The music of the spheroids

Posted by admin on Feb 3, 2009 in Issues & Ideas | 0 comments

Editor’s note: Continuing his inadvertent series on odd ways to make the world a better place, our hero/author takes on certain breakfast habits and musical styles. Therefore, attempting to anger and offend a numerous and diverse crowd of people is, at worst, his secondary purpose.

The boiled egg should be dismissed from all civilized breakfast tables as the least-inspired dish ever to plague them. Such mistreatment of the egg parallels that of music; both are symbolic of a modern malaise – the apathy towards once-radiant aesthetic ideals.

Think of all the lovely things that eggs can be used for: soufflés, omelettes, coddled eggs, devilled eggs, egg salads, sunny-side-up-or-down eggs, scrambled eggs, quiches, pickled eggs, eggnog, angel-food cakes, meringue, meatloaves, burgers, all sorts of cookies, custards and salad dressings. More questionable uses include hangover remedies, plugging radiators, re-plasticizing leather, spoon-races, Ukrainian traditions, catapult ammunition, rocketry payloads and latent hydrogen sulphide bombs. Clearly, this ovoid of radical wonders springing forth from the noble chicken should be crowned queen of all foodstuffs. More clearly still, boiling and directly thereafter eating an egg is the most terrible misuse of the potential for goodness since Wagner (or perhaps the ’70s).

The truth is that no one in their right mind would choose, on purely aesthetic grounds, a rubbery, tasteless mass over the celestial delights that result from the proper use of eggs. And so we’ve found the culprit at the base of this travesty: utility. Protein is necessary to get going in the morning. End of story. The boiled egg is protein, but ashes in the mouth of the aesthetic soul.

This same spirit is present in music. Think of the best melodies and orchestration: If we listened to the music most in touch with the Form of Music, the air would teem with the best Mozart, Techno, Mendelssohn, Punk covers, Brahms, Jazz, Musical, Latin dance, and Big Band.

But this isn’t happening. And so the musical aesthetic ideal hurts: rather than excellence of form being held in high esteem, it is ignored in favour of whatever appeals to particularly whiney existential angst or particularly black moodiness, no matter its musical merit. And it is this that becomes ragingly popular.

That’s right: the driving force behind bad music is the desire for musical junk-food appealing to our individual brand of life. Worse still, contemporary culture has gone pre-teen. Are you feeling heartbroken and alone? The empty wails of Celine Dion or sundry Country stars will echo those of your heart. Feeling angry, dark, and misunderstood? Screamo or indie will pound/croak sufficiently primal wavelengths into your ears. Want to dull your humanity and inhibitions? Hip-hop and club music happily oblige. Yearning for a mix of all of these? Pop.

And the musical establishment, most capable of making the very best music, mainly just fiddles while Rome burns, cranking out new musical cacophonies like those of Prokofiev, Bartok, Cage or any other cookie-cutter Atonal

But why does this matter so much? The trouble is that these issues cannot be relegated to an acceptance of particular tastes. The pandemonium of bad music is a utilitarian appeal to emotional pseudo-fulfilment that is making the world deaf to beauty. Similarly, this hollow shell of mystery surrounding the boiled egg is rent asunder by our fantastic mental spoons of deductive intellect: the boiled egg is a symbol of tired and individualistic utilitarianism.

Do you hear the ring of truth? What we value aesthetically defines much of our very humanity, so a poor appreciation of true beauty (wherever it lies) in favour of anything else is nothing less than calamitous. This is why the badly-cooked egg is as unpalatable as poorly-wrought music is unendurable.

The good news is that the whole movement is combatable. Opening the door to universal truth and beauty, be it through Bach or breakfast, informs the soul and actively combats the radical individualism and utilitarianism that has so thoroughly messed with our perceptions. So let’s go to it! Big Band and soufflé will put poetry back in our souls. Vivaldi with our omelettes may put hope for the best of Western culture back in our hearts once more, or at least help us all see the sunny side of life.