Originally Posted by
sonatine
Wow yeah, you seem really torn up about how grownups live their lives.
An op/ed post at
http://jezebel.com/ should help put things right in the world.
That website seems almost preoccupied with bowel movements; is that the joke or...?
I am torn up about how grown-ups live their lives. It's affected mine my entire life.
Originally Posted by
sonatine
To be clear Im a tremendous fan of classical music, but showing up late for a job to listen to it is out of the fucking question, always, for approximately everyone who doesnt want to get fired.
Yeah it's really almost a sort of cowardly swipe at The Clock isn't it? Three times they mention someone being late for work. Cause like they have employers?
"Where the fuck have you been?"
"Oh boss you should have been there. There was this wonderfully talented young man playing beautiful music in the subway, on a violin! I took 15 min personal time to enjoy it."
"Why don't you take the rest of the day. You know what, take the rest of the year off. Enjoy your music. I have a business to run."
Originally Posted by
VaughnP
No, I realized that there wasn't any hope in that department a long time ago, and then moved on. Moved onto the path of those who realize how the shit works and then exploit it.
I went vice-versa but I have different priorities. I never wanted to exploit.
Originally Posted by
nextlevelshit
If I was told to listen to it and try, I'm sure I'd appreciate it on some level... but for it to reach out and grab me, I'd really have to be more of a fan. My brain just doesn't process music like a lot of other people. From my perspective it is no wonder people walk by didn't pay much attention him. + DC/subway/cold. Honestly I think it says more about classical music ... You almost have to decide to appreciate it. I bet other types of musicians would have had more luck. just need a better act imo. but again, his talent is basically for people who have already decided to be a fan of classical music. It is a distinct class basis to it, ridicule me if you want.
It's a bit more conditioning but I know what you mean. It's one of those things that you either connect with or you don't and I don't think it says anything more than a clue to your early childhood conditioning if you don't. Often, I don't. But this one time, in ADFA 3rd year, there was real quiet kid that everyone liked. He wasn't shy, or awkward; just quiet. Name was Wardy. I liked him but had very little to do with him; he was just a pleasant kid that I guess most people would forget after meeting him because he wasn't in your face or jazz-hands or hooks or anything socially - he'd be the kind of person who you could impose upon and he'd greet you warmly but if you didn't bother him in the hotel lobby or whatever, he'd never - in a million years - introduce himself under any pretext.
Anyway, there was this grand piano in the Cadets Mess that only ever got played when some drunk louts decided to do Chopsticks or w/e - but this was a very expensive, tuned piece of equipment that drunk cadets would climb up on and cross their knees over and basically treat it as disposable, when they're kinda basically more disposable humans than anything else. In almost three years, I'd never heard it played.
One day, at a formal dinner, I saw Wardy sitting at it. And my memory blurs but I might have called out
"Play us something Wardy", and so he did.
There were a lot of people there - hundreds of officers and their escorts - and I'd really fucked up in an unexpected way because I was in the fucking military and in full dress uniform with most of the RAAF flag officers represented or in attendance and you don't wanna cry there. I was swearing myself off under my breath,
"You don't wanna cry here. Do not fucking cry here." It was magical.
I needn't have worried as there was kind of pandemonium when he finished; a standing ovation across the entire mess hall and lots of sniffling noses and awe and wonderment and girls were reaching for hats to run to the dressing rooms whilst waving gloves in front of their faces; this was some real music. I've never once heard anything quite like it.
I asked Wardy where he learned to play like that, and he just looked up sadly with a kind of wry smile and said
"oh obviously I've had some lessons". 2.5 years never saw him play, or even knew he was all but a (surely? I wouldn't really know but he'd have to be thereabouts) concert-level pianist. For the rest of the year I'd get tilted cause these fucking needy...of course it's acceptable to ask for repeat but once he declines once, you don't ask again. Poor kid couldn't walk past the thing for the rest of the year without someone trying to twist him arm to play. People are horrifying when they know better than you what you want to do and imagine they should literally rape your free will.
It was the only time I'd ever see anger flash in his eyes, as some fuckwit (usually drunk) deciding they simply had to hear him play try to physically drag him to the stool - literally - people are just...disposable. But although he was begged hundreds of times, we never saw him play again.
What a whore his mother would have been. This is my point of course. She'd be a filthy fucking whore, I'd bet you anything. Kid clearly didn't
like to play. I can just imagine some tutor moaning over the "lost potential" and his mother deciding the talent was too great not to drag out of him. Executive decision for child to suffer pain; yeah I've seen that before and that's exclusively what sociopaths do. I imagined a lost childhood of endless drilling and lessons. Pain, coercion, torture.
Well we got a magical moment out of all those years of pain. I like to imagine his mother missing out. I know she wouldn't have, she'd have taken every chance to show off her little prize toy substitute for her own utter worthlessness every chance she'd get, no doubt. But still, I like to imagine he didn't play like
that for her.
Originally Posted by
VaughnP
I disagree wholeheartedly, one doesn't need to first decide to appreciate classical music to experience it in full. 99% of the music I listen to is not classical, and I think you are really not understanding just how overwhelming an experience of hearing a proper violin being played by a world class violinist really is in person. It's like ear porn.
I guarantee if he had been playing renditions of hit pop songs, he would have gathered crowds of people, and it would not have been because the music is any more or less beautiful, it would be because of the conditioning they had all experienced by the songs popularity and the pressure to be associated with anything thought cool or successful on a subconscious level. It's the same reason you are thinking another type of musician would have gotten more success, and I know that you would, unfortunately, be right. Even a mediocre guitarist would have almost surely gotten more attention.
If this same thing happened two months ago, and the guy broke out some kinda rendition of Gangnam Style on a stradivari showcasing his abilities as much as he possible could, what do you think would have happened? How many videos of it would have been posted on Youtube?
A child doesn't have to learn what is beautiful:
Your best post on this forum.
It's all about conditioning. A child doesn't need to be taught a damn thing. Kids will learn beauty instinctively. But to dull the child's senses or to corrupt the child's mind in ways that prevent their interest in things of beauty, you have to blast them for years with Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus and advertising jingles and it's just non-stop. People don't realise it. Images, tunes, billboards, flash flash flash - minds are being programmed right in front of your eyes and if you look at what they're being programmed with....
hmm. Well there's going to be a lot of sex.
Lots and lots of sex between the children of the children of humans. I don't think you can really call them "human" any more.
You have to draw the line somewhere.
Linear Mode
