SHORT-STEMMED RUSSULA | On Music as Commodity

THE POET'S LYRE?

Between the pegs

of Nature,

and Culture,

I span my string.

ON MUSIC AS COMMODITY

Once we have divided the world into the separate conceptual frames of
living subject and lifeless object, it is but a single easy step from lifeless
object to resource, and from resource to commodity.

This habit of the mechanical brain of mapping life onto the lifeless has
conditioned historically how we see and act towards rivers, towards
forests, and the soil and the land generally. So it should come as no surprise
that we now follow the same pattern or habit of thought when it comes
to the artifacts of Culture as well.

Consider music. Music in high-tech Western culture is no longer some-
thing that we make or play; Music has been reduced to a mere object or
commodity we must have or buy. Music has become life-style. What
does the Pope, or the President have on their iPod? Good god, smash
the damn thing! And to think that just two hundred years ago, Thomas
Jefferson is said to have practiced violin for two hours a day. Or it was
perhaps a French translator’s lively fiddle playing that got Lewis and
Clark and the great Corps of Discovery safely across a vast, wild
continent and back.

So what have we lost in the wake of our technical sophistication? I
would say it is the life, or the spirit of the sound. The sound of real
plucked and bowed strings. The sound of a real trumpet across a quiet
forest lake. The sound of the living, talking drum. That’s what we’ve
lost.

WASTE OF TALENT

We shape the world and the world shapes us.

See the empty glamour of the contemporary music virtuoso. Techni-
cal sophistication perhaps, but without the joy and passion which come
naturally with the journey of discovery into the wilds of the unknown.
How many more complete Beethoven cycles do we need? Such a waste
of talent, such great poverty of spirit, of meaning. Like love for sale, the
movements may look exactly the same, but everybody
knows your heart isn’t in it.

| If you're interested in philosophy and the general background
to the present crisis of perception, culture and consciousness,
please preview my little book, THEATER OF THE NEW. |

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