You Feel No Pain

The armchair sumptuous, the selected novel beckoning invitingly, the coffee copious, aesthetically presented. The best coffees invariably are, or should be; it's integral to the coffee experience. Long hours stretched out before me. Perfect!

One final glance towards the beverage of choice, steaming patiently upon the occasional table. Audrey Niffenegger's 'Her Fearful Symmetry' perched expectantly upon the right arm of the armchair. I breathed in the heady, coffee-enhanced woody scent of the summer house and raised a hand. But the moment had already been ruptured.

From somewhere without there came an intrusion. I cocked my head and waited, urging the distraction to pass. To pass! To damn well be on its way! But the invasion persisted, drawing me reluctantly from my meticulously prepared cocoon, to drag me, heavy-hearted, through the house to investigate.

The culprit sat, immobile, eyes to the road, perhaps concussed senseless by her ill-conceived choice of volume. The windows were down; why not 'share,' impose upon a whole neighbourhood? I squinted into a right ear, lest I might detect a point of sunlight glinting through.

Now, I love my music. Love it! I've thought about it, agonised about it, meditated upon it. I've clung to it, hung upon the rise and fall, the rhythm, the perfect interplay of the instruments, the raw emotion, the virtuoso brilliance of it. I've marvelled at its complexity, its naked simplicity, its surreal sensitivity. I've allowed the notes to nestle inside my being, to settle, to strengthen the foundations and to resonate within. I've experienced that inexplicable otherworldliness in the pit of my stomach and, in its appreciation, I've cried, cried bucket loads.



Technical competence, bugger all, but emotional investment, it's right up there, chock full!

Yes, I've got friends who are enviably gifted, who compose, who perform, who teach and delight others, that I might stand in awe and marvel. But I was looking in very much the wrong direction when that particular ship set sail, so mine is simply the role of empty vessel, within which the brilliance of others may chance to effervesce.

Music has fed my soul, left me ever nourished, yet always slightly peckish. Shakespeare allegedly said, "If music be the food of love, play on." But, as we all know, some of us to our costs, there's music... and then there's 'music!' And the 'music' that had drawn me, exasperated from my chair, was plucked very much more from the McDonald's or the KFC 'convenience' range, than that of 'The Fat Duck' choice menu, far more indigestion than temptation for the soul.

The brilliance of music may feed yet it never bloats. And, by this measure, the mediocrity of music sits like the very worst polystyrene tray of (in)convenience foods, gnawing irksomely at one's stomach lining. Because music is also very much capable of mediocrity and, like the very worst of KFC joints, the airwaves are bloated with it, as one insensible driver had just painfully reminded me. Much in the same vein that McDonald's shouts its identity at you, from any high street corner, the worst of music may thump at you from many an open window. It's never going to be Bach's Magnificat, far more likely something voted into prominence, via 'The X Factor,' or, just conceivably, something a tad rappish that's going to slam, uninvited, into your eardrums.



"Without music, life would be a mistake," Friedrich Nietzsche once claimed. At the time he couldn't possibly have imagined just how mistake-bloated that music might become, spinning in never-ending pursuit of yet further profits. Why waste time composing when one can simply recycle? Thus much of it is about as pleasing to the senses as the damp card and broken glass corner of many a supermarket car park. How could it be otherwise, given the rabid haste with which it may have been 'produced?' A world in which the Christmas number one might be pre-ordained, as voted into prominence by an audience, hyped into standing ovation at a single strained, oft-missed, note? Really? And we want to celebrate this achievement, do we?

Of course, even the best of musicians, have had their off days. And, being an art form, one listener's perfection is, indeed should be, another's abomination; art is, by definition, subjective.

So, the heft of my contention is really two-fold; firstly that the route towards artistic integrity is never going to be achieved through the majority voting of attention-deficit audiences. Wonderful music is far more likely to be that one glimmering pearl produced from within a sparsely populated oyster-bed, than any and every form from the selection of worm casts extruded from the surrounding sands.

To saturate the airways with mediocrity just creates more noise, within which to obscure those precious gems. I can only speculate as to the chemical enhancements or other inducements to excellence that may have produced my musical choices; I merely thank the heavens that 'public' voting wasn't involved.

And secondly, should we embrace the subjectivity of artistic merit, that my music should not (and will not), uninvited, be permitted to pollute your airspace, and that your's should not corrupt mine. Plato was attributed, amongst his many wonderful insights, with these words; "Music gives a soul to the Universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination." History did not record him muttering, under his breath, "and fatigue to one's integrity," as he shambled off in order to avail himself of some much needed peace and quiet.



The noise that had interrupted my reading had pained me and, as Bob Marley once said, the "One good thing about music (is that), when it hits, you feel no pain." Thus, to my ears, it was just that, noise! Painful noise!

The stern faces of those walking past seemed to, very much, echo my sentiments.