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i hate it when i lose faith in music.
it happens when i listen extensively to pieces that, because of my mood or otherwise, seem to reveal the gruesome, materialistic fact that it all comes down to the manipulation of one scale or another, according to a given chord structure or key. a patch of rushed wallpaper work leaving exposed the frailty of such a restricted medium, it trips that oft-stifled nagging reminder to tell me that - no matter how simple or complex, how many different melodies, how original the structuring - there will always be repetition.
this has been brought on, not always by purely uninteresting artists, but also by those whom i love: led zeppelin, elp, frank zappa and most recently jethro tull. as most will agree, a lot of these are wholly excellent groups to inspire many, and in some cases highly unlikely examples (frank zappa? surely the ultimate liberator! ponder it), but they just have some element that sparks this sentiment within me. it's a relief when this is broken by the likes of jimi hendrix, radiohead and yes.
the latter is particularly a great love of mine because of such an occurrence. at a time when i was in a period of lost faith, yes appeared and i was slapped with such bewildering, new sounds as to stun me. i still derive greatest enjoyment from that album when i picture the biting freshness of that first experience.
it seems peculiar to me that this audial art, rooted in harmony and weighed with structure, has a grip on the emotions of mine and many others' – a majority, i would venture to say – greater than that of visual art, which theoretically has far more freedom at its disposal. this is, i think, due to the association we hold with sound. it is the medium of conversation, and so our greatest emotional link with the world, whereas vision has a purely practical purpose. also, it's probaby true that restriction is the basis of creativity; i need only look past the restriction to once again see the creativity.
-krring
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Harihollyhamishonishonshon