Music is such a key part of what it means to be human that, to distinguish us from other vertebrates, scientists sometimes call us the Music Making and Listening Animal (MMaLA). But what’s the story of Music? It dates from roughly 750 years ago, when a group of folks in the land now called Belgium got together and began “jamming”—and liked what they heard! Since that time, there have been many, many important developments in Music—Gregorian chants, field hollers, disco, Peruvian music, and, in our own time, the rocking Canadian powerhouse known as the Arcade Fire.
As these representative examples show, there is so much going on musicwise that if you happened to
be a kind of music, you might sometimes feel isolated or underappreciated—while at the same time knowing that out there in the vast world, lots of other kinds of music might be feeling that way, too. It would be as if you were all stuck in line at the DMV for a whole afternoon, with no one talking to you or maybe not even speaking your language. Of course, music can’t tell us how it feels inside, but one can appreciate that that might be a very overwhelming feeling indeed.
To help us navigate these sometimes murky, hopefully potable waters, I recently talked to our own Brian Olewnick, who has been around Music practically his whole life as a Music organizer and a respected critic of Music. He consented to answer some hard-hitting questions and share his professional smarts about this special something known as Music.
Me (Blawless): Brian, thanks for talking with me. Let me ask you a Biggie. Why partake of music in the first place? Why don’t we want to spend our time instead, say, shooting craps or hanging out in the hot tub eating cheesecake balls—assuming, totally hypothetically, that no music options were available in those situations?
Brian Olewnick: Well, we should probably take an additional step back and ask, as did the psychologist Nicholas Humphrey, "What is it about music that gives us such pleasure?" From an evolutionary, neurobiological perspective, that is. Clearly, it stimulates pleasure centers in our brain, though this apparently differs from one person to another. Why this should be so is an interesting question. I have no idea. So on that level, listening to music isn't inherently different from anything else we do that provides pleasure as an adjunct to its general evolutionary value in keeping humans around.
Of course, no one thinks of this while listening to music (or, probably, while having sex). What one can think of is, especially with regard to more abstract music, is its relationship to poetry in that it can accomplish similar feats: describing something that is impossible to do exactly with words or pictures. The way beautiful poetry will *evoke* an idea, an emotion, etc. so can beautiful music, in a much deeper manner than one can express directly.
Now, this isn't as important to everyone else, some of whom would rather sit around eating cheese balls, as might I on a given afternoon. But my brain has always been wired such that the pleasure derived from listening to music I enjoy ranks up there with the most pleasurable sensations I can experience.
Good answer! My brain is almost out of breath after that. But I want to ask you this. When you listen to music, do you ever "see" things in your “mind’s eye”? Like, for me, when I listen to the band ELO, I sometimes picture big neon letters spelling out “E. L. O.” I don’t know if you have had similar freakish experiences.
Um...not with ELO.
I do often relate music to various visual phenomena, including painting. I get into bits of trouble now and then with the latter, most recently a couple of people took exception to my likening Sachiko M's "Salon de Sachiko" to Twombley. Other times it's landscape, cityscape or something.
The images don't necessarily stay consistent though.
Allow me at this juncture to compliment you on the pieces you’ve written for Bagatellen and elsewhere, which are models of vivid, elegant explication and careful critical judgment in an area of music that many might find daunting or even hard to comprehend as Music. Bravo! As for those who have taken exception to your occasional visual analogies—well, they sound like very mean, toxic people. I'm sure I wouldn't like them one bit. You just walk on past those people, Brian.
Was that a question?
It’s just something I wanted to share.
Hey, what do you say we have some fun? I’d like you to listen to some music, and you give me your thoughts, critical assessment, or off-the-top-of-your-noggin “take” on those “organized sounds” (forgive my musicological
jargon).
How it will work is I’m going to provide you with some online music clips. Now, I’ll ask that you go in “blind,” so that when you click on each link, you turn away from your computer really fast so you don’t see what the clip is. Or you could wear an eye-mask; it’s up to you.
Okay, let’s start. What’s going on here—what are your thoughts here as a Critic of Music? Don’t peek at your monitor!
Mystery Music Clip #1
OK, that was odd. I only listened once as of right now—I turned off my monitor immediately after pasting the link—will listen more, I suppose, but here are my initial thoughts:
The odd thing was that the instrumentation sounded like mbiras and/or the kind of balafons that use gourd resonators with spider webs inside--you can hear that kind of buzzing effect--but the melody and to an extent the rhythm, sounded more Caribbean, maybe even Mexican. But if I had to guess, I'd say West African music, modern enough to have received cross-influence from the Indies.
I liked it well enough though that calypso-ish feel isn't a big favorite of mine. If it's African, there's a divide somewhere between the kind of bouncy feeling here that probably fed into West Indian music and the more ritual, (to me) deeper sense of the Zimbabwean mbira music I've heard.
That is a very impressive assessment. And your mbira reference to even makes me think you took a quick look at some of the letters in the caption of that clip and mentally reassembled them. But I know you didn't do that! Well, to be honest, I don't know, but never mind. We're on the honor system here.
Okay, we can come back to that clip later, but let's move on to something with more traditional Western instrumentation.
