When to laugh
More late night experimental music last night. Barnyard Drama. One word: Ooohhhmygooddddd..... We showed up early with friends and so were able to snag a set of centre seats in second row. We'd been promised a diva with a five octave range backed up by three fine jazz musicians. The diva arrived on stage wearing a big pink fuzzy hat of the kind my mom used to wear, knee high white boots, shocking lime green stockings, and some kind of woolly dress. Silence descended. Then some kind of reverberating very low intensity static. All the musicians looked down. I thought they were trying to trace a source of feedback, but the performance had begun. There was a very light kind of ticking sound which I eventually realized was coming from the diva. Then some squawks, chirps and grunts.
I had had a conversation with my friend just before the performance began about laughter. She had never seen experimental music before, and I had one night of this under my belt already. I jokingly advised her to only laugh when people around her were laughing. But at this point in the performance, I detected a little snort from her. I couldn't look, but I knew what was happening. I convulsed. My wife collapsed. The four of us, feeling for a few minutes like cultural boors sat, tears streaming from our eyes as this fantastic woman strutted the stage emitting a wondrous rainbow of sounds. Every time we settled, some new strangeness assaulted us. A guitar played using steel wool. A banjo played by dropping marbles on it.
At the end of it all, I felt cleansed. Some of the sounds we heard were fantastic, complex, moving, angry, and even lush. But what I'll remember most of all is that, eventually, I realized that laughter was the honest reaction of shock and surprise at the completely unexpected. A woman using a fantastic voice to make sound rather than to sing. A group of musicians, all obviously very highly technically skilled, bending and stretching our very definitions of music. When I surrendered myself to it, it reached me in a way I couldn't put into words, which of course is what all music is supposed to do and little of it actually does.
I had had a conversation with my friend just before the performance began about laughter. She had never seen experimental music before, and I had one night of this under my belt already. I jokingly advised her to only laugh when people around her were laughing. But at this point in the performance, I detected a little snort from her. I couldn't look, but I knew what was happening. I convulsed. My wife collapsed. The four of us, feeling for a few minutes like cultural boors sat, tears streaming from our eyes as this fantastic woman strutted the stage emitting a wondrous rainbow of sounds. Every time we settled, some new strangeness assaulted us. A guitar played using steel wool. A banjo played by dropping marbles on it.
At the end of it all, I felt cleansed. Some of the sounds we heard were fantastic, complex, moving, angry, and even lush. But what I'll remember most of all is that, eventually, I realized that laughter was the honest reaction of shock and surprise at the completely unexpected. A woman using a fantastic voice to make sound rather than to sing. A group of musicians, all obviously very highly technically skilled, bending and stretching our very definitions of music. When I surrendered myself to it, it reached me in a way I couldn't put into words, which of course is what all music is supposed to do and little of it actually does.
posted by Colin at 9:03 AM
1 Comments:
Sounds like it was a fun night of letting go and letting in. It's great to laugh and great to see what spiritual sensations can come from strange and wonderous things.
For me it is such a hoot to watch people who are willing to go beyond the norm to try something new. Thanks for sharing out of the box.
xxxJolie
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