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The Joy of Music

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Introduction

The joy of music

(excerpted from the clarinet tutor by Stephen Bennett)

 The joy of music. The joy of the clarinet. The pleasure of making music. The pleasure of mastering the clarinet. The beautiful music written for the clarinet – solo, ensemble, playing chamber music and in the orchestra and band. The psychological benefits of music. The psychological benefits of playing clarinet. How studying the clarinet will help you in life. All these things and more, much more!  It is definitely not about fame! The word/subject “It” can mean anything at all, including everything! Fame is an urban myth. Fame is grossly over-rated. We are bedazzled by fame. We are fame’s victims. Michael Jackson, O. J. Simpson, Elvis, Dylan, Joplin, Britney, Hilton, Cobain, Stewart, Lennon, Mercury, Glitter, Morrison, Hendrix and oh so many others! Fame and celebrity do not mean quality, ability, talent. The words are not interchangeable. They are mythologized and manipulated into meaning the same thing. No one has stopped to think about it. No one cares. Everyone is bedazzled by fame and celebrity. Big Bucks! In fact, they mean quite exactly the opposite. It can be stated that if you have no talent and no ability then you have what it takes to become famous. “Here’s a chord, now go form a band” is such an old statement now that no one sniggers anymore when you quote and repeat it these days. No one flinches and everyone ignores it as if it had never been said and doesn’t exist.   If you have talent and ability then you will never be famous: by choice as much as by identity. Fame is another “kettle of fish”. Two boring examples: The American pop singer around the turn of the millennium, Madonna is nothing to do with talent and ability, singing, dancing, acting or anything else. She is merely a product, a merchandise, a marketing exercise. Everyone forgets that Madonna did not set out to become a singer. Did I say “forgets”? No one even ever paid any attention to that, extremely important to my mind, fact. It was totally ignored and at best denied as self-mind-policing censorship. She didn’t care about singing. Hell, everyone can sing!  Madonna did not set out to become a dancer. Hell, anyone can dance! She didn’t care about dancing either. It was just something she did. Those things are trivial and superfluous to her as they are to most people. That this is true is demonstrated conclusively from her own mouth. She said on camera and is also quoted as saying, “I want to become famous.” “I wanted to become famous.” She said it so why would she deny it? She didn’t. She stands behind that statement. “Famous”--nothing more, nothing less. Everything Madonna did has been done for the god “Fame”.  She doesn’t hide it. She admits it. She doesn’t apologize for it either. Why should she? Fame is God. Celebrity is everything. Oscar Wilde once was celebrated for his statement about fame. It isn’t one of the popular Wilde sayings. “It is easy to become famous. All you have to do is jump off Charing Cross bridge with fireworks in your pockets.” And that statement is true because it says it all. Does it really take a gift, talent and ability above and beyond the ordinary to do such a thing? Madonna -- (and many others; I don’t want to single out Madonna; she’s just the random example I picked out of a hat) -- succeeded at accomplishing her dream. It was a very low, easy dream. She didn’t aim very high. She didn’t aim for the stars or the moon. She knew her limitations. Nobody else knows them however. Certainly not the paying punters! It wasn’t and isn’t anything to be proud of. It was nothing, a mere bagatelle. Even Picasso, thought by many to be the greatest artist of the 20th century never said he was an artist. He said, “I am an entertainer”, nothing more, nothing less. He was the highest earner of any artist in history. When he died in his early 90s, he was said to be worth $14 million a year. That was back when a million dollars meant something. There are some, if not many, who would disagree with both of my examples, saying that Madonna was and is a truly great artist. There are many who would say, and do, that Picasso was and still is the greatest artist, if not the 20th century then of all time. In some sense, this is true, for we all have our rights to our own opinions. Others might disagree and say that Matisse was and is the greatest artist. That very battle rages even now. Andy Warhol. Damian Hirst. Tracey Emin. Bacon. Etc. etc. etc. Ad naseum. And in the world of pop culture, any number of names would be foisted as the greatest, depending upon who you were speaking with at the time.  But let’s think about it, just for a moment, if not forever. Linda Silverman, of the Gifted Development Center in America, gives this revealing, if not profound and sober proclamation: “Most gifted people do not seek or achieve fame.”[1] I happen to agree with her. My life-time and experience is profound evidence to the validity and truth of her statement. I, more than anyone else that can be named, has had wide-ranging world class experience and thorough knowledge attesting to the literal truth of her statement, unanimous and without exception. Ms. Silverman, of all people, should know what she is talking about here. The sentence is really two different but related and combined thoughts. One, that gifted, talented people with ability do not seek fame. This is true for many reasons, and enough fodder for many books on that subject alone.  