How To Say It
I've been listening to some of the Rick Rubin episodes of the Broken Record podcast. Rick has a comfortable approach for me; I can understand a little of how he's created the space for the artists he's worked with to do their work.
I understand as well that there are some folks who wouldn't be able to work with Rick. Nor, probably, listen to an hour+ of his interview of another artist. Not all methods apply. Such is life.
The episodes I've been most fascinated with so far are the, now 4 part series of, John Frusciante interviews. I've only just finished part 2 of that series. I'm having to take my time with them.
I caught myself on Rick's 2nd interview with John over an extended discussion of synesthesia. John experienced this effect fully during an early part of his musical life, though he believes that the feeling is still there to a very subtle, but important, degree.
The part that fascinates me about this isn't the synesthesia itself. It's how Rick first tries to pin John down on it.
And, eventually, how John gets Rick to understand that, even if Rick doesn't have the "visual" synesthesia, Rick does have the same feeling that accompanies it.
The one of realization. Or, recognition. When you see the whole of what you're doing in one go.
That a mechanic sees the inside of an engine before they take it apart shouldn't, doesn't really, surprise most folks. Nor a potter feeling the shape of their vase before their hands touch the clay. What John eventually manages to say in the interview is just this point, really.
That people are fascinated with synesthesia comes, I think, from the realization that some experts don't think of their craft in the way that we would anticipate. It's like discovering that Michelangelo "tasted" his art rather than seeing the painting or feeling the sculpture. It doesn't compute.
Because it doesn't fit the conception we use to understand how others do something. We carry around a general idea from our own experience, but then we stumble across an exception. And it feels like something that should be a bigger deal than it is.
Except with music, the fascination should probably be less than it is. Think about it this way: would you be in any way surprised if Yo-Yo Ma said that he saw an entire score, or significant parts of it, rolling through his mind as he played a piece? Beethoven had to see the notes to write them down, right? Somewhere between the ear and the hand passes a translation from audio to visual. Or tactile if playing.
We have a whole industry devoted to teaching musicians to visualize their music in a very particular way. Little black dots on a page.
In fact, a very important part of later music education is re-teaching students to hear and sing, feel, those notes, rather than just see them. High school level musicians very much know how to see music. Often, seeing instead of hearing is so overdeveloped that it's a stumbling block to their continued development.
They have to learn how to hear it: sight-singing, ear training. In many ways, these disciplines are meant to help the to-this-point much-lauded 1st chair reconnect to their inner 5 year old. Let them pick up the instrument and just hear the music again, without the visual getting in the way.
Then you go on to integrate it. And, hopefully, engage all of your senses as a performer. John just shows that those with synesthesia, those who've learned to integrate that unusual sense into their playing and composing, walk the same path from a different starting point.
I've actually been thinking more lately about AI, machine learning. I set out this morning under the mistaken impression that I'd write something about it. But then Rick and John's conversation intervened in my head. AI just became uninteresting to me for a moment.
... and nope, next day and I still don't have anything to say about AI generators. We've seen this movie before; now there are folks getting theirs gored, that's all. Root hog or die has come for someone else. If I have to, the only thing I'll say is that 15 year olds don't give a shit at all what the old folks say about how they make their art. Nor should they. They'll use the ML algorithms however they want to, and more power to them.
On a completely different note, Kurstin x Grohl continue to have a Hanukkah blast this year. Turning it into a live concert, even. Fantastic.
