Monday, August 30, 2004

Living Sound

When I play, I am connected to a continuum
of millennia of musicians. I can feel them all
in the swirl of emotion, condensing into a gesture,
a breath, a movement of the hand.

They come spinning out of my horn
brought to life for a fleeting moment of joy--
the joy of re-birth,even if for a moment,
the joy of experiencing the vibe once again.

By comparison, the recording is a dead thing--
a zombie moving through the air, entering
people's minds, animating the flesh and leaving
the brain numb with mindless repetition.

Burn your CDs, people! Delete your MP3s!
Listen instead to the real sound--the love
of fifty thousand years of humanity
coming at you through the atmosphere!

6 comments:

Aisha said...

Interesting thought -- mindless repetition...yes. A CD is frozen in time.
Would the same go for poetry on the page, I wonder.

Not thinking of the performance of a poem by reading it, which would presumably be live in a sense.

But rather whether the written word should be a draft, ever changing ...
Hmmm.
It IS early morning here.

Aisha

petergarner said...

Aish,

I've always thought that recording was, in a sense, an abomination--even though I've participated in many of them. But music's essence is ephemeral. That said, many types of music can be written down; we do have notation systems for musical sounds. But written music is only a representation of the music, not real music. Similarly, poetry can be written down, for what is written language but a representation of the oral, not the REAL thing. So a true parallel to the musical purgatory of recording might be recordings of poetry readings and such...

But it's getting late here ;-)))

Aisha said...

Late or early, you asid it, brother.
Make that said it ;)
Now reading in the Goldmine Saloon:...
Which is really THEN reading in...

And not LIVE, because the poet is not there at all. New Orleans is missing us, as the French says.

Aish (that means Yuk in Norwegian and Quebecois)

petergarner said...

Hi Aisha,

I think you're thinking of "ouach" (pr. wahsh), at least for the Québecois thing...

Checked out 17poets.com. Was disappointed there were no pictures of US there (after all, we WERE the stars of the show ;-)))

Aisha said...

Ouash alors. Will go look. If Ernie and Judy send pics, we can mail them to Dave...

VainAisha (Dyslxese for Vanessa)

petergarner said...

Hey Carol. I didn't see this till now. Thanks for the read

RT