THE ADVENT OF RECORDED MUSIC

It is strange how recorded music has forever altered our experience and relationship with music. We are saturated with it more than ever before and in equal and inverse proportions listening with less and less attention. If feels as if we have traded an in person conversation for a long distance phone call, that is going on all day, while we are trying to cook, clean, talk to other people, drive, work, ect.

For me it’s defiantly something I am thankful for as 98% of the music I have listened to and enjoy is recorded but it has its hidden curse. And the curse is this, when supply is plentiful it drives down the value, less value equals less attention, with less attention comes less hearing, till some point in the future we will no longer have the capacity to hear it any more.

BACH

Bach is the only musician I honestly think every person should listen to. Its so rich, its so right and beautiful and logical. His music is dense and gentle, brainy and sweet, complex and approachable. When I listen, its a music I have to let wash over me, there is just so much melodic activity you cant sort it all out (strangely thats the same way to listen to ambient music which is almost its polar opposite) It just keeps coming and coming. Its music that feels healthy to listen to, like being in the sunshine, or talking a walk. He is the mother river that so much music has come from. His admires include Bill Evans, Bud Powell, Stravinsky, Schournberg, Steve Reich, Joe Harley (points if you know who this is), Dieter Rams (points if you know who this is) and Steve Jobs. For me his contrapuntal writing (melody on melody) I find hugely fascinating, and opens up a whole new worlds of musical possibilities. It seems to me an area in music that has largely been underdeveloped (especially out side of the world of classical music).

It blows my mind that in his life time Bach was only regionally famous and that mostly due to his keyboard and improvising abilities. Also in Bach’s lifetime the trends in music were already beginning to shift to a more pared down less cluttered texture and he was becoming out dated and out of fashion. But here we are 300 hundred years later still talking about and still listening to his music.

Suggested listening

Brandonburg concertos

Cello suites

The Goldburg variations