You Might Have Inspired Me

I want to divert from my usual line of writing, which is mostly weighted on the music aspect of the theme of this blog, and write about the other aspect of this blog: inspirations.  I'm watching The American Experience | Reagan, a biography of the man's presidency and the rollercoaster of events that accompanied his terms.  I'm reminded of Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World--a book that walks through the complexities of the aftermath of WWI but focuses on the personalities of Wilson, Lloyd George, and Clemenceau and how they (the personalities of each) played such a huge part the decisions that were made (and weren't made) as a result.  The book describes a number of encounters between the three where each are on completely different levels, which effectively causes negotiations to deliberate far longer than any had hoped.  It also leads you to wonder what the possibilities could have been if the three had actually gotten along. The part of the Reagan show that demonstrates the steps--the little things here and there--that take discussions with the Soviet Union from nil to the agreement of disarmament are really quite moving.  The part that really grabbed me was how on Reagan's first meeting with Gorbachev, Gorbachev's aids note how it was evident that Gorbachev was intrigued and swayed by Reagan's charm and ability to portray his human-ness.  The show doesn't directly draw this parallel, but allows you to draw the conclusion that it was really Reagan's personality that paved the way to the end of communism in Russia. Now, my intent here is not to assess the validity of Reagan's personality as the reason for the relative success of the negotiations with the Soviets, but rather to emphasize the value of one's character traits.  Seeing the effect that values have when relating to people is quite simple, yet quite profound.  These values govern the little things that we do--the decisions that we make on a day to day basis--that slowly compile themselves amidst the chaos of life and affect people and events that we can and could never predict. It's good to have a reminder about the simple things every now and then.

Cognitive Anthropology and Lyrics

A few weeks ago I finished up collaborating on a lightweight research paper as a work-related extracurricular activity that we submitted to some Computer Science consortium for judging and potential publishing.  The paper was intended to use Human-Computer Interaction principles and some other tech-geeky stuff to describe the difficulties in developing video security software.  Why HCI is kinda interesting Along the way, one of the advisors for the paper, Brent Aurenheimer (a Computer Science prof at CSU Fresno) pointed me in the direction of a book called "Cognition in the Wild", by Edwin Hutchins.  Hutchins is an cognitive anthropologist that spent some time with the Navy, observing how people work together using certain protocols to ensure safety for the things they do.  For example, a protocol that pilots follow when changing altitude in an airplane would entail something like:

1. One crew member verbalizes "Altitude change to X feet"
2. The pilot verbalizes "Altitude change to X feet"
3. The pilot operates on the plane to change the altitude to X feet
4. The pilot verbalizes "Altitude set to X feet"

This protocol ensures that the crew all know what's going to happen, and minimizes the risk of the pilot setting the wrong altitude because he's forced to verbalize what he's going to do, then what he did.  These sorts of systems and protocols might be boring to think about or study for most, but are of super importance when dealing with things that risk people's lives (Xray machines, airplanes, surgeries, etc.) Language and Music I came across this passage in Hutchins' book:

As part of the cognitive revolution, cognitive anthropology made two crucial steps. First, it turned away from society by looking inward to the knowledge an individual had to have to function as a member of the culture. The questions became "What does a person have to know?" The locus of knowledge was assumed to be inside the individual. The methods of research then available encourage the analysis of language. But knowledge expressed or expressible in language tends to be declarative knowledge. It is what people can say about what they know.

Maybe I'm taking this out of context, or maybe I didn't interpret it correctly, but the whole "language tends to be declarative knowledge" thing really hits home: I think this is a huge part of why I tend towards music without "language".  Language, or lyrics when language is paired with music, is really mostly capable of expressing that which one knows; au contraire, it's not so good for expressing that which one doesn't know.  Furthermore, how can you really express something that you don't know?  You probably can't.  You can't communicate something you don't know until you find out that you don't know it.  And for me, I think that's one of the great things about music--when doing music, you can express things that can't be said with language.  The idea of "a picture is worth a thousand words" comes to mind.  Looking at this picture, for example, probably evokes more emotion than reading the text: "prisoners at the Dachau concentration camp were tortured by hanging from their hyperextended arms."  Sorry for the slight morbidity, but I think it makes a good point.  Music has wonderful potential to convey and/or stir up emotions to listeners without necessarily telling them what they should think or feel.  And I happen to think that there is a vast amount of music out there that can do this far better when it's unaccompanied by language.  In fact, language over evocative music can detract from the music--like watching a beautiful sunset next to sewage processing plant.  Or like putting a caption under that picture above--once I read the caption, I'm lead to somewhat subdue the emotions that the picture stirred up, and focus on what the caption's words are telling me; without words, the picture alone allows my thoughts and emotions to carry where they may--maybe to places that I don't have words for. Don't get me wrong--I'm not suggesting that music with lyrics is crap.  I've been reacting for some years now to what seems to be the more common notion that music without words is boring.  I stereotype and think of so many people that if forced to listen to modern instrumental bands like Mogwai or Explosions in the Sky or Godspeed You Black Emperor! for the first time, they'd just be waiting for the words to start, then when they found out that there weren't any, they'd just dismiss the music as boring. Instrumentals Are Inspiring Up until this past century, as I understand it, it seems that Western instrumental music versus music with language was maybe a 50/50 split.  Depending on the era you look at, music with language was used for telling stories or for religious purposes, while instrumental music still played a huge part of music as a whole.  Today, in my perspective, it seems that that ratio has changed quite a bit, which is quite a bummer in my opinion.  How come we don't see more instrumental groups getting popular?  How has our focus shifted as a culture?  Whatever the answers are to those questions, the lack of this type of music really gets my wheels turning.  It makes me want to contribute to this part of music in our society--to fill some wholes where we're lacking (there I go again, getting "epic" notions again). The wheels are turning... "Play Delicate, Desire Quiet", Grace Cathedral Park, In The Evenings of Regret:

I think I have an "Epic" complex

I'm just winding down for bed, thinking that I don't really feel like I wrapped anything up today.  It was just another day of business (read: busy-ness), eating food, putting gas in the car, drinking coffee, talking a lot, thinking about things, blah blah blah.  It's not that any of those things were unimportant, I just don't feel like I really closed the book on anything; and that feeling of checking something off your list is a fine one, I'd say.  Especially when, for some reason, you really want to go to bed feeling like you've checked something off your list.  Some days this feeling doesn't matter, but today it does.

So... at 11:52pm, what could I possibly do to fulfill this urge...?  Some would drink some warm milk (i.e. grandma), or mix a cocktail, take a shower, read a chapter or two in a book, watch some TV... but usually those things for me are more of those everyday sorts of things.  Sure, they're nice, but they don't really generate that OH YEAH feeling for me.  Sometimes writing here can put my creativity dogs to rest, but I realize I get deterred quite often from doing such, mainly because I usually think I have to write this really well thought out, neato post that people will think is oh so cool... and then I get tired just thinking about thinking about it and usually fall asleep.

I realize, though, that I've done this with writing music as well.  I get these thoughts that say that whatever I do, it must be sooo groundbreaking and do all of this really interesting stuff that no one's ever done before, which, when I actually consider writing something, I usually say screw it and find something else to do.  Why can't I just be?

Lofty goals are wonderful--except when they discourage you from getting off the couch and starting down the goal's path.