Thoughts about Early Music

I watched Shawshank Redemption last Sunday for the first time, making it all the way through the film. Among my favorite scenes was when Andy locks everyone out of the warden's office and plays the opera record over the loudspeakers. It made me think about music and, in particular, the music I enjoy.

Is early music out of touch with modern man? Is modern man capable of appreciating any music not composed by modern man? I don't understand why early music does not appeal to more people than it does. I don't understand why modern man can only tolerate music with words in English in 4/4 meter with guitar, piano, and/or percussion accompaniment. It can't simply be the age of early music. Most of it was composed after Michelangelo was alive, and modern man can more easily accept the idea of Michelangelo producing "good art."

Somehow, I think television has something to do with it. The longer I go without watching TV, the more I come to think of TV as a really disturbing thing. When I wake up at 1:30a.m. and hear the TV in the apartment above me, I feel really disturbed - not annoyed - but disturbed. The sound of a TV running, if you've ever really listened to it, is really disturbing. I only feel this way when I hear a TV but don't see it. I imagine someone sitting in front of it with their eyes gazed, in a half asleep (half dead?) state of mind and body. A body (corpse?) in front of a TV is like a leg of fried chicken in a microwave; it's a piece of meat bombarded with radiation.

What does all of this have to do with early music? It has everything to do with it. Modern man cannot appreciate early music because he is bombarded with noise and images all day long. Asking modern man to appreciate early music is like asking him to appreciate eating simple food. Modern man cannot appreciate simple food. He cannot appreciate food at all. Modern man has never experienced real hunger. He simply shoves high-fat and high-sugar junk into his mouth, gnawing on it like savages. In the same way, Modern man cannot appreciate early music because of the noise and images. The only music he can tolerate is that which can either compete or coalesce with the brutal array of noise and images in his life. This music must be loud. Since modern man is a highly desensitized creature, this music must reach toward extremes of emotion and stimulation. It must exploit man's passions: lust, anger, greed.

I'm not really being pessimistic, nor am I attempting to judge whether Modern man is good or evil because of this; I'm just trying to face reality. This is why early music is boring to most people.