Musical Chairs: How Music Organizes, Evokes, and Intoxicates

Have you ever noticed the tendency to put on the music while cleaning and organizing?

I've been researching habits, addiction, dependency, and neurotransmitters; and it occurred to me as I delved into these things that music is like a substance that we ingest.

When we get a new CD we are excited by it for awhile, playing it over and over, enjoying the discovery and the new sounds, but after a time, we stop listening to it as often or enjoying it as much. We then, move on to new music and begin the experience of pleasure and discovery all over again. This is tolerance in the world of drugs, especially painkillers.

When a person builds up a tolerance to a dose of painkillers, they need a higher dose or new drug in order to achieve the same feeling of freedom from pain.

But why do we listen to music while organizing around the house and elsewhere? Because it's a "drug," like nearly everything else in our life. Drugs and other substances open and close doors in our brain, helping us to function better--or worse, depending on what it is and who we are.

The rhythm of music is a substance that we ingest through our ears. The rhythm causes our brain to go into a straightening up mode, to organize things in the rooms. Rhythm and Melody, that skipping lady of the tingling, tripping toes, unlocks the doors to let that delightful child, Joy run up and down the halls to show us the simple pleasures at her feast table.

Joy is the child that runs up and down relaxing the tension in the springs. She peeks out when we see beautiful art, music, when we smell the lilacs, or coffee. She is springtime. Joy is that one who makes us cry when we're happy, when our emotions have been evoked. And because of her special light touch, yet powerful emotional powers she causes us to remember. Joy increases our short term and long term memories, embedding them within those rooms of our mind.

When Joy is locked up, kept prisoner in a dark room, there is a gloomy mood in the house, the pleasure of eating is disrupted causing one to eat too much or too little, there is nothing worth remembering or learning. If Joy is not let loose the owner of the house may sink into a dark place, overcome by depression, low self esteem, and may strike out against their joyless life with aggression.

Even plants grow better when music is played to them. Perhaps, that saying about plants growing better if we talk to them is true.

And if Music is an ingested substance that causes the release of different neurotransmitters, is it any different than a prescription pill, or street drug? Is this why we have music "wars," because unconsciously we know this?

Is this why different groups of people imbibe in different strains of music? There's gospel, classical, soul, bluegrass, rock, hip hop, the blues, and countless other strains of the plant. Certain strains are considered "hardcore" corruptions of music, dangerous hybrids laced with toxic substances, which cause the user to behave destructively.

Then, there is the patented laboratory musical formula produced en masse for the majority of users. This is the polished, "clean" stuff that we rave about, but only releases Joy in small doses. Then, there is the patented formula of rap, a strange concoction that has been altered from its roots, and sold to the mass produced white kids of suburbia.

We all have our favorite strains of the substance. And it may be ignorance of its purpose and wreckless use that harms its purpose of releasing that joyful tingle. All drugs can be abused. Are we binge drinking music, or enjoying it and getting some pleasure or release of tension from it?

Albigence Waldo, in his Rustick way, sums up perfectly how music unlocks Joy and lets her do her job:

Valley Forge, 23 December 1777 - "This evening an excellent Player on the Violin in that soft kind of Musick, which is so finely adapted to stirr up the tender Passions, while he was playing in the next Tent to mine, these kind of soft Airs it immediately called up in remembrance all the endearing expressions, the Tender Sentiments.... and filled me these tender emotions, and Agreeable Reflections, which cannot be described, and which in spite of my Philosophy forced out the sympathetic tear. I wish'd to have the Musick Cease, and yet dreaded its ceasing, least I should loose sight of these dear Ideas, which gave me pain and pleasure at the same instant" (emphasis mine).

What Albigence describes is the ingesting of music and the freeing of Joy to do her job. This is what C.S. Lewis calls Sehnsucht.

image: Lena Horne and Duke Ellington

Older than the hills

"The child is the father of the man," a line from Wordsworth that has become a staple amongst Western literary quotations, and for good reason. It is so well said, so succinct, and so cyclical.

It is the spring board from which I will jump into some musing, observation, and opinion.

Wordsworth and his fellow poets of the Lake School were a band of Romantics, or as we would term them in more modern terms, "hippees." They wanted to get back to nature and enjoy free love away from industrial air. But the difference between them and our now aged hippees is that they really were creative, talented, and wise at times. They were quite industrious and have given generation to following generations, unlike the aged hippees who have often trampled upon the generations that followed them, or as Wordsworth put it:

Unprofitably travelling toward the grave,
Like a false steward who hath much recieved
And renders nothing back (The Prelude)

How is it that the child is the father of the man? Obviously, because he came first, and without the child there would be no man. But perhaps, there is more to it, perhaps, we are looking at things with limited sight, through that dark glass.

