11,667. RUDIMENTS pt. 647

RUDIMENTS, pt. 647

('let the sounds alone : don't push them')

The resounding notion of

music was another of those
things, my personal ideas of it,

that faced enormous changes

once I got involved. Growing

up as a kid. the only exposure

on a steady and colloquial

basis I'd ever had with music

was the usual pap of the AM

radio dial  -  all that 'In the

Jungle the Might Jungle, the

Lion Sleeps Tonight' junk.

Ferrante and Teicher, and

Montovani, for goodness sakes

that crap was almost considered 
as high classical. Hearing 'Exodus'
was like going to church.  One 
time, on my  little transistor 
radio, I remember hearing

'There Is a Rose In Spanish

Harlem,' and being really

touched by what a song

could do to me. It was of

something strange; a city

place, of a 'red rose up in

Spanish Harlem, in the

street, it grows up through

the concrete,' etc. I was young,

but, wow! a song that addressed

the duality of the world that we

had : Nature and stone, the rose

versus the concrete, growth and

vitality against power and rock;

things that always tried shutting

you down and in. Yes! I got it!

-

That was one kind of music. On

the other hand? To have to listen

to the likes of Ella Fitzgerald

decidedly debauching something

like 'A Tisket, A Tasket,' that

was beyond the pale. Horrid.

Perry Como and his 'Catch a

Falling Star And Put It In Your

Pocket, Save It For A Rainy Day'.

God God, who's on what around

here? And what in the world

were they thinking? Weirdly

enough, one time, I must have

been 9 or 10 at the most, while

riding in the car with my father

on one of his seemingly constant

trips of delivering or picking

up a piece of furniture for his

reupholstering, I blurted out,

listening to the car radio which

he had on, 'Why do people always

sing about love?' And he said,

'Well, what else is there to sing

about?' I didn't tell him, but I.

could think of a thousand others.

-

Once at the Studio School,

besides the art push, there was

a heavy music presence, but not

in any way to do with music as

I'd ever known it. It was as crazy

as it was fascinating. Due to

the almost constant character of

Morton Feldman, his long, rambling,

quirky, eccentric, vociferous, deep,

learned talks about 'Music' within

the confines of his life and times

with the New York art and music

crowd of the 1940's and 1950's,

and all the requisite knowledge

and explication he brought to that,

brought a complete new light to

what one's 'ears' as it were, hear.

All those musicians and the people

he spoke of, they treated music in

a totally different way, globular and

momentous, frozen in space, long

and resonantly elongated, with

sense of enormous time unheard

of before. Notes two hours long.

Spaces. Drones. Clangs. Accidental

and ambient sounds. Dissonance.

All of that  with its own weird

notation, and outside, somehow,

of any real meter and time. My

head hurt just thinking about it,

let alone hearing it  -  John Cage.

Morton Feldman.  Feldman has

a book, called 'Give My Regards

To Eighth Street'  -  it's not a music

book, just a collection of his

recollections, a memoir of time

and place, with lots of comments

and writings about things. Now,

read after the fact, (published, 1975),

so very real to me and vivid. But

still strange. In 1951, Feldman had

written the score for a ten-minute

film of Jackson Pollock painting

and talking about his painting. The

music ran in the background of

all this. Now, two things, let me

point out. This music for this piece,

by Morton Feldman, didn't sound

anything like the Morton Feldman

music of 1967. It was more like

a loose, snappy jazz in the film.

In addition, I'll point out, the

Jackson Pollock at work here, 

shown 'painting' does not

and did not ever, intrigue me.

I really don't know where he

got his fame from  -  rather, let

me say  -  he got his fame from 

a deep, post-war sense of being

that we no longer share, and that,

because so much else has gone on

since, in painting, no longer seems

at all as a daring or a breakthrough

endeavor. As they say, 'You had to

be there.' Just by accident, then,

Feldman ended up knowing and

being amidst all those Studio

School people I was learning 

under. It was kind of very strange,

and a really large, large leap for

someone like me. Still dull and

battered from Avenel, and here

thrown in with alleged Masters

of the world of art and music.

On  a constant basis. Whew. 

-

As for me now, this all lives

on, within me.  You can say 

whatever you'd like about me, 

and you can have all your

great jobs and grand educations

and varied places, schools and

locales, but what I got from what

I did outshines it all. It's what

keeps me up until late each night

typing and writing, reading and

dreaming, drawing, painting,

and then doing it all over anew.

It's a very singular thing, and it

was all mine.

-

I'd never heard of music as concept

and theory. 'Some think the world is

made for fun and frolic; and so do I.

And so do I.' I recalled that being

some oddball little ditty we used 

to have to sing in early music 

classes. Who knew the depths

we have to sink to?

-

What was happening to me was 

that my concepts were being

broadened out, about everything.

Soon Art became Music, to me,

and vice versa, because I was

shown how they intermingled.

Nothing to do with Love, or 

that stupid, stupid 'pop' radio 

connection, (even though 'crap'

did take over the world). This

was all of another level, where

art and music even out and both

together enter some wilder 

half-world of creative presence

wherein you can't turn in out and

you dare not turn it off. It was

another place within, a language

that had been delivered whole and

intact. It was at that moment I

realized I'd probably never again

be able to speak to anyone about

'ordinary' things ever again. (Though

I did, amazingly, for years, but it

never quite made the grade anyhow.

I wasted a lot of time, and I sure

wasted the time of a lot of others).

With real maturity comes the

artifice of knowing when to say

'enough.' Goodbye to all that.

-

I had entered my other realm.

Whether it would have happened 

to me in Cleveland, in San

Francisco, Albuquerque, 

Philadelphia or someplace

in Maine is an unknown and

beyond reckoning now. I know

that and I little care. My 'self

had been taken over and my 'force'

had been empowered. The Art

experience, the 'Abstract' experience,

is an art without a metaphor. A

metaphor without an answer. It

deals with the same mystery as

religion  -  whatever you'd want 

to call it. That's why, today, when

I see it get belittled, become inane,

wine and housewife paint nights,

insincere murals and scrawls on

public walls, brought to you and

presented by men and women who

know nothing, I get incensed.

Frankly, it's too good for them.