People with the genuine motivation, call it a “gift” if you will for want of a better word (“Cybernetics” is often used -- they are “wired” differently than ordinary or other people) -- are not interested in fame. They are interested in their subject. They are not interested in recognition. That is superfluous and trivial and not worth thinking about. They are interested in what they are gifted with and about. They have no time for trivial pursuits. Fame, recognition, celebrity only distracts them from the work. That nonsense, for that is exactly what it is, only steals precious time away from what they do and what they want to do and what they were born to do. Two, that gifted, talented people with ability and a certain cybernetics do not achieve fame. They do not achieve fame because fame is not thrust upon them, is never thrust upon them. They do not achieve fame because they do not seek it. They do not achieve fame even if they try, no matter how hard they try, for the trying is half-hearted and incomplete and fails. It is always this way. It cannot be any other way. Why? Because they are interested in the work.  A child will not do something, anything he is not interested in. “You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink.” Conversely, if a child is interested in something, you cannot easily make him stop. Addictions are similar, if negative, expressions and examples of human desire and obsession. But they are just as powerful! “You’re a great artist. Why aren’t you famous? Go out there and sell your art!”. “If you’re good you’ll make it (you’ll succeed).”  These individuals who, with all good intentions say these things, know little or nothing about the work. A white-collar worker, working on the assembly line of Ford motorcars, who makes and produces the car does not go out on the street and sell his cars. That is a totally different job. He would be neglecting his job. He would be inefficient and would be summarily dismissed, canned, fired, made redundant, let go. The production would slow down and cease to function. No product at all in fact.  It is easy for everyone and anyone to see that there are at least two different jobs there. Car designer/builder/engineer (to lump them into one person) and car salesman, wholesale and retail car dealer on the other hand. This is very easy and clear to see and understand. It seems all but impossible to make the simple transmission, er, I mean transition-leap to artist and salesman. It takes at least as much effort and work and creative inspiration to make a work of art if not a great work of art as it does to design and build a motorcar. Normally it takes much much longer. A period of several years is not unheard of. In fact it is very common indeed.  Comparing vehicles to art is almost stupid. I say “almost” but it is stupid! A car is driven and then scrapped and junked when no longer of use. A “classic” might be saved, preserved, even collected and exhibited. But, in no way, can a motorcar be compared in stature to a work of art for art’s sake! Sometimes they try and wax lyrical. Let’s be realistic here. Art is on a much much higher plane than mechanics and engineering and styling no matter how much of a miracle that engineering is or seems to be. A great work of art commands many millions in monetary terms. Value alone defeats the motorcar as art. But using money as an example is a cheap, spurious and dirty trick. It works because of the world as it is. If it makes money it is good! But in truth, it really has nothing at all to do with money. Money in today’s world IS god. But, still we think the artist is stupid, ignorant, naïf because he can’t , won’t and doesn’t sell his work. That is another full-time job: the art dealer, representative, curator, promoter, gallery.  Whatever you want to call him, he or she is a salesman, just as a car dealership is a sales tool. The artist, on the other hand, is expected to do both. That is virtually impossible. One or the other suffers and suffers badly. He’s either a good artist or good salesman, but never or very rarely both. Luck is something different. Francis Bacon would have remained an unknown, badly thought-of artist if he hadn’t been “discovered”. The term “discovered” is just another weasel-word for “promoted” and “sold”, “marketed” in fact. Frances Bacon himself said as much many times, and even on camera. Art historians do not question that. It is accepted factual truth. No, the true artist, the gifted, talented people with ability, are not able to sell themselves and do not want to sell themselves from the start to the finish. The ones who do are the ones who have given up art altogether! Their time is wasted. They are satisfied. They are business people. They are no longer inspired. They are dead as creators, as artists, as inspirers.  “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.”John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn Music is what separates Homo Sapiens from the other non—human species. The human brain has systems within itself that are extremely sensitive and refined for perceiving and refining music. Human beings are exceedingly susceptible to musical imagery.[2]  

It is interesting to note that musical performance occurs in several areas of the brain. We already know that the study and performance of music utilizes more area of the brain than any other human activity. Rudolpho Llinás, a neuroscientist at New York University, points out that consciousness, or the “self”, lies in the interchange between the Thalamus and the cortex. The interactions between these 2 areas are especially employed with the basal ganglia, which is crucial to the “action patterns”. These “motor” or “action patterns” are voluntary actions that are used for such things as walking, shaving, applying make-up, writing, drinking coffee, drawing and painting, reading, conducting, among many other things, and of course for playing music. 

 Copyright 2008 Stephen Bennett

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[1] As quoted in The Sunday Times, News Review section, December 4, 2005, page 4, “My cure for cancer, by the boy genius”. Journalist; Cosmo Landesman. [2] See “Musicophilia” by Oliver Sacks, Chapter 4: “Music on the Brain: Imagery and Imagination”, page 39. Published by Picador, Pan Macmillan, 2007; Copyright © Oliver Sacks 2007