Oh Well

A friend of mind posted on his blog saying that he was just starting to embark on the study of philosophy. He is also a budding musician and I've spent many hours playing and talking to him.

I commented on his post: "Life is perplexing. Yesterday I spent 5 hours practicing piano and I was proud of myself, but then I realized I had 3 books of the Odyssey to read. If only there were more hours in the day so I could read Homer, Aristotle, Kierkegaard and all those other guys as well as teach myself Calculus, and learn the piano and the saxophone. And I'd have time to give the flute and guitar their due diligence. At the end of every day I remind myself that there must be a reason that God only gave man 24 hours in a day and made us to need sleep."


Why aren't there enough hours in one day to do everything you want to do? It's 10:35 right now and I wish I could nail the changes on "Confirmation" a bit better, but the house is asleep and I should be too. And tomorrow morning I will wake up and play 30 minutes of Hanon, go off to school, do homework and eat, practice for 3 hours, finish my homework and go to bed. I've never wanted to be the musician who only knows about music, so don't get me wrong, I love school. And I appreciate homework. And I need to eat. But why aren't there enough hours in the day to do everything? When I go to bed at night I'll know I need to go to bed if I have any hope of being awake the next day, but I'll want to read another chapter, or transcribe another 15 seconds or whatever. The pursuit of knowledge is always hampered by time.

I've figured out a lot of things about God, or more appropriately he has allowed me to understand things about him, but I've yet to understand why he only gives us 16 hours in a day to do something useful. Think of how much more you could do if you had 4 more hours at your disposal. Think of how much a little child could learn if he had 40 hours to learn in a day. At 20 he would know as much as most scholars know at 40.

Or would he? Maybe humans aren't meant to know everything, even if it is worth while. Maybe they aren't meant to do everything even if it is worth while. And of course how many people complain that they don't have enough time to pray or go to church in the day. Possibly, man only needs 24 hours to accomplish everything God needs him to accomplish, and learning even the most worth while of subjects is frivolous in the mind of God? But then you have to wonder how God could possibly have such a seemingly low view of the products of man's rational abilities.

I've always hated blog entries that ask questions without telling you anything. At least the type of questions that are either easily answerable or to obscure to answer, such that you get nothing out of the entry. Pardon me if I fell victim to my own pet peeve.

The 14th of February

Happy Valentines Day.

The long overdue second "Call It Clear" post.

The first one is here.

Lines in consideration:

You count on your fingers
Pitches you ought to be and soon
Just let them call you

The lyrics first struck me as a bit obscure and the thoughts inside my head weren't as verbose as they were when I was thinking about the first 3 lines. But I realized the multiple meanings that many of the words have. "Count", "pitches", "just" and "call" all have several meanings. And "them" is equally ambiguous.

"count" -
counting numbers or objects: "Count to ten slowly"
including /excluding: "Count me in/out."
to consider: "I count myself lucky"
to be worth something: "I won't count that quiz grade"
to have merit: "Everybody counts on the team"
in law: "He received two counts of first degree murder"
a noble man: "The Count of Champagne"

"pitches" -
to construct: "To pitch a tent"
to throw: "He pitched the baseball"
a degree: "His champaign reached fever pitch"
to sell: "His pitch was convincing. I bought the toaster"
slope: "The ski slope's pitch was daunting"
in naval navigation: "The pitch and roll of the ship"
golf: "a pitch shot"
music: "a note"
a playing field: "you play cricket on a pitch"
location: "The busker claimed 4th and Broadway as his pitch"
to help: "He pitched in"

"just"-
adhering to justice: "the judge was just"
simply: "just go to school"
close proximity: "He just showed up"

"call"-
to use the telephone: "I called him"
to receive divine guidance: "He was called to the priest hood"
to search: "He called out for any hope of human live."

Certainly many of those meanings are irrelevant in the context of the sentence, and the greater song, but the connotations the words provide is certainly interesting. Next Sunday I will try to interpret what all this means.

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In the mean time go and read the Old Romantic's post about Beethoven. I often wondered why he called himself Old Romantic, because he always seemed to be a Mozart devote. But as long as we're talking about double meanings, I think Mr. Romantic is commenting on his charm, suave nature and general way with the ladies, rather than his musical preferences.

And I have updated the side bar of blogs. I had a few to add. Also, I've started posting on "The Philosophic Blurb". I'll republish some of my posts on there from time to time.

Lent

If during lent you are not planning on purging a disordered desire to spend time on the computer, here is some fuel for your mental fire:

Moanin' - Charles Mingues

Belmont High school doing Moanin'

Let's Get It On - Marvin Gaye

Misty - Ella Fitzgerald

Who said Beethoven was depressing?

