The Music of the Vulgar and Banal

Posted on July 14, 2005 in Culture Reflections

When I listen to a piece of classical music for the first time, I often find that I do not like it. Such was the case with Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra, and Sibelius’s Second Symphony — especially the second movement. I have taught myself to never judge a piece of music before I have understood it. I remember listening to The Rite for the first time and wondering why I had wasted money on such a cacophonous piece of vinyl. I could discern no organization: the woodwinds, the brass, the strings, and the drums all collided in the center of a crushing circle, throwing off splinters of brass, wood, and hide. When I listened to it a few more times, my impression of the violence of the piece (it is, after all, about sacrificing a virgin) remained but I beheld the sophisticated organization. Later, when I acquired more of a language of music, I learned that The Rite has several melodic lines going at once. Most Western classical pieces only have two or three at most. Now when I listen to Le Sacre, I try to make out what instrument is playing what tune. Without the use of drugs, I can lose myself in the whirl and the tumble of sounds. Never do I listen to it while driving. That music can take over your mind once you know how to take it past your ear.

Before Le Sacre and I became acquainted, my obsessive-compulsive tendencies led me to find hypnosis and rhythm in the sounds of the world. Right now, a ceiling fan grinds a blurred melodic line into my head. An hour ago, I thought I heard a voice — a distant voice like a radio in another room in another house. I had fabricated it, given a pattern to sounds. My eavesdropping was on a metal pants button clicking on the tubular sides of the dryer.

If you listen, even vulgar and banal chirps and grunts make music.