Times Like These (part I)

It would seem to be the general consensus that the conditions we live in presently are the result of thousands of years of progress. Futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil's espousal of the coming singularity and transhumanism (the ultimate unity of humans and machines)would represent the hyper-digital culmination of this deep-seated belief that we are currently living near the top step of the historical and materialistic stairway to heaven that began with Clark and Kubrik's bone smashing hominids.

In the realm of music we tend to view things in a parallel manner. Rock 'n' Roll began with Elvis, was enhanced, albeit in different ways, by the Beatles and amateur ethno-musicologists like the Rolling Stones, super-charged by the counter culture in the late '60s and now lives with its constantly developing glory in the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame and as a file in someone's iPod.

Classical music has the luxury of 1500 years of post-Roman Empire European progress without which there would be no Andre Rieu. Jazz only had perhaps a century and a half to progress from so-called field hollers to folks like Wynton Marsalis who have attempted to inject formaldehyde into the still-living corpus of Jazz and improvised music.

Certain philosophers would disagree with our dearly held notion of linear temporal progress as it relates to culture in particular but also our lives in general.

Georges Gurdjieff, especially in his Beelzebub's Tales to his Grandson, suggests just the opposite of the idea of progress. In fact he indicates that we are actually at the point of deterioration, though perhaps through a series of waves, from truly great pre-deluvian civilizations. The ancients felt the same way - think Kali Yuga.

We will look into how this has meaning for those of us who often have a guitar in our laps when we return to post more here.

Earlier Times

When the 43,100+/- year old Divje Babe flute was found in Slovenia in 1995, many scientists, including taphonomist Francesco d'Errico and others, challenged the possibility that it could be a flute, never mind one crafted from a cave bear bone by Neanderthals to produce music. The long extinct Neanderthals being presently considered a separate species from what we are in the habit of calling people.

Why it would be anathema for a different species to produce actual music? Even the most cynical anthropocentric, tenure clutching anthropologist, when listening to recordings of Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux - or the real thing, for that matter, would have to submit that birdsong is indeed song. This brings the conclusion that music existed before humans and that only the marketing of music can be claimed as a human-created activity, not music itself.

So, even though in the previous blog I called the playing of plucked and plecked instruments a profound human heritage, we have to admit that we are simply presently unaware of any other non-Homo sapiens playing similar instruments. What we do know is that the pressing down of strings with or without embedded or movable frets and the use of fingers, fingernails or plectrum(s) to make those strings vibrate sonorously is an extremely ancient activity.

Did these types of instruments evolve from harps or lyres? Maybe, but it is also possible that harp-like instruments evolved, at certain junctures or certain locales from perhaps the oud or something similar. This may be the case with the West African Kora. Interestingly, it is also possible that the Kora is the inspiration for the banjo - evolution turning back on itself. None-the-less, let’s not look at the evolution of these instruments or the associated music in historic linear terms, especially since what we think of as evolution is often de-evolution and what anthropologists consider the most primitive peoples are in actuality the living remnant of ancient, yet quite grand civilizations.

More to come…

Interesting Times

May you live in interesting times is an ancient Chinese curse that perhaps was wished upon all humans living presently. What interesting times affords us, other than corporate slavery and the end of the Mayan calendar among other things, is a trans-cultural vision that connects us to the paradoxical diversity of cultural manifestations that hint at common origins. How this reveals itself in music and, more microscopically, in plucked or plecked (picked) string instruments, brings to light great meaning for the guitarist of this so-called post-modern era.

The path of the tar to the guitar is rich with spiritual and cultural significance that can be traced to Paleolithic times and yet lives among us now through the myriad styles of the great players of the oud, of Renaissance lutenists, of arch top guitarists improvising and classical guitarists playing Britten’s Nocturne.

The first thing we’ll do here is look at how this profound human heritage that is seeping into our intelligence via trans-cultural drift and through the research of earlier periods can bring us closer to the reason we play music in the first place.

More to come…