Maria - Leonard Bernstein

It's a Man's World - Christina Aguilera

Epistophy - Larua Caviani Trio

Math

Nietzsche on Suffering

Musician's money

I have began blatantly copying the CraigsList posts that Andrew Durkin posts on his blog. They are to good to not have on two blogs:

Come make coffee for me at my home!

I am reaching out to all Starbucks to come to my home and make coffee for me. The gig would be Fridays and Saturdays and sorry, I can't offer reimbursement of any kind, but you can put out your tip jar. I don't provide equipment, and I don't comp donuts. If interested email me for more information.

Thank you and I hope to hear from you.

In response to this:
Beaverton Town Square Starbucks is reaching out to musicians and bands alike to come play for us. Gigs would be Fridays and Saturdays at 9pm, sorry but we can't offer reinbursment of any kind, but you can sell cd's and put out a tip jar. We don't provide equipment, and we don't comp drinks. If interested E-mail Paul at "blackbox098@gmail.com" for more information.

Thank you and we hope to hear from you. PostingID: 559345100

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Contrary to popular belief, being a musician is a job and many musicians are smart.

Some people can, like, chose between being, like, an engineer and a musician and they, like, chose to be a musician. So, like, money isn't the most important thing in the world to them. And, like, not all musicians are, like, stupid either. Like, Ethan Iverson is actually, like, sorta intelligent, I think.

The Idiot Youth

High school kids are idiots. You give them two options:

1) Dance (i.e. conceive a child with your clothes, however little you are actually wearing, completely on) to rap and techno music. An example is shown here.

2) Salsa to a (very happening) live band. An example is shown here.

9 of 10 high school kids chose... option 1. And the band is left with the message that they are increasingly worthless because the youth of America are ignorant, stupid, dumb, and every other adjective I can find to insult their minuscule intelligence.

They don't realize how good they have it. Every other school has rap music playing, but they have a live band.

Who needs a reason?

I was asked why I like/love music (the question was asked in Spanish, so the difference between a simple affection and something more is a bit obscure). I didn't know how to respond and tentatively said "I don't know".

I realized that I never sat down and weighed the pros and cons of music. I've never thought that such and such are really awesome about music, and thats why I like it. It never occurred to me that I needed to rationalize my love for music music. I have had a completely irrational affection for music, and I never knew it. Startling.

The questioner said she was sad for me. I wondered why it was so bad to love something without needing to justify why you love it. Isn't irrational love the most true form of love? Personal gain is necessarily neglected because you don't care why something is good or bad. To be selfish you need to know what something can do for you.

In somewhat of a crude example, I explained to one of my friends, "If the perfect girl, the coolest chick you ever saw, walked by, you wouldn't need to rationalize why you would do anything for her." You wouldn't have a checklist of 40 yes or no questions that determined perfection. She just would be perfect.

And music is the same way? You hear it, instantly arrive at the conclusion of perfection and love it?

Inconsequently, you would later learn that she wasn't perfect, and in the true high school style would fall into a loving dismay of her where your knowledge of her every fault would be impeccable, which oddly comes out of a confused type of love of her in which you meditate on her every apparent weakness. But maybe that isn't so tangential. Is music perfect? Classical music clearly reveals that there is always a better playing possible. Listen to this crecendo (0:30 and after especially). I always want more here. No orchestra could have enough instruments in it or play loud enough to deliver a sufficiently huge wall of sound. And if they could play loud enough, they wouldn't be soft enough. It will never be perfect.

But how foolish does this sound in the context of logic? If man only has two natures, the senses and the intellect, and you disregard the intellect, you love something with only half of your ability. Music can be the most pleasing thing to your ears, eyes, ext. but that makes you no better than an animal. The intellect is what makes man better than the animal, right? But I have to think that my love for music is a bit higher love than a dog's love of food.

Maybe I will come upon a proper explanation of my (ir)rational love of music one day. I set out to find out why I love music, and was going to make a big list of why I do, but I can't. Everything is jumbled in my mind. Nothing is coherent in my mind, which is probably apparent in the disheveled form of this post. I'm like a half-witted Aquinas. I can come up with great contrasting arguments, but I'm not logical enough to deliver the whole package.


So that is a long way of saying, "Yes, I have no idea why I love music, and I am content in that." No se porque me gusta la musica, pero no me importa.

Popular Name?

Music in Minneapolis is at it's best this week.

