Moments Musicaux:
Etiquette Problems in an Age of Technology

The Idea Man: No. 32 in a series

by Henry Bob Kulup

1. The Background
Music, in this age of technology, is three things:
1. It's the insipid organized sound that surrounds us (on the radio, TV, or through all kinds of latter-day Muzak in public spaces).
2. It's the organized sound that you buy on CD's.
3. It's the organized sound that you pay $50 a ticket to go hear.

Music, now, is NOT something you make at home unless:
1. You are a masturbated-out teenager grasping after fantasies of punk and post-punk fame and fortune as you stroke your Fender rip-off.
2. You are one of that tiny handful of closeted adults who have discovered and who treasure the transporting delights that derive from persisting in learning to play an instrument well or to sing well.

Given all that, we as a culture find ourselves in a strange situation, musically.

Music is a language. As the cliché has it, a universal language. Music communicates, primarily emotionally, though at times its rewards can be simple aural pleasure.

And language is, after all, a social affair, involving communication between people. I speak, you listen. You respond, I listen, and respond in turn.

Any human who has undertaken to learn to make music, though he/she may speak only one verbal language, is thus automatically bilingual. The musician, whatever the level of skill, can say things which the non-musician cannot say. The miracle lies in the fact that, unlike the situation with verbal languages, the listener to the musician, does not have to be able to speak the language. Audiences in Japan understand Beethoven. Audiences in America understand Ravi Shankar.

2. But...
I am an amateur musician, with no pretension to great skill. I play the piano at what I'd say is at best an intermediate amateur level. I have heard amateur pianists much, much better than I am; and I have heard amateur pianists much worse.

I play well enough that in solitude the music I make is often infinitely rewarding, bringing solace when nothing else works, offering a kind of thought-free yet nourishing escape far beyond that offered by immersion in the opiate of TV or movies.

In other words, I have achieved a certain modest level of bilinguality in music-making.

While visitors to my home may not know of my musical ability, the prominently displayed large piano certainly offers an unmistakable hint.

Now comes the strange part.

Over decades, with hundreds, probably thousands of visitors passing through that living room, not one has ever, at any point in whatever social interaction was taking place, asked "Would you please play something?"

It's almost as if there's a taboo, I first thought when I realized what had been happening, or actually, what hadn't been happening. Almost as if we all treat the creation of music at home as some kind of solitary vice, best not revealed to friends or acquaintances.

As I thought further, I saw that what has developed in this technological age is a kind of relegation of music to specific times and places and spaces, as I noted in the lists above. The possibility that music might enter into and be an important part of a more private, shared social discourse is gone. The musical moments which earlier ages saw as an important part of the fabric of social interaction are now museum pieces, trapped in the invisible bits of light and dark on the silver surface of a CD, or recreated perfectly in the amber of a concert hall.

Socially, we have eliminated music as a private language. The silence is deafening.

END

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