Mystery Music Clip #2
OK, I haven't the foggiest who it is but I pretty much hated it. Where to start? Seems like a cleaned up version of that loose folky trend (the strummed guitars) that became popular in the 90s (? guessing), those third generation hippies, 10,000 Maniacs or whatever which I didn't like either but this track sounds like a mall-friendly version of same. Wouldn't be surprised if it's something on the order of Hillary Duff.
If I had to pick out a single element that really annoys me (no easy task) it's the automatic drum rhythm, something that absolutely kills any small potential a song like this has to interest me. Totally deadens things. Can't tell you how many pieces I've heard here and there (at the Record Club I attend, for example) which begin with a percussion-less intro that's perfectly fine, only leading to the inevitable thudding of the most simplistic, tedious drumbeat imaginable.
That's a very analytical response. But at a gut level, didn't you find it even a teensy bit heartwarming? Would you mind watching—I mean, listening—to it again?
I'll listen again (after Braxton/ROVA ends). I imagine it's possible that were I viewing the video and if the young lady is cute enough, that I might soften my opinion. I'm as much a sucker for that as anyone. But....
I find the first Roches album intensely heartwarming, just to give an example from the pop field. I found TLC very heartwarming to cite a more recent case. This, not so much.
To each his own, I guess.
Okay. You have done some terrific critical writing in the field of improvised music, especially of the more cutting-edge variety. And you've abetted my own wallet-unloading on that stuff. (Innumerable times, you scoundrel! 
)
So here is something that's kind of in that vein, as I think you'll detect immediately, so you might possibly like it a little more than that last cut.
Mystery Music Clip #3
Huh. Well, two things. First, since it's an excerpt (I assume), it's really difficult to evaluate it on anything more than the sounds that happened to occur during that passage. The effect would be, probably, far different listening to the piece evolve over some period of time—or stay the same over the period. Second, I'd be interested to know whether or not the "background music" was intentional on the part of the creator of the piece or environmental where it happened to be recorded. If the former, I don't find it so interesting; if the latter, fine. Odd how that knowledge can make a difference, yes? Lot of people disagree with that approach, but for me it can matter and cause me to re-evaluate my opinion of something.
Heard purely as a stretch of noise, it didn't particularly impress me one way or another. If I were to go out on a limb and guess who's responsible, I might say that balloon guy from Baltimore, Arias I think his name is.
Again, sir, an excellent interpretation. I don’t know much of the provenance of that clip, to be honest, other than that it seems to be by a woman improviser—possibly from Baltimore? I wish I could offer more information. Ah, Music—you are a generous mistress, though your gifts can be so inscrutable!
Here is a final clip that I think you might get off the bat. I hope you’re feeling limber—‘cause you might suddenly feel the need to start moving…
Mystery Music Clip #4
These excerpts are difficult to judge. This one seemed like it might be the noodling segment between themes. I've never heard it before, I'm pretty sure, but my first impression is that it's Pete Cosey with Miles. It's nothing I could say i like or not (this segment); if anything the guitar playing seems a little prosaic, which is one reason I question whether it's Cosey. Maybe one of the later guitarists like Bill Evans? Though I don't know that period at all.
This one may have you stumped. Can you perhaps think of any blues-rock guitarists with the initials E.C.?
Ugh. Glad I didn't actually like the guitar playing. Would've been mighty embarrassing praising the work of the fellow responsible for that dead baby song.
It was those organ billows that caused me to think of Miles as you hear that kind of thing in the mid-70s band.
Huh? The dead bab—oh! "Tears in Heaven!" I LOVE that song!! But I have to be careful to not listen to it when I'm driving because it can make me cry uncontrollably.
Brian, you’ve provided us—me, and JC readers, I’m sure—a lot of “food for thought” to digest, but fortunately, it’s been a meal high in roughage. As a last question, let me ask you to ponder the future of Music. Where’s it going? When humans die out as a species, what kind of music will still be finding its way onto YouTube?
Oh, who the hell knows? In eai, it's a tough question as there seems to be less and less space to explore. We've already seen a certain amount of swing back toward melodic content though of course it's informed by developments from the last 10-20 years so it necessarily sounds different from previous melodic work.
And, of course, as the West's power wanes, we'll doubtless hear more Chinese and Indian (and other) influence until western music itself becomes quaint, probably a good trend, generally speaking.
That sounds good—and we'll certainly be watching these developments with "open ears." Thanks, Brian!
* * *
Music is an endless journey. If you’d like to continue your personal exploration of the interesting and rewarding world of Music, the following performers and styles discussed in this article may be a good starting point.
Various artists,
Mbira Music of Zimbabwe (Rounder)
Anthony Braxton/ROVA,
Aggregate (Sound Aspects)
Sachiko M,
Salon de Sachiko (Hitorri)
The Roches, s/t (Warner Bros.)
Hillary Duff,
Metamorphosis (Buena Vista)
Miles Davis (with Pete Cosey),
Agharta (Columbia)
TLC,
CrazySexyCool (La Face)
N.R.A. (Tatsuya Nakatani, Vic Rawlings, and Ricardo Arias), s/t (H&H Productions)
Electric Light Orchestra,
A New World Record (Jet)
You can also find more information about Music at your local library.
)
Linear Mode