You could have caught the lovely Sophie Milman @ The Dakota. Sadly I missed it. I have been waiting for a while to go to one of her shows and ask her if she knows how to write out a chart. And when she says "yes" I will ask her to marry me. Seriously. And she sings! (Proof #1, #2, #3 and #4). And she has to be smart... continuing the trend of being perfect.

Friday - Dosh @ The Triple Rock Social Club
or The Good, The Bad, and The Funky @ Famous Dave's in Calhoun Square

Saturday - Michael Quinn and The Burbon Kings @ The Shamrock Bar
or Nachito Herrera @ The Dakota

Sunday - Big Bad Voodo Daddy @ Orchestra Hall

Thursday - Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto @ Orchestra Hall

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I loved the St. Catherine line in the lyrics until I did some research and realized I was ignorant of the other 4 Saint Catherines.

Examination by Evening's light (but not as happy as that Stella song)

In order to have a general platform to start with, I believe these lyrics are about your purpose in the world. The author of the lyrics serves as a moral conscience, leading the subject away from a life of material "happiness" and into a world of true happiness. In the author's mind you can't be happy with a huge house, a nice car, a good job, all the respect in the world and all the money you could never spend. I think the Ivan Ilyich character in Tolstoy's novel serves as a great representation of what the author is steering the subject away from.


"Listen up lovely / hear what the evening sees in you / lilacs and land mines"

"Hear what the evening sees in you". Firstly, sight is absolutely essential to a life of material goods. How can you possibly choose the most beautiful house if you cannot see? And how could you possibly envy your neighbor's more beautiful house if you could not see? Knowledge, love of God, love of neighbor... all of those things don't require sight. The author doesn't ask that "lovely" look, see, watch... no. He asks her to listen. Secondly, humans cannot see in the evening. So "evening" must be something extra-human. By asking "lovely" to listen the author is asking her to take a step back from material life and to listen to a different world, a divine world.

You will never see God while you are on earth. You can have faith in him, knowledge of him, and love him, but you will never see him. You have to listen to him, and abandon your sight. "Listen up lovely / hear what the evening sees in you". How wonderful would it be to hear something that no human could ever tell you? But you have to listen, not see because you can't see the evening. And to listen you have to step back from your material life.

And of course what does the evening see? It sees lilacs and land mines. You will notice picture of each. One is beautiful and one is not. With the obvious out of the way: everybody is a bit evil and a bit lovely. The moment you think that you are not evil God will convince you that you are in fact evil, just as Evening tells Lovely that it sees land mines in her. A land mine is latent evil that hasn't yet exposed itself, but it will one day unless great effort is taken to destroy it. Sin is the same way. Temptation will always be latent in your soul unless you undergo great efforts to destroy every trace of sin left in you. So Evening sees both love of God and sin in Lovely.

There is more to the "lilacs and land mines" line. Think of a seed. You plant it in the ground, and it disappears, and a beautiful flower sprouts. The seed is no longer there, but the flower produces more seeds. That first seed dies so that other seeds can live. Lilacs are also associated with the color purple, which is a color or royalty. The lilac then embodies a royal self-sacrifice, and out of this comes beauty and life. Just like Jesus. He royally sacrificed himself, and out of it comes the forgiveness of sin (i.e. evil), and a world without evil is inherently beautiful and lively.

The land mine conjures up different ideas. You plant it in the ground just like you do a seed, but you put it in the ground in a sneaky, underhanded way. There is no hope of more life coming from this type of seed. The only thing born from a land mine is further strife. All human life around it dies. Sounds like John 1:7: "but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin [evil]."


More to come.

"Call It Clear" Lyrics

There was a day when I was a depressed youth going through a crisis that brought about maturity, and one of the great things about that crisis was that I discovered how awesome music was and discarded a life in favor of music. And one of the things I was especially attracted to at the time was lyrics. I have since started listening to jazz bands more than rock bands. Jazz lyrics are amazing, as are rock lyrics. The following lyrics are from a "rock" band I came to through David King's connection to jazz; Halloween, Alaska is a rock band consisting (during this album) of James Diers, Ev Olcott, Matt Friesen and David King. The lyrics are as follows:

Listen up lovely
And hear what the evening sees in you
Lilacs and landmines

You count on your fingers
Pitches you ought to be and soon
Just let them call you

Why do you think you're here?

Trouble the backseat
Worry the windshield with that face
What couldn't you have?

Head of St. Catherine
Hearts that will run to meet you
Were only volunteers my dear

Why do you think we're here?
Is that why the call it clear?

I reckon I'd say some sometimes
My delicate slip of sunshine
You can die
If you decide

I will put my interpretation of these lyrics into several posts over the next few days.