Is music essential?

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Jim Sangrey remarked, a day or two, that he thought music was essential, though CDs might not be. I thought this was an interesting question for discussion, so here we are.

First, definitions; but let’s not bother to define music and just agree with J K Galbraith who said, in a very different context (money), music is what you think it is, whoever, wherever and whenever you happen to be. Let’s, however, look at “essential”. And this is difficult for us, because we live lives of luxury in a social construct that is predicated on our undoubted ability to obtain it.

Bearing in mind the distinction that Jim made between music and CDs – which I think attempts to distinguish between, on the one hand, what every human being needs and, on the other, what some of us happen to want, and can get – I think we have to say that essential implies a direct contribution to survival; all the rest is the luxury that an “advanced” society brings with it. And it’s relatively easy to start off a list of those things – sex, food and water, clothing, shelter, energy and the knowledge and skills to obtain them. But as soon as we include sex, education and training in the list, we’re agreeing that there is a need, equally essential, for what one might broadly call community support.

Community support takes many forms. It includes religion/spiritual appreciation, social order/politics, stories and music. The latter two are most important, because it’s through them that experience and knowledge are passed down from generation to generation. But they are more important than that. Community support also implies community spirit and stories/music is the most important way in which community spirit may be fostered. And that is why every human society, from the hunter/gatherers of the Kalahari Desert, to the inhabitants of cities of the West, has music. So I’d argue that music is indeed essential.

But what music? Clearly, music that fosters community spirit, music that transmits values and experience down the generations. Equally clearly, not what we might describe as “art” music, which is predicated on consumption by very limited numbers. The vast majority of the world is no worse off for a lack of acquaintance with the music of Purcell, or Hank Mobley. Equally clearly, not what we might describe as “industrial pop” music, which is predicated on the industrial strength of large firms to promote and create artificial demands for it, in order to satisfy industry’s constant requirement for built-in obsolescence (is that true, I wonder). Almost inevitably one has to think in terms of “folk” music – music that arises from the audience.

But I don’t imagine many will agree with me. Good.

MG

[Dan Gould]

It is not essential because of a "direct contribution to survival", music is essential because of the way it touches those that are effected by it.

I could not imagine life without music, as it is something that has helped make life worth living since my earliest memories.

[A Lark Ascending]

I can see that one use of music is to bind communities together and carry tradition.

But (perhaps in post-industrial societies with lengthy communications links) it can do the opposite. I don't think I ever used music as a means to bind me into my community (I've never really been part of one, having moved about as a kid and then settled in a place I've never thought of as home) - if anything, I've always used it to travel somewhere else, outside of the immediate and everyday. The attraction of American music as a kid was that it was so other. Classical music was a world right outside my experience. Even English folk music was followed not to reinforce a sense of tradition because there was no English folk music in my upbringing - it was taking me somewhere other. Exploring Scandinavian folk music, Brazilian music and (to a lesser extent) African music has been for the same reasons.

Is music essential? I don't think so. If I never heard another note I could still live and find other ways of finding pleasure. But I'd rather not. Music isn't essential, but it's one of those things, after you've dealt with the essentials, that makes life a rich experience.

To the point that, through all of my life, I've scaled back on many of the other things in life - fine foods, distant holidays, a big house - in order to hear more and more of it.

If we're talking binding communities together then I suspect football or baseball are far more 'essential'! Though I live without those!

Edited May 17, 2008 by Bev Stapleton

[mjzee]

Music is absolutely essential to me. The way I know is, there have been times in my life when I've consciously tried to "scale back" music, usually because of some pressing need, such as studying. Somehow, music has always crept back. So, since the decision is almost at an unconscious level, I conclude that, for me, it is essential.

Jim Sangrey remarked, a day or two, that he thought music was essential, though CDs might not be.

I think he was simply delineating between music and its carrier. Since I listen to so many eMusic downloads, I'm still listening to music, but not to CDs.

Community support takes many forms. It includes religion/spiritual appreciation, social order/politics, stories and music. The latter two are most important, because it’s through them that experience and knowledge are passed down from generation to generation. But they are more important than that. Community support also implies community spirit and stories/music is the most important way in which community spirit may be fostered. And that is why every human society, from the hunter/gatherers of the Kalahari Desert, to the inhabitants of cities of the West, has music. So I’d argue that music is indeed essential.

But what music? Clearly, music that fosters community spirit, music that transmits values and experience down the generations. Equally clearly, not what we might describe as “art” music, which is predicated on consumption by very limited numbers. The vast majority of the world is no worse off for a lack of acquaintance with the music of Purcell, or Hank Mobley. Equally clearly, not what we might describe as “industrial pop” music, which is predicated on the industrial strength of large firms to promote and create artificial demands for it, in order to satisfy industry’s constant requirement for built-in obsolescence (is that true, I wonder). Almost inevitably one has to think in terms of “folk” music – music that arises from the audience.

