Beyond Explanation

by
23 November 2005

I was thinking of Mexico when the offer came to contribute to the BigTakover blog, to become a blogger, and yes, someday there’ll be more bloggers than people on the planet, this is understood. I was thinking of a small bar in Oaxaca (name escapes me) in which I had the good fortune to pass a few nights listening to a local jazz trio make mediocre music that nonetheless moved me. There was no easy explanation for this; the three musicians were sincere but not especially talented, their repertoire was limited to about six songs, three of which sounded like the same song played at different tempos, and the bar’s lone speaker seemed to have been taken off an ice-cream truck. And yet, I have never had a happier or more enchanting experience listening to live music.

This is a roundabout way of getting to what should be my point, the problem being, I don’t actually have a point. In this first post I am supposed to introduce myself, and so I’ve tried to do so with a small, vague anecdote. Which seems to me more interesting than a rote listing of my enthusiasms or an abstract of my intentions. But I should try to elaborate:

There are experiences, like the one I had in Oaxaca, when music connects us to something beyond the sounds we hear, when it refuses to be slighted by our judgments, when it surprises us into remembering how little it once took for it to move us. Before we knew better, before we developed critical faculties and excellent taste.

Once, a mobile above your crib gently chimed. Later, your mother showed you how a toy became a tune when you turned a little crank. As soon as you could toddle, there were plastic pianos and kazoos and tom-toms and stuffed animals you squeezed into yelping. We were very Zen then, needing only the simplest musical delights.

So finally, let me get to my point, I think I’ve got it now: I’m someone who listens to a great deal of music of every kind, and I’ve flattered myself into believing I have excellent taste. But there’s always more to it, there are always surprises, always in music the potential for it to please us well beyond anything we could have expected or can explain. That is its power, that has always been its power.

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