My mom, may she rest is piece, had a saying about music that I will never forget. She said, “It is not to astonish but to move.” At the time, all of maybe 16 years old, I really didn’t understand what she meant. But now that I’m 40 years past that age and crying at TV commercials, I get it.
There is a lot that can be said about today’s music that isn’t all that flattering. But I think the biggest problem with a lot of it comes down to what my mom said 40 years ago in 1974 when the Hollies came out with a song called “The Air That I Breathe.” I don’t know if you remember if (I sure do) but that was a song that wasn’t written to astonish. It was meant to move and it did it in spades.
“All I need is the air that I breathe and to love you.”
Imagine saying that to someone you love and really meaning it. Think that just might move the person?
It sure as heck beats “I cannot lie I like big butts” or whatever the stupid words to that song are. Please don’t get me started on Sir Mix A Lot or whatever his name is.
So now that I’ve probably alienated about half of my readership, I can speak to the rest of you. Please understand, this is just my personal opinion and not based at all on fact. That’s the beauty of music.
In an earlier article I talked about “rules” in music and essentially said it’s okay to break them as long as what comes out in the process is real and people enjoy it. Yeah, I know…a lot of people loved Sir Mix A Lot. Point well taken (as I shake my head)
Truth is, there are many ways to move people. Going through a box of tissues after hearing Les Miserables is not the only way. Any kind of emotion that you can illicit out of somebody is moving them. And there are lots of emotions in this world. Fear, anger, love, sadness and joy are just a few of them. And yes, you can add lust and sexual arousal to the list too. That’s why so much jazz music is popular with the younger crowd and the saxophone is their favorite instrument. Why oh why does every sex scene on TV have a sax playing? I still don’t get it, though I have to admit I sometimes feel it. But I digress.
But the bigger truth than the many ways to move people is that music in itself, because of its very nature, should move people. In fact, if you’ve written a piece of music and it doesn’t illicit any kind of emotion out of anybody, you are doing something terribly wrong. In fact, I can’t even imagine a piece of music being so sterile that it leaves people stone cold dead. Kraftwerk probably comes close but even they have their emotional side. I think. Don’t get me wrong. I love Kraftwerk, but sometimes I have to ask myself why. Those were some strange dudes.
And because music is such a deeply personal thing, no one song is going to generate the same reaction out of everybody. Some people will love it, others hate it, some will cry to it while others will think it’s corny.
True story. About a week ago, my wife and I were watching Les Mis off the DVD. I was crying my eyes out and she was essentially sitting there waiting for the torture to be over. I get it, she doesn’t really like tragic stories like that. She said Victor Hugo doesn’t know how to write happy. No, he doesn’t.
Point is, here we were, two different people watching the same movie, listening to the same music that was without a doubt written to move and not astonish and only one of us was moved to tears.
So just because you DO set out to move somebody with your music doesn’t mean you’re going to succeed. Taste is very subjective and not everybody is going to “get it.”
Does that mean we don’t bother trying? If we spend a month writing a symphony and then play it for our friends and they all sit there bored out of their skulls, does that mean we give up, stop writing, throw in the towel and get a job at Quick Check? No, it means we keep trying, especially if music is all we know.
When I first started writing and arranging, I thought that everything had to be big, bigger and biggest. Everything had these over the top strings and thunderous pads. My songs were wall to wall sound. I figured I’d blow them out of the room with my songs to get them to like my music.
Boy, was I so wrong.
Listen to a simple piano sonata and tell me you’re not moved by some more than others. You don’t have to blow the doors off the room to get people to like your music. The finale to Les Mis, for the most part, at least up to the last minute or so, is relatively subdued. And when Jean Valjean sings “to love another person is to see the face of God” you can just about hear him and the music. There was no trying to astonish there. That was all moving baby. That was about as moving as it gets.
Don’t get me wrong. There is a place for big flashy, splashy scores with crashing cymbals and blaring horns. But if done within context of what it is you’re trying to convey to the audience, it can move them in some way. If nothing else, it can get them evry excited, even make them smile.
Even Kraftwerk had their moment with Ohn Sweet Ohm. If you’ve never heard that tune, give it a listen. It was quite unusual for them.
I think my mom got it right. It is not to astonish but to move.
For The Love Of Music,
Steven “Wags” Wagenheim