Different communities, and different people, use music for different purposes. Some use it to rally the troops, or to signal community spirit. Some people listen to it in the background, others intently. Many of us listen to music either for sensual pleasure, or to listen to alien sounds. Similar to Bev, I can listen to Irish folk music or pop from Zimbabwe precisely because it's not my music, and therefore find its alienness lovely.

What I do know is that there is much more music available today, and more ways to listen to it, than at any time in the past, period. Too bad there is not more time to listen to it!

Ultimately, I prefer to not define why I listen to music. I only know that I'll continue to, according to its own mysterious logic.

[A Lark Ascending]

What I do know is that there is much more music available today, and more ways to listen to it, than at any time in the past, period. Too bad there is not more time to listen to it!

So true!

A side issue to MG's main theme but Ian Anderson's editorial for the 300th issue of Froots picks up the same point:

http://www.frootsmag.com/content/issue/edsbox/

I can never identify with those who feel the musical sky is falling in.

Edited May 17, 2008 by Bev Stapleton

[Brad]

If it's not essential, why do we belong to this Board and why does this Board exist? What is the expression: music soothes the savage breast?

[Dave James]

I guess it depends on the individual. I know a fair number of people whose daily exposure to music begins and ends with an elevator ride. They just don't care. For others, like all of us, music is one of the four basic food groups. Personally, I think a lot of the "commitment" comes from early exposure. As a child, I was always around music. Not necessarily anything that interested me, but it was there. I also think age has as bearing. The older you are, the fewer entertainment alternatives existed in your formative years. For example, what's the average age of Organissimo contributors? Further, the quality of what passes as music today and the throw away, flavor-of-the-week nature of the medium also speaks to importance. I would venture to say that fewer young people today will be musically committed over the course of their lifetimes than were "hooked" when we were growing up. For sure, I feel sorry for those for whom music plays little if any role in their lives. At the same time, that's rather conceited. Bottom line, as Sly Stone said, "different strokes for different folks." I'm just happy it's there for me.

Up over and out.

[JSngry]

Jim Sangrey remarked, a day or two, that he thought music was essential, though CDs might not be.

I think he was simply delineating between music and its carrier. Since I listen to so many eMusic downloads, I'm still listening to music, but not to CDs.

No, I was referring to recorded music in general, music as "object".

I think it (music in and of itself) is essential because as MG noted, every civilization in the world has it. I also differ w/MG in that I feel that the audiences served by both "art" & "industrial pop" musics are, in fact, communities themselves, and should be respected as such, not some artificial construct foisted upon us by non-natural forces. It only seems that way, I think...

But really, for me, music is essential because it's about engaging vibration. All existence is vibration, and music enables us to contextualize vibration in such a way as to give us a sense of time, place, spirit, you name it. Even if it's nothing but a voice and/or somebody beating on something, it's ultimately about figuring out where you are, why you're there, and what you're going to do about it all. And to me, that is at the core of human (and even perhaps some (remotely possibly all) non-human) existence.

What's not essential, imo, is being able to pick and choose somebody else's vibrational expressions and adopt them as your own lifestyle accessory, which is ultimately what recordings (and sheet music) allow us to do. Certainly nothing intrinsically wrong with that, and definitely plenty good about it, but we could all live without those things.

Whether or not we could live without eventually humming or howling something or rhythmatizing something, well, I think that's debatable. I tend to think not.

Anybody who can go too terribly long w/o having some sort of "musical" though or gesture....that just ain't right.

Edited May 17, 2008 by JSngry

[A Lark Ascending]

Jazz strikes me as one of the LEAST communal musics in audience terms...and sometimes in musician terms (I can think of a couple of concerts at Cheltenham two weeks back where the musicians were either so shy or so concentrated on what they were doing musically that they hardly spoke to the audience).

Maybe it was once, back in the swing era or whatever.

But my experience of jazz performances is of audiences made up of knots of people very much locked into their own groups, couples, singles. They might roar approval together, exchange the odd word, but how often does it become anything more?

And as jazz boards seem to attest, most of us follow our jazz interests in isolation or with a few fellow travellers. The great appeal of the bulletin board is it gets you in touch with fellow jazz lovers that you don't meet in everyday life.

So if community links make music essential, maybe jazz is one of the least essential musics!

I've never come across anything like the 'mosh pit' at a jazz gig!

Edit: something else that is common to most societies from the most primitive to the most technologically advanced is social dancing. Jazz all but gave up on social dancing decades ago. Another reason to question if it is 'essential'?

Edited May 17, 2008 by Bev Stapleton

[Van Basten II]

Music is essential not the business of it.

[JSngry]

I'm wonder what, if anything, it means that so far this discussion has centered on music that other people make.

That's not what I mean by "music being essential".

I'm referring to the seemingly innate/inborn tendency of humans to...do something musical themselves, even if it's just "in their head". That's what makes it "essential", I think. Everything after that...springs from that basic impulse, and that's where stuff gets all "psychological" and shit.

