RUDIMENTS, pt. 259
Making Cars
When I began studying music, I
realized I didn't find music to be
a very 'male' thing. Singing
especially. I was way more
into the depth and squalor of
music 'theory' than I was any
the vocal stuff - guys singing
and words to music and all.
Not good in any way. At
least music theory is of a
concept - 'conceptual,' and
can be expressed by notes, or
notation-grid. It never needed
all those words. Stumbling,
dumb words. I'd sit and watch
this Morton Feldman guy go
on about 'Music' in his high
and very exalted terms. He
wrote music pieces - and
was famed for them - that
were sometimes like four hours
long - extended periods of
one sound, or none. That was
the same way he talked. It was
weird. 'Pierre Boulez this,' and
'Pierre Boulez that.' I didn't even
know who that person was, until
I studied the name. But Feldman's
lectures were endless, filled with
stories, sometimes aimless or
meandering, and he talked endlessly
slow, like ancient water from a cave.
He'd stop. And you'd figure, 'OK,
the guy lost his head-place, forgot
where he was going.' And then
he'd just pick it back up again
and keep rambling on. Each
of his lectures would get about
30-35 people. Before the lectures,
(it was just held in a big, library,
room, with people sitting on the
floor, or window-sill things,
whatever they're called - the
big, old brownstone interior
architectures always had these
deep windows with some space
before them, heavy wood, etc.),
everyone would be milling
around, small talk, goofy stuff,
whatever. I never knew that many
of the people really. Maybe there
were 100 I guess, all told. But
the mix was real eclectic and,
being whatever I was, 18, 19, the
people who would be present
were already like 28 or something;
they'd come off as ancients to me.
And it was curious because that
little difference of, say, ten years
seemed so much like another
world, the divide on the 'other'
side. They dressed seriously.
Held themselves differently.
Took things in with a more
important sense of depth. It's
hard to explain, and maybe
every ten years, or certainly every
generation, goes through that, but
to me it was all current and striking.
Almost like being around parents.
Sometimes I wanted to shake them,
and say 'C'mon, stop it.' And, of
course, the cultural divide was
just as striking. These were
loose and bizarre hippie days,
no denying that. Everything was
no holds barred, open and without
limits. Clothing optional, it nearly
seemed. These strange people
would have nothing to do with
any of that. I used to think maybe
it was just old-line wealthy NY
conservatism; breeding and
upbringing. And maybe that
was it. I know there was a lot
of money floating around. I was
mixing with an entire other level
of economics, education, learning
and home atmosphere, and I knew
that. These people lived in
brownstones and old mansions
that had 'Libraries' for goodness
sake. Drawing Rooms and
music rooms. For all I knew,
they had Pierre Boulez rooms!
-
I'd listen, trying to figure out
what was being said or put across.
This was about this or that 'Paris
Conservatory,' ambient sound
across wide acoustics, indentured
silences, extended notes, audience
reactions, traditions, or not. They
knew all the names and the places.
I did not. To me 'music' until then
had been notes collected, varied
tempos, and marks of timing - all
simple piano stuff, with dumb songs.
Not here - I'd entered another realm
entirely where pure music was both
eternal and attitudinal. Or, at its
current then and worst extreme, the
day's reigning mish-mashes of popular
music - ranging from hippie-folk to
sing-along folk, to rock to electric
guitar to anthem-like shout-outs.
There was no pure music-theory
there at all. Certainly nothing to
'learn' of. You just did it. I saw that
too as another one of the grand
divisions to be passed. It was left to
the individual where to mark that
line, how far over it in one direction
or the other, to go. There's a current-
day book around called 'The Rest
Is Noise,' that I wished was around
then. It sure could have come in
handy for me to get at least a leg up
on the learning and knowledge aspects
of pure music and the history of
some of the progressions of 'high'
music.
-
One thing that really annoyed me,
a time that really set me off was, at
one of these Feldman lectures one
day, as the large bathroom just off
that library room where we were
sitting had a clog or a misfunction,
and a plumber was still there, really
working hard at the task, whatever
it was. Of course, making plumbing
noises, pulling and clanking pipes,
monkey wrenches, etc. It couldn't
be helped, and he was just doing
his 7pm job, essentially slaving for
their butts' sakes. You have to
picture the lecture hall, the setting,
and the people. They turned on this
poor plumber guy because HE was
making what they considered noise
enough to disrupt their high-toned
music lecture, which happened to
be about using outside and ambient
sounds in music pieces. Apparently
it was OK for John Cage and Morton
Feldman to work high and reverent
with all that stuff, but pity the pure
plumber actually making it so others
could flush. Man, I found that to
be a disconnect and only blamed
elitism, let me say.
-
It was a quandary for me - not
knowing where to turn or which
of those two I was. I kind of felt
I was with the plumber. The world
I'd entered, of course, had nothing
at all to do with the plumber or
plumber's rights, let's call it. Was I
beholden then to my own set of beliefs
and references to show loyalty to
class and status (non-status, actually)?
I think that was a good question, and
it's probably how movements start (no,
that's not a bathroom joke). Who then
represented the plumber? Obviously
Art and culture both left him behind.
-
I was soon fighting that feeling of being
nowhere, again. Imagine the horror as
I realized that, ever so slowly, the thin
veneer of idealism I'd been giving to
all this ragged, New York art and culture
breakthrough stuff, even that was beginning
to peel away. Happens every time. Put not
your faith into false Gods, I guess. I had
only taken but a small enough amount
of time, and already my world was
tattered and torn. I began to see what
was going on : before long, another time
for a re-evaluation and a revision of
what I was going to be doing.
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