Words: The Enjoyment of Music

I don’t usually write like this, but I felt like to putting this up because it invites interpretation and discussion.

“Movie making is a trick. Songwriting is a trick. If a song is done really well, the trick works. If not, people can see through it right away.” – David Byrne

Sometimes I feel like the more I learn about the craft of music, the more difficult it becomes to enjoy listening to it.  I’ve been feeling more than ever the difference between the enjoyment of music and the appreciation of music.  The latter is what’s taught at academic music institutions – teaching you how to break down, analyze, and reduce music to its essential components to help you decide whether a piece of music is good or not.  The former is the immediate feeling of a song washing over you – the visceral reaction that makes you smile, or cry, or move your body.

Therein lies the reason why I chose to pursue music in the first place.  I wanted to channel and pass that feeling along; I wanted to make people feel the way that I feel when I listen to great music.  I’m sure a small part of me wanted to figure out its underlying principles – the real techniques and knowledge required to compose and perform – but that’s not the reason why I chose to study music.

When I listen to music now, after years of study, I can’t help but try and figure out all of the mechanizations going on behind the scenes – what Byrne refers to as, “the trick.”  Whenever I hear a song, I try to strip away each element, slowly unraveling the yarn until I can say, “a-ha, so this is what you’re doing here.”  I can’t help it.  It’s every record-store-owner clichè: “yeah, I’ve heard that band.  All they’re really doing is combining [music x] and [music y].”  And in that instant, the illusion is shattered.  The trick has been revealed, the code has been broken, and the music can be dismissed.  It’s a total drag to feel that way, especially in the company of other music fans.  I often wish I could just turn off the analytical music-student part of my brain and just hear the music, rather than mentally deconstructing it.  I sometimes practice “un-learning.”

So, I then ask myself, what’s the value of music education?  Much of the time it seems like the purpose of music study is to learn as much as possible about the construction of music, at the cost of actually enjoying it.  When I extend that idea to other art forms, I think of the proverbial film student who can’t stomach a Quentin Tarantino movie because of it’s obvious references and plot elements snatched from movies past.  See, I really like Quentin Tarantino movies.  If I were a film student, would my enjoyment be any different?  And which experience would I chose to inhabit, that of the film scholar or that of the film lover?  It seems like knowing so thoroughly the behind-the-scenes methodology is to sacrifice your enjoyment of the art as a visceral, moving experience.  I choose to be a fan.

But still, there are ways in which education can actually enhance your enjoyment of music.  You can be immensely rewarded when you encounter the rare piece that’s stunningly constructed.  At that point, the analysis dissolves, and in that moment of hearing the song, you’re thinking of nothing else but how incredible it sounds, and how incredible you feel.  Totally awestruck.  There will always be moments like this, however rare.  No matter how many songs I hear, and no matter how much I learn about music-making, someone will make something that blows me away.  And the analysis can wait.