Re: GG- Re: On musical abilities...

[KImmoor@aol.com]

   To Josh and Joseph (and everyone following along,) you've finally nudged
me to respond. Let me join with you in saying a simple "me too." I am also a
visual artist, working professionally in my chosen field. My works have
ranged from fine art exhibitions to commercial publications, and I also have
never been moved to tears by visual art, mine or anyone else's. However, the
Gigue from Bach's English Ste 2 in A Min will usually have me in tears in
minutes. (Also, ironically enough, 'Hello In There' by John Prine - and I
thought I was the only one!) 
   Like Josh said, unlike typically static visual art, there's just something
undeniably immediate and enveloping about music. For me, visual art breeds
obsession; I will find an artist or a piece that moves me, and it will be a
quiet sort of love. I will cut out the picture, maybe re-draw it in my
sketchbook, hoard it away in my mind. With music, on the other hand, I sing,
I dance around, I cry, conduct, smile - it is an unavoidably public
affection! 
   I've discussed it with many of my friends, and the closest thing we could
find to a name for the feeling is "The Universal Love Moment." Now, before
you start thinking you've accidentally gotten some Grateful Dead E-mail, just
think about it: you're listening to the music, you feel the movement, the
pounding of the strings or the sawing of the bow; you can sway to the rhythm
as if it were a tangible molecular wave moving more than just your
eardrums... you know the next notes - or maybe you don't - you feel them
crashing over you or raining down upon you, and then suddenly IT creeps up on
you you - brief, gorgeous, lightning-like in intensity, the moment of
epiphany! The moment where for no reason at all you say to yourself, "yes,
everything is going to be alright." It's as if nothing in the world is so
terrible anymore, no worry is too unbeatable; you are truly aware of the
heights of the human spirit. For those brief moments, you feel a sort of
connection with the whole of the universe. So, although the ecstasy that GG
spoke about was largely, I believe, meant to be one of interiority, I think
that there is also a moment of ecstasy that connects the musician and his
audience.
   Ah, never mind, it sounds very dorky in text, much better in person - but
I am sure that a few of you know what I mean. Similar to Josh's explanation,
I think it is the evolving epiphany that comes form an art form in motion.
With GG it is all the more intense because we know he is there, we can hear
him breathing and humming and rocking to and fro at the keyboard. It is all
the more intense to know what it would look like to see him playing simply
from the sound that was left behind. 
   (And for the record, my family was a musical one, and I was forced to
study piano for 7 years. I also played violin for 4 or 5. I quit both as soon
as free will allowed, and though music has always been one of the most
important things in my life and it might be nice to play again, I find I
don't miss it very much. Go figure.)
Regards - Kristen