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Sport 32: Summer 2004
How Do You Write about Music?
How Do You Write about Music?
Even if you had an insider's knowledge of what a piece of music is doing (to you), and how it's doing it, being able to describe what's going on is not the same as describing what's happening. The map is not the territory.
page 131Music doesn't exist on the page. It doesn't live in the notation.
When a piece of art is played or recorded, it's already dead.
When it's going right, when the stars are in the right place, when the still dance between the people playing and the people listening is alive and the channel is open, music is an exchange, for want of a less laden phrase, of a kind of love.
One—one is exposed in that—(long pause) you, you, you do put a sail up, to catch the wind. And, um, people can—that sail is exposed. That's, if you like—(long pause)—it's something, something that you—You need to be open, in order to—(long pause)—Well, open is about the word; you just need to be open. To receive anything, or, or—to put anything out, or—You don't get it for free, you've got—You don't get to play nice music without giving something to get it. So you have to actually expose yourself, in quite an inner way. Most—probably most people don't realise this. I know—You're really aware when an audience does realise that, because they actually give you, or give the music, um, an incredible amount of energy, which, which—is—just silently transferred, but, but—when some—when someone's consciousness is beyond, where, where the room and the—where you are, when some—you feel it; and so when someone is listening to your music with the hope that it will bring them some kind of thing that—uplifting thing, or—you know—It will; you'll feel that, and it will help you to actually get it. From somewhere else.