Music. Sometimes I love talking about it to people, exploring and contrasting. Asking questions. Responding to a record. Proclaiming love, boredom, disgust (rarely). Sometimes I like to dissemble a track into a thousand-piece puzzle and reconstruct the parts, go over the language, the symbols, the call and reply. Anyone with a music obsession will understand that. From a daily listener or highly skilled and trained musician everyone will have their own ideas and opinions of a track. It can be quite subjective.
Sometimes I like to not talk about music. Just to simply listen. Sounds are images conjured in the air. Colours and shapes moving in coordination revealing a narrative or simply depicting a universal truth. This is what captures us. There is huge possibility for anyone to feel connection with a track from any genre or style no matter what their upbringing or background was. If we have a record playing and in our head or aloud, we say “this is a great tune” are we listening or are we speaking? Often it can be the case in the car or in a group environment it’s agreed “let’s put that on in the background”. This can be soothing, relaxing and relieve unwanted silences or even boredom at work. There is always room and a need for this. What about once in a while doing absolutely nothing but listening. Do we always have to be doing something whilst the music is playing? This is the inherent value of live performances. People gather to whatever environment they choose to be present with the sounds. A dimly lit room too hot to breathe full off sweaty people dancing. Everyone is there to be with the sounds. It’s not just this style of event, the close living room style gig, with folk huddled about on the floor cushions, being silent, eyes and ears watching. The word “huddled” and 2020 are like magnets in opposition.
It is not just live music this idea speaks for but any performing arts, theatre, spoken word, comedy. I speak in the context of music as that is what I know, I’m no more an expert than you are. You could say it is a cultivated obsession. Or is it more than that? The absence of live is the absence of connection with others. The artists breath is in the very room as you or I. The rise and fall of their chest not exactly something I would notice. I wonder, what you would notice if you were there in the crowd at your favourite artists gig and simply couldn’t hear a thing. How would that experience be for you? Would it be the same if you saw it on a screen 4 inches wide. Someone once said to me that there is no substitute for a sunset on the beach experienced in real time. The phone screen version is like cheap porn. The sunset is the best sex you ever had with the person you truly love. If you are in the room of your favourite artists gig, if you couldn’t hear a thing. Something tells me you can still feel the experience and live it. The vibrations of the speakers, the taste of the beer, the feeling of the crowd, the smoke and the lights. If you can’t see the sunset, you would still be able to feel the warmth slowly dissolving and smell the fresh scent of the sea air. Is it the sounds that are important or is it the ritual; setting a record on the turn table or queuing up with your tickets in hand.
I know I’m late to the party and its almost ended – with the lockdown beginning to ease – but the loss of live is like the loss of a limb. The loss of your ears or at least the loss of something tangible. I speak as someone who has all my senses and limbs and do not in any way wish to undermine the lived experience of anyone who has experienced that trauma. I see you. I am saying that music starts off as a seed no matter who you are; a listener, multi-instrumentalist or producer. That seed was planted by someone else when you were young, and it was watered and nurtured. It was most probably the experiences you had of live music or of just simply listening to records that enabled this growth. The more care and attention it is given to thrive the more it grows as a part of us, a part of our being. Like a limb or a third eye (or ear shall we say). Anyone has the potential to aid the growth of this seed. No matter what background. Yet they might need a little guidance or sunlight from the top down depending on the opportunities available. The online gigs are an incredible substitute to make sure the safety of people is put first. It is a necessity. Yet a coping mechanism for a global pandemic will never be a replacement. Live will never be live with a glass screen between artist and audience. I wonder now, if it poses the question, when it comes to easing out of the lockdown cocoon. This is something each and every one of us will experience differently. When we are returning to ‘normal’ life and rebuilding the broken things, calculating the losses. Is music (alongside all other arts) an essential thing?
Beth Myers 