Pop-M-S @ 1200

“Music is more than an object of study: It is a way of perceiving the world.” – Jacques Attals (Noise: The Economy Of Music).

To agree with this statement, one has to first acknowledge that music is more than just a song. The economy and business of music have contributed to a pop culture with an identity and life force so strong that pop culture and a band (and consecutively the music it plays) are entwined.

Besides this involvement with pop culture, music in itself is more than words and melody.

Every song embodies different meaning, opinions and vibes. When you subscribe to a song, a genre and an artiste, you subscribe to a moment, a mentality, a certain way of perceiving the world.

This subscription could require different levels of commitment.

Let’s take Nirvana’s music to illustrate this commitment business.

You could listen to it as background music while you get ready for school, or even while you study. This requires a shallow level of commitment to the music.

Depending on factors like how big a Nirvana fan you are, your mood and emotional and psychological involvement with the music differs.

Heavy commitment to the music requires a different level of focus. The music could be just playing in the same scenarios, while you do mundane, every-day stuff but if you open yourself emotionally and mentally up to it, you then move with the music on a different plane.

Maybe it’s droning “hello, how low, how low, how low, how low” repeatedly with Kurt Cobain before screaming

“With the lights out it's less dangerous
Here we are now
Entertain us
I feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now
Entertain us” (Smells Like Teen Spirit),

taking his words as your own and feeling it, or just sitting somewhere letting the music sweep over you and letting yourself feel the angst and emotions of the song.

That’s the moment - The moment of subscription (see fourth paragraph) when music swallows you up in an organic experience.

When you are in the moment, the way your world is perceived and indeed, the way your world is during the song is defined by the music. Music is then a way of perceiving the world.

Assuming you are a big Nirvana fan, “the moment” could very easily be extended into the rest of your life. Music, for you, then doesn’t start and end with the song, it continues.

Even when the music is not physically playing, it could be playing in your head.

Or you could carry about its lyrics and vibe as you go about your life, perhaps adopting a more angst-ridden view of the world, perhaps developing an affinity for flannel shirts, dirty jeans and Converses.

The way you perceive your world is affected and defined – to what extent resting on how much you like your idols, and how susceptible you are to music’s (the song, the band, the pop culture of the band) influence in your life – by music.

A Nirvana fan is much likely to perceive the world with more angst than say, a Jessica Simpson fan.

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In certain music revolutions, we see clearly how the music brings about a different lifestyle to many. Say rock n roll. When it erupted, it advocated a certain lifestyle and image. Rock n Roll was seen as a departure from the safe, wholesome image of the musical era it replaced and the young people felt liberated by this new music revolution.

Soundscapes (Vol. 6, April 2003), an online journal on media culture observed, “This music excited the young, who were quick to adopt it and with it the accompanying behavioral style elements, and shocked their parents, who perceived it as a form of protest against the existing social order.”

The way the teenagers (a social category that sprung up then) perceive life was different due to the advent of rock n roll.

Here, I like to introduce another way of how music can be a dominant factor of how one perceives the world.

When I was much much younger, I had a huge crush on a British boy-band, Take That (Skeletons falling out of closets now, yes. Hush now.) I must had been about 13 or 14, and Take That was the first band I was serious about (I do assure you that my music tastes have moved on many miles since) and for me then, a teenager in Singapore, the Manchester boy band opened up a new window of the world to me.

Because of my adoration for them, I read about Manchester. I bought British magazines like Smash Hits, TV Hits, Big!… etc to get more info about them. Watching videos and specials on them made me familiar with their accents, some cockney jokes and such colloquial stuff.

Somehow, in some strange way, nurturing and feeding this big crush mentally expanded my world geographically.

It’s like reading Enid Blyton and strangely feeling like England is familiar to you even though you never been there. Or falling into wonderful literature like The Chronicles Of Narnia and how the made-believe world feels more real as you read.

Take That became my first connection to Manchester. Through them, I perceived this state I never been to.

And in the style of uninhibited teenage boy band worship, Take That was close to being the center of my world and affected how I live (music I listen to, literature I read, hanging out with fellow fans). Music was definitely more than an object of study, it was a way of perceiving the world for that young me.


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We have talked about how music shapes a fan’s perception of the world. Now, let’s look at it from the songwriter’s view.

It’s like photography. You look at the world through the lens of music, the photographs that develops are the songs, by which viewers/ listeners share in what you see.

The music you make is the manifestation of your perception of the world. An artiste’s soul is injected – or rightfully should be, what with all the manufactured acts around today - into her song and lyrics.

(This is one reason why fans feel like they know their idols, because the latter have bared their souls in their music).

For the musician, the music he or she makes can define the reality in which he or she lives in.

A musician who sings sappy love songs is portrayed differently in the media than say, Marilyn Manson.

Of course, when one is a musician (you don’t even really have to be a celebrity), people expect things from you. They expect you to be arty, non-conformist, to conform to whatever image you are supposed to have as accords your musical style and genre.

The music you make is a piece of you, a certain moment of your life or a certain principle or belief or experience. It reflects your reflections, your bias, your emotions, your perception.

Before 1991’s Achtung Baby, U2’s image was very much associated with their faith in Christianity. It wasn’t even interviews with the band that made people aware of Bono’s, The Edge and Larry’s (Clayton wasn’t a believer) faith.

It was the band’s music, songs like Pride (In The Name Of Love), 40 (Based on Psalm 40 from the Bible) and I Will Follow, which obviously reflected their faith, their perception of the world.

I feel like asking again: What is music? I won’t because I can’t answer it adequately but one thing it is, it’s more than a course of study.

And that’s why this journal’s so darn hard to do. Music is so personal, organic and infused with every thing, how do you do it as a course of study?!
- posted by sg girl @ 4:19 pm
 

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