The Challenge of "Culture"

[innerSpaceman]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

Now that I ride the Metro, I've become more and more inlove with the architecture of this town

Would that be the strip clubs, or the junk yards?

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

But I also thought that with all this musical technology few of us ever make our own music anymore.

Well, I've been putting off learning to play the Sax for over 2 years now, but I don't think that having recorded music so available to me has anything to do with that. Certainly, if anything, my love for the saxophone, acquired via listening to recorded music, is what's inspiring me to learn the instrument in the first place.

In any event, while I think more people may have learned to play music in the days when live music was all music, I maintain that enjoyment of music is far more commonplace, and a life enrichment, now that live music is but a tiny fraction (for most of us) of all music.

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

Even in face to face conversations your lucky if you get anywhere near 50% of the communication happening through the words.

Ah, but this is where I think lyrical songs have it over mere face-to-face conversation. Even in a live performance, the vocalist is not necessarily communicating the song's lyric story through his facial and body language. Lyrics are an artwork whose communication is through the words and vocal expression alone. I love it for that. It is not reliant on physicality the way that conversations are. Its communication is complete, as designed, without that sort of thing.

Physicality may add to the experience, but I don't think the lack of it detracts ... any more than I think hearing recorded music detracts. A live performance may be better, but a recorded performance is "complete" as is.

[lindyhop]

I'm on the side of lyrics when it comes to music. It was so great when they started printing lyrics with albums and CDs so I could stop listening to my favorite records over and over, a few lines at a time, until I had all the lyrics written down. I always love a clever turn of phrase but I'm a word person in most other things, too.