Listening with the eyes:
The current market share of Jazz in America is mere 3 percent. That
includes all the great ones like John Coltrane and the terrible ones
like Kenny G (OK, this is just my own opinion). There are many
organizations and individuals like Wynton Marsalis who are tirelessly
trying to revive the genre, but it does not seem to be working. Why is
this? Is there some sort of bad chemistry between the American culture
and Jazz? As ironic as it may be, I happen to believe so.
One
day, I was talking to my wife about the TV commercial for eBay where a
chubby lady sings and dances to an appropriated version of “My Way” by
Frank Sinatra. The lyrics were entirely re-written, and “my way” was
transformed into “eBay”. I told her that they did a good job in adapting
the original song. Then she said: “Ah, that’s why I like it so much!”
She actually did not realize that it was adapted from Sinatra’s song.
My wife and I have always known how differently we listen to music. I
tend to entirely ignore lyrics, while she tends to entirely ignore
music. We are the two opposite ends of the spectrum in this sense, and
it appears that my wife’s side is more common. Many of my friends think
that I have a peculiar, or plain bad, taste for music. Whenever I say I
like this song or that song, they look at me like I am crazy. Then they
go on to explain why it is bad, and I realize that they are referring to
the lyrics, not to the music. I then pay attention to the lyrics for
the first time, and realize that they are right. The opposite happens
often too where many of my friends love a particular song, and I can’t
understand what’s good about it until I pay attention to the lyrics.
The eBay example is an extreme case where my wife could not recognize
the original once the lyrics were swapped. To her, if you change the
lyrics, it is an entirely different song. It is the other way around for
me; in most cases, I would not notice any change in the lyrics. The
eBay song was an exception; I only noticed it because it is a famous
song used for a TV commercial.
I believe my wife’s way of
listening to music is typically American, and my way of listening to
music, typically Japanese. If you don’t speak English, any songs written
in English are instrumental music. Singers turn into just another
musical instrument. These days, no matter where you live, you cannot get
away from the dominance of the American music. This means that most
non-English speakers grow up listening to a lot of instrumental music.
In Japan, I would say, it constitutes about half of what people listen
to. When they are listening to Madonna, Michael Jackson, or Britney
Spears, they have very little understanding of what their songs are
about. In this sense, their ears are trained to listen to and enjoy
instrumental music, which explains why Jazz is still so popular in
Japan.
To be able to enjoy instrumental music, you must be able
to appreciate abstract art, and that requires a certain amount of
effort. Just mindlessly drinking wine, for instance, would not make you a
wine connoisseur. Mindlessly looking at colors (which we all do every
day) would not make you a color expert either. Great art demands much
more from the audience than the popular art does.
In this
sense, the American ears are getting lazier and lazier. It wasn’t so
long ago that most people knew how to play a musical instrument or two.
Now the vast majority of Americans couldn’t tell the difference between a
saxophone and a trumpet. Thanks partially to music videos, music is now
a form of visual art. The American culture is so visually dominant that
a piece of music without visuals cannot command full attention of the
audience. For Americans, music is a background element, a mere side dish
to be served with the main course. If they are forced to listen to a
piece of instrumental music without any visuals, they don’t know what to
do with their eyes, much like the way a nervous speaker standing in
front of a large audience struggles to figure out what to do with his
hands. Eventually something visual that has nothing to do with the music
grabs their attention and the music is push to the background.
If you have written your own music, you have probably experienced this
before: You play it for your friends to get their opinions. For about 10
seconds, everyone is silent. After 20 seconds, their eyes start to
wander around. After 30 seconds, someone says something, which triggers
everyone else to speak up. After 40 seconds, no one is actually
listening to your music. I grew up sitting in front of the stereo with
my father, closing our eyes, listening only to what came out of the
speakers. This would go on for an hour or two as if we were watching a
movie. It wasn’t just me; many of my friends did the same. Who does that
anymore? In today’s living rooms, stereos are treated as accessories to
television sets.
Visual dominancy isn’t the only problem. The
bigger problem is the dominance of our thought. Most Americans do not
know what to do with abstraction in general. To be able to fully
appreciate abstraction, you must be able to turn off your thought, or at
least be able to put your thought into the background. This is not as
easy as it might seem. In modern art museums, most people’s minds are
dominated by thoughts like: “Even I could do this.” Or, “Why is this in a
museum?” Or, “This looks like my bed sheet.” Etc.. They are unable to
let the abstraction affect their emotions directly; their experience
must be filtered through interpretations. In a way, this is a defense
mechanism. It is a way to deal with fears like, “If I admit that I don’t
understand this, I’ll look unsophisticated.” This type of fear fills
their minds with noise, and they become unable to see, hear, or taste.
This is why songs with lyrics in your own language and paintings with
recognizable objects are easier for most people to appreciate. They give
their minds something to do. It is like holding a pen in your hand when
you are speaking in front of a large audience; you become less nervous
because your hands have something to do.
Aesthetically, the
paintings of Mark Rothko and those of Monet are quite similar, but the
former is utterly unacceptable for many people even though they consider
the latter to be a master. The difference is that in Monet’s paintings,
you can still see things represented in them: rivers, trees, mountains,
houses, and so forth. The audience interprets these objects, and
projects their own beautiful memories onto the paintings, which makes
the whole process much easier. In Mark Rothko’s paintings, there is
nothing they can mentally grab on to. What you see is what you get;
there is nothing to interpret. So, the audience is left without a pen to
hold on to.
The same happens to instrumental music. If there
are no lyrics, that is, if there is nothing for the minds to interpret,
projecting of any emotional values becomes rather difficult. As soon as
the lyrics speak of love, sex, racism, evil corporations, loneliness,
cops, etc., all sorts of emotions swell up. Jazz to most people is like a
color on a wall; unless you hung something on it, they don’t even
notice it.
This rather unfortunate trend in the American
culture seems to be irreversible. The popularity of Rap music seems to
be a clear sign of this trend. I can appreciate Rap music for what it
is, and I see nothing wrong with it, but it does not promote the full
development of musical ears. If the song has any musical substance, it
can be played on a piano alone (without a singer or any other
instruments), and we would still enjoy it. The lack of musical substance
becomes clearly visible if you would take many of today’s popular
songs, and play them on a piano alone. Many of them would utilize hardly
more than a few keys. Perhaps this trend would promote the appreciation
of poetry, but it certainly would not promote the appreciation of music
as an abstract form of art.
If we were to reverse this trend,
we would need to make a conscious effort in promoting the abstract
aspect of music. For instance, play more instrumental music in schools
or teach how to play an instrument instead of how to sing. We could go
as far as to teach kids in school instrumental music only, because their
musical exposure outside of school would be dominated by
non-instrumental music anyway. It would be a good way to balance things
out.
This problem extends far beyond the American disinterest
for Jazz; it is a problem for music in general. The dominance of words
and visuals in the American culture has lead people to believe that
listening to Rap or watching music videos is the full extent of what
music has to offer. If this goes on, they’ll be missing a huge chunk of
what life has to offer.
by Dyske Suematsu
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