Schrag Porch: More Selected Oldies

Schrag Porch: Still around 2001, maybe ‘02

Preference Tracking

Contextual information, a la Amazon et al, is a problematic "product." We now allow software engineers to define the links in our personal conceptual space. Imagine sending a poem to your lover using e-mail. The poem appears on her screen surrounded by messages that begin: If you love this man, then you might also enjoy these other guys. . . ."

[A 2017 Update – regulations that would have limited the amount and kinds of personal information various online entities could gather and sell have just been struck down by The White House.  “Everything old is new again .  .  . “]

The “Good” Heartbreak in Love Songs

The heartbreak in love songs is not my heartbreak, and therein lies their beauty. When Eva Cassidy sings "Along the winter shore, all your fickle friends are leaving. But then you know that it was time for them to go," there is a purity of loss that just "hurts so good." 

Certainly loss is loss and empty can be incredibly painful; yet out the other side of loss is a positive empty, because only that which is empty can be filled again. The refilling of a heart made deeper and emptier by loss is just about as close as we can get to grace/nirvana/heaven/peace - chose your own inadequate word. So love songs remind us that the beauty of heartbreak is the promise of the refilling that will follow loss.

The Voice as an Instrument

Today  on  my  walk,  I  listened  to  Elvis: The  Number  One Hits.  A couple  of things occurred to me. First, the man had a simply incredible voice - range, power, fabulous control. Not obvious on songs like "Hound Dog," but on works like "Don't" and "It's Now or Never," the range is operatic. 

Parallel thoughts: The voice is an instrument - not terribly profound, I realize, but the way in which that particular instrument is employed in a work makes important differences. Instrumental works have no vocals so the work is instrumentally structured and communicated. Elvis, Bocelli, Streisand, and Sinatra all foreground the voice as the dominant instrument, hence the lyric is also dominant. 

Much contemporary music seems unable to decide between the need for loud instruments or dominant vocals. Unfortunately the result is often a discordant competition between the two. "Vocalists" hollering over loud instruments. A bit of linguistic evidence: bands have been "bands" both before MTV and after MTV. But before MTV we used to identify the individual members as either musicians or vocalists. After MTV it became quite common to refer to mainstream band members as "performers." Neither musician nor vocalist, they "act" in music videos or choreographed concerts.

[Another 2017 update, I have rediscovered John Denver’s voice. OK, some of the lyrics do lean toward trite, but listen to the voice. Headphones. Just lovely.]