The child really is the father of the man.

Why do we say, "when I was younger," when we refer to our self as we were many years before?

That "younger" self no longer exists except as a memory in the fabric of time, an image captured in our mind. That younger self is actually older than the present self.

Why is it that we as individual people were younger, but history as a whole is considered ancient and older? Was it not also younger, newer, more energetic and beautiful too?

Why when we look at pictures of us in our early days, do we say with surprise, "Look at how young and good-looking I was. Look, no gray, no wrinkles, no sagging, no added thickness! I had SO much energy back then. I had no worries. I had no money and barely ate (because I had no money)and everything I owned fit into a box. I was so happy!"?

But when we look at history (which resembles a younger person) we say, "They were unhappy, poor, uneducated barbarians. They didn't know any better. They had no manners, no baths, no hygiene, no electricity. They were slave owners, they were slaves. They thought the world was flat and that a god or gods had created them (imagine, not knowing it is monkeys that fathered us!), they sacrificed their babies to these gods thinking it would make life better. We are so much more advanced through science and now only kill babies to make their life better, because we're so caring...."

We sound like old people when we speak of the previous younger generations this way. Turn that music down!

Isn't this how people often speak of younger adults? When speaking of the younger people it is often said that they possess the same uncouth attributes as the earth's inhabitants when they were hundreds and thousands of years younger.

I have often thought in recent months that we have become very old and that it is no longer the next generation setting the standard by which we live. It is the aging generations, those in their 40's, and especially those in their 50's and 60's that dictate the rules, that grasp onto their belief that their way is the right way.

One of the hints showing our old age is color.

In times past it has been the unwrinkled ones that chose color palettes and decor tastes. Color, like music, can be considered too loud for aging individuals, causing them to feel nervous, tense, or offended.

Newer generations have always loved color and combining it in new ways that define their generation and outlook on the world. Color is a way of expressing one's self.

Now color is being repressed by the aged among us, as many other forms of expression and freedom are also being repressed.

I discovered this killing of color when looking into the world of the past. I was looking at vinyl composition tile (VCT) and could not find anyone using it outside of offices, hospitals, and grocery stores. VCT tile is now considered taboo for home flooring, not rich enough.

But when youthful people set the rules VCT tile was in nearly every home and in nearly every color. Younger people and families don't generally have a lot of money, but this did not prevent them from setting the standard of middle class living through the first half or so of the 20th century.

I looked at picture after picture of VCT tile advertising from the 1920's through the first part of the 1960's and found my heart racing with the discovery of wonderful color. It was as if an entire world was opened up to me. And then I felt a bit cheated out of this knowledge that has been suppressed in the limited time I live in.

I felt old, as if my entire world was ruled by the rules of the old.

Color is life, joy, freedom, creativity, and youth. Not sedate, aged, and offensive.

The advertising of the young in comparison with the real estate of the current time is stark. The current colors to emulate are dead browns, grays, whites, mute greens, and more browns. These are the colors of winter when no snow has fallen and the blue sky does not shine through the haze. Why is November's winter and fall overriding crisp, biting winter, spring, and summer?

Previous generations would have chosen rich browns over dull brown, and spiked it with brilliant royal red, bright greens, pink, or teal. Gray would have been paired with yellow, red, purple, and jewelled emerald. Pink paired with turquoise was not tacky.

Are we in the winter of our life?

Our global worries are the worries of the elderly. We worry that we are dying, and believe experts when they tell us we must take certain remedies in order to squeeze more life out of our crotchety old bones and planet. We are easily conned (which also means "steered"). Where are the "young" people to shake their heads at us, ignore us, and make fun of us?

When we were younger we never thought we would get old.

Now, we have gotten old and too blind to even see how old and gnarled we are. The dementia has set in and we convince ourselves that if we follow the doctor's advice we can keep forever healthy, fit, advanced, and alert.

No, we are not younger. The world is older and sits in a rocking chair, too old, too blind, too feeble to get up and help itself.

If only grandma hadn't gotten rid of her youth, then she'd have someone to help her around.

History is young. We are old.

In our youthful and romantic past there is a father to teach us, if we're not too old to remember, too stiff-necked to turn around.

The earth is all before me. With a heart
Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty,
I look about; and should the chosen guide
Be nothing better than a wandering cloud,
I cannot miss my way. I breathe again! (The Prelude, William Wordsworth)