What kind of music do you like?

"Anything that brings to mind or heart an idea, emotion, or thought process worth considering" is something like an answer I gave someone who asked me what kind of music I enjoyed. For some reason I think this whole blogging thing might turn in to something I really don't want to continue for a long time, but it's nice to consider my life in a different light sometimes. Which is what intrigues me about good music. Good music to me is what I described at the beginning. In the art/music classes I've taken there inevitably is some discussion about what constitutes art. There's polarized opinions, as usual, about the issue and most of the times can be stereotypically labeled using political terminology like liberal and conservative. The "liberal" trend seems to be that anything an artist intends as art must be considered art. Contrasted of course to "conservative" thought where it seems some set of boundaries or guidelines determine the genuineness any piece of art.

In my usual way I take both to mind probably more than I should, or maybe not, to formulate my own opinion. In some sense if an artist intends to make a piece of art it is "art" but paying money for an avaunt guard work of music or painting which has no form or identifiable meaning is at least, not pleasing, and at most, missing the whole point. If I was to label myself I'd put myself in the conservative mix, but when placed in a group of self proclaimed art conservatives then I tend to fall in the more liberal bracket which is puzzling.

Of course I make sense to me, and everyone else is wrong. I like Wynton Marsalis' expression of jazz. I've read critics of his music say things like he's a closed minded purist who doesn't really know about the true freedom jazz offers. They say this in response to his claim that the true freedom in jazz is found in it's form and simplicity. I didn't even have to read any of his writings to know that's what he thought based solely on what his music sounds like. Being the uncontested foremost jazz musician of this day and age at least from a virtuosic standpoint, coupled with his ability to philosophize anyone out the door, makes it difficult to find a good argument against him. But, to be honest I don't really read that much of what he's written (basically none) or follow his critics. I like his music because it brings to mind or heart an idea, emotion, or thought process worth considering.

I applaud those musicians/artists that push the limit on form and meaning, at the very least for the sake of having an extreme and just for having the guts to go there. I've heard that argument made that if you can't find meaning/emotion is a piece of art it's not because there isn't any it's because you can't find it. In my little statement about the issue one could argue that what's worth considering is completely subjective and therefore literally everything must be considered art because everything brings to mind a thought process or emotion. This may be, but because this is a blog my opinion overrules everyone else's and I never said there weren't holes in the argument...or discussion.

I like my pithy answer, not just because I got sick of resonding "I like pretty much everything", but also because I actually came up with it on my own. What's frustrating is that I'm sure if I opened some aesthetics book on art that same formulation would already be there written some few hundred or so years ago, but I didn't. And like some famous person said "all the good ideas are already taken."

uno

I wasted a good 1/4 of a tank of gas today driving to what turned out to be a scam of a job. The cramped unairconditioned room had a small fan pathetically trying to circulate air througout it. One wall had been recently painted a cheap forest green color the other 3 were a faded white. There was a small radio on the floor turned up much too loud set on a local country station placed behind three rows of old conference center chairs which faced a whiteboard with some instructions scribbled on it. It had things like not having our cell phones on, that there were no photo's or videos allowed, and to smile. I sat down amongst the other 4 people who had already arrived and was immediately aware of myself getting too hot. "It's a little loud isn't it?" I asked loud enough so everyone in the room could hear, there was some muffled laughs. The radio was turned up so loud that it's little speakers were clipping the dumb music it was playing. I got up and turned it down just as Janelle, the woman from my first interview, was walking in to give us our instructions.

"You're turning my music down?" she asked me jokingly as she walked behind the rows of chairs to turn the radio off. She began first talking about how terrible the job market is in the country right now, which immediately brought a sense of desparity about the whole job searching agenda. She then went over the instructions she had written on the board in black marker. "In a couple of minutes I'm going to ask Terry to come out and start your second and final interview. But first, there's some instructions I'd like to go over." She was a black woman in her late 20's, had a strong Southern accent and seemed nervous with all of us looking at her. Her words were mumbled and fast so it was hard to understand what exactly she was saying. In the first interview Janelle referenced Terry as "The Boss" witout ever saying his name was Terry, I liked the ambiguity of thinking of him as the The Boss. "He doesn't like to be interrupted, so write down any questions you might have while he's talking, and be sure to smile" she said. Just then The Boss came out of a door I thought was a closet in the back corner of the room.

"Goodmorning!" he said with a smile full of faded white teeth his eyes small and beady as he walked to the front of the room. Trying to be energetic everyone responded "goodmorning" (even though it was after 12pm). "Aww you can do better than that. GOODMORNING!" said The Boss. "Goodmorning!" was the barely more enthusiastic response. The Boss was a very tall, board shouldered black man in his late 30's. He had a very small head and had the look of an ex football player who, for some unfortunate reason, ended up having to enter the work force bitter after either a tragic career ending injury or for just a lack of skill. He was wearing shoes much to dressy for the rest of his well worn casual outfit as the rest of us were wearing our best. "I love my job" he said with a not too convincing grin. "I want people who smile, people smile because they love their job. Later we'll get to why I love my job." He then began talking about the 6-8 training program where we learn how to "be our own boss." "Any questions?" said The Boss, "do we get paid during the training process?" I asked. He turned and pointed at me with his finger, "that's an excellent question, I like that. We'll get to it in a second." He then proceded to tell us the company we are applying for is a "fragrance distributer", as he lovingly called it, selling "3.3 oz bottles of the world's most expensive fragrances for $30." Looking at me with a smile he said, "now you can make 200-400 dollars a week during the training process by selling these fragrances to people for $30. You keep 10, as long as I get 20 everything is fine." The woman sitting next to me asked if she could step out of the room, she not so conspicuously took her bag and notepad with her. Again he asked if there were any questions. "just to clarify", I said "we ge paid by selling the frangrances you give us to people we know, right?" "Not just to people you know" The Boss said with smile looking down at me "you can sell them to whoever you want." The Boss explained to us that he deals only in cash. "It's too much hassle for me to worry about all the paper work that goes along with sales, we want to make money right?" he said enthusiastically expecting a positive response. A middle aged women who had come in late and noticably perterbed The Boss nodded her head and said "mmhmm" in approval dripping with suck-up.

The Boss called off two people in the room, had them stand and asked them some dumb questoins about leadership and how to get along with people. He called my name "you know, Steve, did you understand that I don't need you for my sales? This is a managment position you are applying for." "No I didn't understand that" I said standing putting weight on my right leg with one hand on my hip.

He dismissed what I had to say and told me sit down. For several minutes The Boss started fumbling through the papers he had clipped to his clip board. I started smiling at him in a laughing manner, I hoped he'd see me and ask me why I was smiling, he didn't. He then told us he wanted us to fill out "blue slips" with our personal information. I got up and left, two others followed me out the door.

As I turned onto the road I looked at the building and saw the three others left in the room when I walked out standing outside the building talking to one another with puzzeled looks on their faces.

What a great experience.