Greg Bear couldn't have come up with a better conceit for Songs than this, where music is not just magic, but the Deep Magic, the stuff that worlds themselves are made from. Is it (in music) the result of extensive practice, where muscle and ear memory team up to satisfy or confound biological expectations of tone and rhythm? Is it being good enough to express our intuitions about the modes and patterns we've been conditioned to since birth? Alert enough to make subtle adjustments-right when our inductive brain functions are going full-fire-to connect nuances of tone to similarly subtle emotions? Or skilled enough that the hands finally respond at the speed of thought? Is it a non-language conversation between fluent players who are sharing similar ideas? Are body resources are being siphoned away from cognitive centers (or are brain chemicals being flooded in) to produce a sensation of euphoria? Maybe! Or maybe there's a simpler and more appealing explanation. What is the zone? Athletes and writers talk about it sometimes too, as do theoreticians. But even a blues riff is light years beyond any notes you could put on a page.
It's hard for me to imagine that a tightly written score is really the best way to get across that kind of pagan and improvisational sound, and I don't see how it could be played worth a damn without an orchestra full of crack musicians all deep in the zone.
(So I've heard, anyway.) My man Switters has written about how the debut of The Rite of Spring all but broke polite society a hundred years ago, a piece clearly intended to convey music's connection to this more primitive source. Parts click in place, improvisation becomes inspired, and the notes seem to find themselves.
It's as if they become a conduit for the music itself, channeling some pure entity that exists apart from the instrument, apart from the player, the written notes, the composer, or the audience. Talented musicians, they say, can reach an elevated state of focus, where extraneous thought turns off and the moment is fully attained.
0 kommentar(er)
