Naima

Either music is one of the most essential components of what it is to be human, or it’s a complete con, a series of random tonal patterns with which we comfort ourselves, a false indicator of complexity to refute the meaninglessness of existence. After all, what is the history of human life but a generational document of trying to make life bearable? Drugs, food, art, meditation, theology, astronomy, willing denial, maximum risk, egregious consumption. In the end, we usually come back to music as the most pragmatic, sustainable, honest dose of Soma available. The question is, why does music even exist? Did it arise from the cadences of primitive language? Or did language arise from our proto-human ancestor’s first proto-rhythmic grunts? Is the desire to recognize the mathematical distance (intervals) between notes encoded in our neural framework, or is it learned? Can it just be a function of the evolutionary fortuity of having a particular kind of (auditory canal/ears) hearing apparatus? Many animals of course have far superior hearing, and advanced abilities like echolocation, but they do not have music. So why do we? In a larger sense, music is ultimately without significance in terms of survival, in the same way that athletics are pointless and full of manufactured import, but it’s hard to imagine enjoying life without either. Rhythm is elemental to every genre of music, including, and maybe especially, the intentionally arhythmic. It’s also elemental to athletics and many of the other things we value, from sex to dance, from coexisting in a city full of people to a simple daily grace. I’ve come to believe that the music I prefer expresses the truth of who I really am in ways that no words or paragraphs or endless manuscripts ever could. And often does so in a mere twelve measures, let alone a searing horn solo or three-minute radio-friendly tune. Why does music matter more or less to me than the person crossing the street in the other direction? And why does a very particular style of music speak to me on what feels like a molecular level? Did a particular set of intervals have meaning to my ancestors, carried down through countless generations, stored in the lizard brain and finally released during the moment-of-fertilization chemical wash that etched my helix with JAZZ like a cattle-brand? I wondered all this while singing “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” in the shower this morning. All my best self-indulgent and faux-intellectual musings reveal themselves in the shower. Either way, Eddie V and Diamond Dave brought it all home before I was even towel-dry. Everything is random in polyrhythm. Nothing is random in 4/4 time.