I was listening to NPR in the car recently and I heard composer Philip Glass say something that really got me thinking.
He described being asked by a student, “What is music?” And he replied (without having really thought about
it before), “Music is place, a place where musicians go.” This reminded me of my
time playing in a band and we would often talk about “going to that other,
better place” when the music was really cooking. When it felt like we were
communicating telepathically, at the speed of sound, we were seemingly living
and breathing in another world, one of freedom and inerrant harmony—but only as
long as the music lasted. As soon as the last vibration dissipated, we were
back on earth and all its intractable difficulties.
What about the listener, though? The non-musician? Is this
place called music accessible to them? Glass’s formulation seems to exclude the
audience: the musician goes to this special place and the listener hears the
result. As a musician myself, I can
attest that playing music is a very different experience than listening to it.
Moreover, it is impossible for me to hear music as a non-musician does because
I am constantly analyzing how it’s made—I can’t avoid it. For better or worse,
I cannot un-know what I know. You know what I mean? So, then what does a non-musician hear when
listening to music? I have no idea.
I was reminded of this when I read an interview with pedal
steel guitarist Susan Alcorn where she said, “I think that music exists solely in the mind. We take the sounds around
us, musical and otherwise, and we as listeners create the structure that allows
us to experience this in a meaningful way as ‘music.’” In this definition, Alcorn
privileges the audience over the musician: “When I am performing, it is the
audience, the listener, which is taking the bits and pieces of what I put out
and making it into something that hopefully has a personal meaning for them.”
Glass is correct to say that music is a “place”—but we all go there in our
minds, musicians and listeners together.
To be sure, everyone
was transported to that other better world during Alcorn’s solo set at The Emma Bistro last Saturday evening. She coaxed outrageous sounds from the
instrument: her left knee moving levers, both feet pressing the several pedals
(including the ever-crucial volume pedal, which she played barefoot), while picks
and slides glided over the multiple strings. It was incredible to watch—but
also deeply moving. Like many other audience members, I could only close my
eyes and revel in the beautiful music. Her set opened with the meditative “Heart Sutra” followed by “And I Await The Resurrection of the Pedal Steel
Guitar”, a tour de force of extended techniques inspired by hearing Olivier Messiaen’s “Et Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum” on the radio on the way to a
country/western gig. Touching stories of a trip
to Argentina and the death of her father prompted gorgeous interpretations of
Astor Piazzolla’s “Adiós Nonino” and “Invierno Porteño”, both of which later found
their way onto Soledad, her latest CD on Relative Pitch Records. Closing with
“The Healer” (an original composition dedicated to her acupuncturist), Alcorn
playfully quoted Curtis Mayfield’s gospel-soul classic, “People Get Ready,”
which drew knowing smiles from the audience. As the last sighing
note decayed into silence, it seemed we could perhaps stay in that other,
better world forever.
Afterwards, I asked her about music being a place—one that,
as she put it, exists only the mind. “Of course, I cannot know what is going on
your brain,” she said. “But John Cage showed that we can choose to hear any
sound as a piece of music—or not.” Then she added, “Playing Piazzolla’s music
is like being in his mind, though. I feel his emotions—they are not my
emotions.” Regarding her years playing country music, she revealed her frustration: “Some people thought I was out to destroy the instrument—I got
death threats.” Although she bravely went her own way into the realm of free improvisation, she retains an enormous
affection for the music. “Doing anything well is difficult and sometimes the
simple things are the most difficult to do really well.” She added,
“Country music is like haiku. Add a syllable and it’s no longer haiku. It may
be good and interesting, but it’s not haiku.” As we heard on Saturday at The
Emma Bistro, Susan Alcorn is a musical poet and a true original.
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