ROUGNESS. TEXTURE. STUMP.—a study in composition |

THREE MINIATURES ON SOUND

(1) The 2nd-hand artificial sounds of electronic recordings and instru-
ments corrupt the ear just as assuredly as the oil-refinery colors of
suburban lawns and hybrid flowerbeds corrupt the eye. Edges must be
made sharper, colors made ever-louder and more saturated, and forms
made ever-more confined to tight rows marching to the square boxes of
a 4/4 beat. Start with the facts of corruption. Children now take a new
instrument out of the case for the first time, already eager for record-
ing contracts, instructed by teachers who tune their guitars by machine,
teachers who are unable to hear a true 4th by ear, who cannot sense the
difference between a living tempo and a computer’s dead and dry click
track. May the Muses have mercy upon us.

(2) Odds are, that twenty years from now, when you ask a current user
of earbuds & iPods about the music they used to listen to back then,
they’ll say, “What did you say?”

(3) Once walking the land has become a nearly extinct species of move-
ment, the atrophy and then loss of a deeply rooted sense of rhythm will
inevitably soon follow. Poets will compose lines that miss all the beats,
lines without cadence, that never pause to rest, and that have forgotten
all about the heart beat and necessary breath of silence.

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