughlin and draw a hate circle and cry. Yeah, I was COMPLICATED.
No one understood me. I wouldn't throw on a rap record and vibe. I'd
throw on the Brahms. Over and over again, I'd lie on my back and
shake as the timpani caused (probably permanent) damage to my
eardrums. Life sucked. This guy got it. I'd let the hate course
through me without apologizing for feeling that way. It was my nerdy
version of being an emo-screamer. The fact that anyone could put up
with me at that phase of my life, I now find completely amazing.

What is real forgiveness, the Christian capital-F Forgiveness? I
think it starts with believing that the following statement can
never be made, with no exceptions, "If he/she <x then he/she
couldn't <y, it must mean that he/she doesn't <z." Where,
statistically, I think the most common values of x, y, and z are:

X = loved me
Y = smother me
Z = trust me

Forgiveness starts with letting go, willingly, of your self-ness, of
any need you have for your context, your view of the world, to be
right. It starts with an act of random kindness (A.R.K :), the act
of choosing to do the absolute last thing in the world you want to
do, because you know it could make someone else feel just a little
bit better. Be careful now, many people fall into a trap here,
especially in love relationships. It doesn't mean random like "oh I
randomly did this lol aren’t I cute and quirky I’m going to post it
on my myspace page!” It does not mean that you do this "only as long
as the feeling of that kind of commitment lasts." No. That's
meaningless. It's that you do it when your sense of commitment is
*GONE* totally, when your sense of love has long vanished - when
you've rationalized and justified and would be completely right in
breaking your word or promise, and then CHOOSING another path
instead. It's random in the literal sense of the word: "non-
deterministic." Non-determinism *is* freedom, everything else is
simply cause and effect (Neo!). This is the only time we really
exercise the human capacity for Love, anything else is just acting
on feeling and biology. Make no mistake, the fact that 50% of US
marriages end in divorce, is because people have forgotten what this
means, and forgotten how to do it.

This has everything to do with music. Let's look quickly at the three
levels I found "vibing" meaningul. First off, I felt understood. I
felt
the rage and despair of that music echoed my emo-soul, and the fact
that someone else knew *exactly* what I was talking about, gave some
comfort and solace. The second was joy. It was what I often hear in
the music of Brahms, as I mention in "SMS A Picardy Third" - yeah,
life, and people, are awful in general, but "Wie Lieblich Sind Deine
Wohnungen" - there IS joy to be had - the echo of the hereafter on
the mortal plane, things we can grab onto with passion, and find a
way to be happy with as their own ends (seize the moment, try to
freeze it and own it, squeeze it and hold it). The third is that,
Brahms wasn't asking me for a thing. He just, was. That piece just
existed. I didn't care why he did it, in fact thinking that he was
even feeling the same thing, or understanding me, is probably folly:

"Entertainment is changin', intertwinin' with gangsta's
In the land of the killers, a sinner's mind is a sanctum
Holy or unholy, only have one homie
Only this gun, lonely cause don't anyone know me
Yet everybody just feels like they can relate, I guess words are a
mothafucka they can be great
Or they can degrade, or even worse they can teach hate"

Brahms didn't know me, cmon. I couldn't dare relate to whatever he
was trying to get out in that piece. It wasn't my life, just like
you (my readers), can't relate to what has driven me to write this
book. Just like Rufus (in “Why We Fight”), was writing about a drug
binge, not a woman (um, man in his case). The “true” context didn’t
matter, to me, his music was an ARK. A act of random kindness. It
was the start of forgiveness (to myself) - it was the reason to
give Love, when there were no reasons. Yeah, I'd sit there and vibe
and hate, but once that got through my system, I knew how to let go
of the pain, and just, accept the joy that was there to be taken.

The problem of God is in many ways the same as the problem of the
artist - how can you make someone love you without affecting their
free will? It’s the problem of pain. Pain *has* to exist. We need to
able to hurt each other (and ourselves) unbearably, because
otherwise there’s nothing to CHOOSE. We need to despair. We need to
want more than anything in the world to NOT give up anything of
ourselves. We need to have NO reason at all to forget, first.
There’s no other way to truly demonstrate love than our capacity to
forgive in the face of all rationality. In the words of one of the
finest movies of our time, “Boning aside, it’s called making love,
because sometimes you have to MAKE love WORK.” You have to choose.
You can’t start it with words, you can’t do it with causality, or
logic, or cleverness. You can’t do it in a medium of communication
which is so grounded in preconditions that it just boxes you in
further. You can do it with actions. You can do it with music. And
certainly, you can do it with performance. If your playing can, just
once, be that ARK for someone else, then yeah, I’d say you’re
pursuing the highest calling of all. Do you think that really has
anything to do with the industry - with trappings, with stress, with
reed adjustment, with HOW VERY IMPORTANT the next audition you’re
taking is? Means to an end, not the point, nothing more.