Don't know if that's where MG was coming form, but since he used my quote as a starting point, hey, I get points on this deal, right?

[Guest Bill Barton]

Short answer: yes, music is essential.

Recorded music is a luxury; live music, on the other hand, is - for me - an essential component of emotional and spiritual health.

[A Lark Ascending]

Short of singing in the shower I don't do anything with regard to making music so it's hardly essential in that respect for me.

Listening to what other do with music and seeking out new (to me) music is a central part of how I gain pleasure, however. Not essential, but life would be greatly diinished without it.

[porcy62]

MG, is it the easiest way to collect sources for your fourthcoming Ph. D. dissertation?

Man, we should go deep in antropology to answer at this question.

Is it 'art' in general essential? Are there some small forgotten tribes in amazon jungle who actually doesn't do 'music'?

Wich is the defintion of 'community' and wich the 'culture'?

Too ambitious task even for the big 'O' community.

[Swinging Swede]

Of course music is essential. Why else would there be a release like this?

[JSngry]

Short of singing in the shower I don't do anything with regard to making music...

What, you don't sometimes tap a pencil in rhythm or sometimes find a little "glide" when you walk or sometimes speak with a melodic contour & cadence?

[A Lark Ascending]

Short of singing in the shower I don't do anything with regard to making music...

What, you don't sometimes tap a pencil in rhythm or sometimes find a little "glide" when you walk or sometimes speak with a melodic contour & cadence?

Of cource not! I'm British.

Unless you count the pulsations associated with forming the stiff upper lip.

[JSngry]

But seriously, that's the level of music that I think is "essential". Now, some may argue that that's too..."basic" to be considered "music", but I don't think so. I think that that's "it", and that no matter how evolved/sophisticated/experimental/whatever or primal/simple/traditional/whatever it all becomes, it all springs from that, in some form or fashion.

[robviti]

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. ~Berthold Auerbach

that pretty much sums it up for me.

[jazzbo]

I turn my head one eighty degrees and from this vantage point in my living room I see a piano, three guitars, two electric basses, a bass violin, a kalimba and a kazoo.

(Also, thousands of cds, a few hundred lps, and a dozen or so books on music or musicians).

That's just one room.

For me, music is essential.

Edited May 17, 2008 by jazzbo

[Shawn]

It's definitely essential to me. My Mother told me I was humming and tapping my fingers from the time I was only a few months old. I started singing basically at the same time I learned to talk. When I wake up in the morning there's always a tune going through my head. I usually provide some kind of internal soundtrack or rhythm unconsciously at all times (walking, doing dishes, etc).

Right now the sound of Turrentine's tenor is providing more emotional help than any prescription could....

[robviti]

I turn my head one eighty degrees and from this vantage point in my living room I see a piano, three guitars, two electric basses, a bass violin, a kalimba and a kazoo...

ahhhh kaazzoooo

[jazzbo]

Yeah, a Hohner! (A Homer?)

Edited May 18, 2008 by jazzbo

[papsrus]

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. ~Berthold Auerbach

that pretty much sums it up for me.

"I love the rain. It washes memories from the sidewalks of life" -- Woody Allen, "Play it Again Sam"

MG's question is kind of like asking if talking is essential. Well, no, I guess not, but we'd sacrifice a complex and useful form of communication if we stopped talking. Music might not be essential for survival, but it's essential as a highly expressive and complex form of communication -- whether you are a creator of music or a listener, both share in the communication. (It wouldn't be communication otherwise).

[A Lark Ascending]

But seriously, that's the level of music that I think is "essential". Now, some may argue that that's too..."basic" to be considered "music", but I don't think so. I think that that's "it", and that no matter how evolved/sophisticated/experimental/whatever or primal/simple/traditional/whatever it all becomes, it all springs from that, in some form or fashion.

I think you are probably right there. Though I wonder if its part of something wider - the human need to make patterns. Partly a reflection of things heard in nature - bird song, the rumbling of a river, the pulsing of our own blood, partly a need to feel that there is some order to things (thus paralleling the creation of religious belief).

That fairly basic level of music serves MG's communal idea too - work songs in all their forms from field songs to Scottish waulking songs to sea shanties (often evolving into something far from basic). Why, even the BBC saw the value of using music to boost wartime production with 'Music While You Work.'

Music is there - usually in quite straightforward forms - in all sorts of communal human activity. Weddings, dances, football games etc. When did you last see a film or a TV programme with no music?

But once you start to move into greater complexity - the deliberate breaking up or hiding of the patterns - it seems to lose its communal aspect. In fact, once it becomes 'art' it seems to celebrate its exclusivity, its difficultly, its almost masonic need for insider knowledge.

Maybe music is essential to everybody (as everybody does it or responds to it at an elemental level); but seeing the way music can be varied and the lengths to which it can be taken is only an imperative to some.