RUDIMENTS, pt. 404
(music in the air)
Sometimes I used to like sitting
around listening to classical
music - the Egmont Overture,
even Vivaldi's Four Seasons.
Something there was about it.
The general tenor of everyday
life did not include that, whatever
it was, as it bespoke a different
set of dimensions - a place and
a step-off - from and into at the
same time - some other world. I
noticed all sots of different levels
of that music, levels you'd never
know about unless you got into
it. There's a good book now, from
about 10 years ago, that gets into
that real well - 'The Rest Is Noise'
by Alex Ross. Basically what it
comes down to is in all our lines
of work we have to be strong
and we have to be steady. All of
this stuff - music and thought -
have long lines of history behind
them, and if you don't know them.
or try to, you're really nowhere.
It was funny, in the rock n' roll
world, no matter what the level
of crap, they'd find a gleaming
gem every so often and try to
play up the fact that this person,
he or she, though a 'rocker,' was
classically trained, or had academic
musical credentials. Classical
steals of riffs, this one or that.
That was clutching at straws,
for sure and I never accepted
the connection. The 'Art' world,
though often in much the same
muddle, was as different from
all that as it was alike to it. The
mid-section of the 20th century
was a weird cross-current of ideas
in Art : Abstract-Expressionism,
New York School people,
Hard-Edge art, stuff like Larry
Poons was doing, the droll start
to Pop and Imagistic work. Picasso,
Modigliani, and Giacometti held
center stage Euro-wise. Much as
in cheap music, if a guy could
sit up and prove he could draw
a line and work color, he was
a new-classicist wth credentials
turned Modern; thus giving
some life to that lie. It was all
a bubble, and it was all so easy
to impress (others who don't
know). Thus, art became an
industry.
-
In my mother's house, music
never got much past Perry
Como and Ferrante & Teicher.
If you don't know what those
names are, it's not important :
a pale middle range pop and
croon-tune sound, brushed
and cleaned up for easy-eared
listening. Sort of like the
versional equivalent of
Christmas carols, but all
year long, and about like
love and marriage and
heartbreak instead of Baby
Jesus stuff and angels stuff.
Same feeling. She loved it,
and, also, she used to iron in
front of the daytime TV with
the Dick Clark show on - a
bunch of lame Philadelphia kids
dancing to the lip-synched pop
tunes of whoever was big at
the moment. Real crud, but
she loved watching the kids,
and the dancing, and the
music too. She had lots
of 45's, current stuff then too.
It was pretty weird, but NOT as
weird as how it all became the
epicenter of my pathetic life.
Here's how it went, and why I
got hit by the train, mangled
near to death, strangely distant
to this life, and ultra-curious
about everything : As soon as
I learned the alphabet well,
sometime after 1st grade (music
notes are like A, E, C, G, etc.,
so I guess at some elemental
level it mattered, though I've
never played anything in the
key of Z). she decided, nay,
decreed, that I should take piano
lessons. Her reasoning was that
it would 'make me popular with
other kids' if I knew how to play
tunes, and they could dance to
them. Beats my ass where that
idea came from, and I'm not
sure if that tactic has been also
forced on other pathetic music
wretches. You see, there was no
thought given to the idea that
music just might be an art, a
programmatic progression of
concept to sound to reality,
or that it could (perhaps) move
the heart into other realms. That
was all too much to dare. Instead
I was supposed to get stuck with
the burden of getting pre-sexual,
pimply-faced kids, up on the
dance floor. Where this was
supposed to occur was never
told to me. There was certainly
nothing in Avenel itself but a few
roadside sleaze bars, and real
recital halls didn't usually have
dancing. So, I got thrown to the
lions, notwithstanding the fact
that the only 'piano' we had
was the silent facsimile of one
my father had painted on a long
board, just for me, and there
was no hoe-down in sight. Once
a week I would go to the piano
teacher's house (Aha! Beware!
There's the train link!) and actually
'hear' the results of my silent
practicing. Totally useless,
because - along the way - if
you don't 'hear' your mistakes,
you're not going to correct them.
I heard nothing all week. It went
on like this for some 2 years or
more, until one day my father
found a 25 dollar bar-room
upright piano some guy would
sell him. Voila! I finally had
a piano.....and it went right into
the basement. Great atmosphere
that was. I could finally 'hear'
something, but it was always
cool and damp, with the sodden,
thick sound that basements
give. Bad acoustics, let's
just say. That piano, at one
point after the train accident,
did make it up to the living
room, so that when I finally
got back home, released from
the hospital after what seemed
liked forever, on crutches and
in a leg cast, I walked into a
room complete with my piano
in place, and (!) a large fish
tank with colorful, tropical
fish, which my father and
uncle had installed. Once I
left home, the piano languished,
and was finally returned to the
basement, and much later taken
to Pennsylvania, in my large
house there - where there was
a side-room which had once been
the tax-collector's office room,
and it already had an old piano
in it. So my 'sun-room' ended
up with TWO pianos, and I was
living high!
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