Not that one, the other one

I’m not talking about that season. It’s great to celebrate inclusion, although we must be fair. Mother’s and father’s each get a day. The Earth that sustains us gets a day of contemplation. Even Jesus only gets a day, and he just might be the most influential person in history.  The season that is upon us that makes no headlines, but I think should, is the music festival season. This is the one we should all participate in.

The prominent Cognitive Psychologist, Steven Pinker, has suggested that music is auditory cheesecake, that we developed language and our tendency to organize sound into music is a secondary plaything that emerged after the development of language. The statement caused a firestorm among the academics who care deeply about these things. Personally, I find it intriguing, but at the end of the day, whether our cavepeople ancestors used song as whales and birds do, to attract mates or mark territory before speaking, or afterwards is inconsequential to the quality of my life. The fact is that music is. We sue music for those purposes now (there is a soundtrack to our social and romantic lives and we often define our group by musical taste). Moreover, chances are that they are both right. Listening to how our cat has about six sounds – four (very annoying) levels of pain, she purrs when she is happy (very rare), and hisses when mad (the fault of her evil male owner most of the time) – seems to suggest that emotionally charged sounds came first. And anything more elaborate, what we would call music, likely came more recently.

Most importantly, regardless of who wins the debate, when it is all said and done, Nietzsche takes the day with his assessment that “without music, life would be a mistake.” No art form that moves us in remotely the same way. We just need to watch a movie without the sound to see that visuals can’t quite pull the heartstrings as powerfully. Or, watch a movie with only the sound. As I was doing dishes a few months ago while my daughter watched a movie in the adjacent room I could feel my physiology change simply by what I heard emanating from the television screen. Our visual cortex may occupy much more real estate in our brain but the link between sound and emotion is certainly stronger.

I have a collection of over 50,000 songs (yes, very old school I know, but I kind of like owning my music…), and as much as I love listening to them, the same music played in a live setting captures me much more than when coming through the home speakers. One could say that in a live setting we feel the music more than simply hear it. The summer months are littered with concerts and this is the best time of year. 

This week I had the pleasure of partaking in my first concert of the season, a great show by Israeli bassist Avishai Cohen (Quebec City’s Jazzenjuin Festival). With his companions, Guy Moskovich (piano) and Roni Kaspi (drums), they transported the crowd away from whatever distractions habitually inhabit them: no phones, no work, no problems. During the show, I couldn’t help thinking that I wasn’t thinking that much. The persistent message that the great philosophers and sages provide us, to live in the moment, is easily followed in these moments. I noticed that I was mostly just noticing – enjoying the depth of their communication with each other and the audience through sound, and enjoying the emotional rollercoaster as they shifted from ballads to harder driving tunes and as they shifted the energy levels within each song.

The predominate musings I did have related to my adolescent children. They have seen live performances of orchestras in the past, but never a smaller ensemble. Next week’s musical offering will be a concert from the Montreal Jazz Festival and they will be in tow. As I indulged in the display of excellence on the stage, I couldn’t help but thinking of another great Israeli musician, Yaron Herman, and how he witnessed Keith Jarrett play live and decided then to learn to play piano and become a jazz musician. He was sixteen – an age that many would label as too late. But he did, and has also gone on to dazzle us with one of the best concerts we have ever seen.

As I watched these three musicians display virtuosity and experience so much joy, I couldn’t help but hope that next week’s concert plants a seed of sorts within them. (Since I have two daughters, the brilliance of the 22-year-old Kaspi on drums could have been especially remarkable.) Not necessarily to pursue music or art, but to seek what these musicians sought. Work does not have to be drudgery, passion and life can align. And if it doesn’t light a spark, at least, like me, I hope they learn to indulge in this form of cheesecake during music festival season. The great thing is that you can have as much as you want and it will only improve your health and your happiness.

Great image of the trio

Season’s Greetings,

K. Wilkins