On Thu, January 8, 2009 6:06 am, Peter Gentry wrote:
> No you misrepresent me. It is necessary to generalise at this level of
> discussion otherwise we would need several days to establish the context
> in
> which we are debating. Just believe me when I find all the rap I have come
> into contact with as trivial and mind numbing. My musical tastes cover The
> Sacred Harp Choral Society,Clarence Williams, Ida Cox, Blind Lemon
> Jefferson, King Oliver, Johnny Dodds, Ibert, Glass, Messiaen,
> Bach,Handel,Scriabin, Shostakovitch, Britten, Avo Peart, Joplin, Bob
> Dylan,
> Doc Watson, Jaqueline Dupre, Jimmie Hendrix, Humph, Julie Foulis, Leonard
> Bernstein, The Who, The Kinks, Beethoven, Debussy....I could go on for
> pages
> (and spell the names incorrectly) but the point is I have a wide
> appreciation of music and I still think rap is crap.
>
> regards
> Peter Gentry
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: clarni bass [mailto:clarnibass@-----.com]
> Sent: 08 January 2009 12:04
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: RE: [kl] Rap discussion
>
> Now you also misinterpret me.... Can I ask nicely that you don't do it?
>
>>> I don't mind you liking rap, that is your problem.
>
> It is not a problem. I don't like all rap, and actually like only a small
> part of all the rap I've heard. You can notice that anything I wrote is
> not
> about what I like or not, but instead about an objective way to understand
> rap (or any music). If this was about a type of music which I didn't like,
> but undesrtood that was good, I wouldn't post since all I could post is "I
> don't like it". Maybe you are confused and think "I like it = good" and "I
> don't like it = bad".
>
>>> But don't confuse it with anything
>>> that is life enhancing or uplifting.
>
> So not only you continue to generalize, you now also think anything that
> is
> "enhancing or uplifting" for YOU is also the same for everyone. It is
> impossible to continue this since you don't let the facts confuse you....
> so
> I think I'll let you continue post about whatever it is you think the
> reality of rap music is without my response to this thread.... you can
> have
> a party :-)
>
>
>
> --- On Thu, 1/8/09, Peter Gentry <peter.gentry@-----.uk> wrote:
>
>> From: Peter Gentry <peter.gentry@-----.uk>
>> Subject: RE: [kl] Rap discussion
>> To: klarinet@-----.org
>> Date: Thursday, January 8, 2009, 12:47 PM
>> I don't mind you liking rap, that is your problem. But
>> don't confuse it with
>> anything that is life enhancing or uplifting. Why do you
>> want to waste your
>> time with an activity that does not enhance and uplift?
>> Baffles me.
>>
>> regards
>> Peter Gentry
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: clarni bass [mailto:clarnibass@-----.com]
>> Sent: 08 January 2009 09:50
>> To: klarinet@-----.org
>> Subject: RE: [kl] Rap discussion
>>
>> Those of us who don't believe in some made up fictional
>> character being
>> responsible for everything might disagree....
>>  
>> Do you claim to know ALL rap...? If not, don't
>> generalize about all rap like
>> you do (I still don't understand why you do this).
>>  
>> If you dont know all rap, do you understand the rap you do
>> know? If not,
>> then accept that you don't and that you just don't
>> like it.
>>  
>> Not to mention many things you wrote as "facts"
>> which were simply wrong.....
>>  
>> In that specific quote (and this is completely
>> seperate from anything else I
>> think him and his music) Bach is very wrong, and he's
>> dead, so he is dead
>> wrong....
>>  
>>
>>
>> --- On Thu, 1/8/09, Peter Gentry
>> <peter.gentry@-----.uk> wrote:
>>
>> From: Peter Gentry <peter.gentry@-----.uk>
>> Subject: RE: [kl] Rap discussion
>> To: klarinet@-----.org
>> Date: Thursday, January 8, 2009, 11:20 AM
>>
>> Obvious realy, it is Bach's definition of music as
>> sounds produced to
>> enhance and uplift. Not just a guttural steram of
>> expectoration. I'm with
>> Bach.
>>
>> regards
>> Peter Gentry
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Mark Charette [mailto:charette@-----.org]
>> Sent: 08 January 2009 04:01
>> To: klarinet@-----.org
>> Subject: Re: [kl] Rap discussion
>>
>> Bill Hausmann wrote:
>> > I saw this posted in a band room today and thought it
>> relevant to the
>> > discussion here on whether rap is music:
>> Why is it relevant?
>>
>>
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