Personal Music

Certain forms of music seem less social than others.

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One form of music strives for a kind of mathematical beauty--seems to arise as an ode to L'esprit de Geometrie--is paid tribute to what Kant calls 'the sublime'. Presented with such work, we feel witness to the passing of something majestic, immense--something far beyond the human scale, awesome, austere, objective. The work rolls over us, dominates us. Our souls, in the presence of these tones and resonances, are made to realize their smallness, as if the Infinite had passed this way and shown only Its back. Head down, we greet the work in a respectful silence. The interaction between this kind of work and its hearer has a hierarchical structure. We are not its equal, and it does not address us as such. It approaches us with a mien unapologetically aristocratic. Enjoyment of the work, our susceptibility to it, takes the form of an elated subjection. Insofar as we dare to address the work, we bow to it, and feel taller for having bowed. And this element of subjection is not incidental to hearing the work--it is what it is to hear it--or, at least, is what it is to understand it. One cannot hear it at all (except as patterns of noise) unless one genuflects--approaches in an attitude of prayer. But all this makes the work asocial in this sense: we respond to it, but part of its excellence consists of its unresponsiveness to us. The size difference is too great for there to be an interaction. We and the work are never in dialogue. To enjoy this music is to admire its altitude and indifference to us. The aesthetic impulse here is the same which has always tempted humans to honor stars which burn too far away to warm, or to speak in a quiet reverence of the limitless and casually brutal sea.

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Posted below is music of a very different sort--a social sort in which a certain responsiveness (between performers, performers and audience, or both) seems to be constitutive of what it is to hear it--not as noise, but as music. Whereas to be 'caught up' by some sublime chorale or classical piece seems possible in a solitary station, to be 'caught up' by social music involves grasping, being grasped by, its responsiveness. Much the way God the Father gave way to His gentler, far more social Son, who fished, snacked, chuckled, listened—here the passing by of Infinity gives way to something earthier—something not too infinite to be influenced by us--something not too vast to look us in the eye. In social music inheres an uncertainty, flexibility, vulnerability. Whereas the music described above suggests an eternal and unshake-able architecture ("somber music/walled against time"), social music is contingent, shifts moment by moment, takes its cues from its surroundings--from nods, foot-taps, faces--from us. Constitutive of enjoying this music is the sense that the music is not there to be honored, but altered, entered, joined. We might say it is honored to be altered. The imperative of involvement is in direct opposition to an overawed and spectatorial stance. Social music cannot merely be observed. In this sociality, other distinctions also lose their relevance. In social music there can be no distinction between what it is to hear music (as more than noise) and being caught up in the responsiveness between performers, as they respond to the contingencies of the particular performance, and the improvisations of each other. Nor can a sharp line be drawn between the performance and the work performed, as these too are in dialogue. And here is another rejection of a spectatorial relation to this music: this responsiveness means a performance is not a re-presenting of a work; a performance is not the same work re-presented. Rather, each time it is performed, seen, and heard, it is open to being seen differently, re-visioned, re-vised. Social music is thus not re-presentational, but rather, re-creational, and in the most literal sense.

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Jazz, a music whose 'structure' simply IS responsiveness, re-creation, play--is the ultimate social music. In consequence its improvisational ‘structure’ has all the contingency, potential for awkwardness, and uncertainty of any social engagement. No wonder it is not favored by lovers of pre-established order! Yet its play—its notion of perpetual creation—is never arbitrary— is never a creation ex nihilo. For in all its careenings, its apparently reckless, ‘play what you will’ ethos, it remains anchored by this singular social imperative—Play what you will—but acknowledge the one before you! The randomness of play tempered by inter-play. However, the responsiveness of jazz—its sociality—is often obscured by the intricacies of the language in which its performer-creators respond. Instead, here are two clearer, more visually accessible instances of social music, where the performance arises out of interpersonal address, and our enjoyment of the performance is inseparable from the interaction of the performers. One might say, with the appropriate caveats, that this is what Jazz looks like.

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Detached interplay is easy. One sings--then another--that is not sociality, but sequence. But when what one sings next depends on what was just sung... Here, the sociality is so sincere, and the music so beautiful, one wonders how far to push the idea that the latter is the condition for the former--that this openness to each other is, with respect to social music, the 'without which, not'. Louis Armstrong & Frank Sinatra Uploaded by ZeFire. - Watch more music videos, in HD! Frank Sinatra and Dinah Shore Uploaded by gucomatz. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more. P.S. Dinah's face at :15--lovely!