It turns out that even in the paradise that is Irvine, one can have a bad day. As I awoke with every muscle in my body aching from an evening of lion dancing, I realized that my alarm had been set for P.M. instead of A.M. and I had missed my morning lecture. When I became aware that I had both missed my first class and that my body hurt all over, I promptly fell back into a coma like sleep. When I awoke, I rushed off to my discussion, arriving what I thought was about 5-10 minutes late. It turns out, however, that my discussion starts at 1 and not at 1:30 as I somehow thought. About as soon as I sat down, to the evil eyes of most everyone in the room, class was dismissed and I suddenly remembered when my class started. I apologized to the TA, made light of my belligerent lateness with him (he is a fairly cool dude after all), and headed back home on my aching legs with what I now notice are brakes that don’t work very well when wet. (No injuries, but there will be a trip to the bike shop tomorrow.)
On top of all that, it’s been raining today. It’s hard for me to really call this “rain” though. It’s more of an occasional drizzle that comes and goes. People are actually wearing coats in this weather, and I’m thinking it would have to drop about 5-10 more degrees before that was even a consideration. The drizzle is a simple cooling wind that falls with all the ferocity of the footsteps of a kitten, and I must say I somewhat enjoy a little of this weather from time to time.
So, what is the appropriate reaction to a horrible day such as this? Well, first, I think, is a matter of perspective. I can imagine a time not so long ago that a chain of events such as this may have devastated me. Now, it has become difficult to imagine how such things can bother me for more than a few minutes. I’ve seen my fair share of real troubles and hardships in life, and a day like this would gladly have been a par day only a few years ago. So, when I thought about how trouble tries to follow me where ever I go, I decided that it was a good time to turn on some good bluegrass music to carry my troubles away. (For those of you that want to play the home game, my favorite Internet bluegrass station: The Bluegrass Mix.)
Since nothing is ever simple for me, the music made me start thinking a lot about the common statement “I love all kinds of music, except country.” (I also think that most people that have that sentiment don’t differentiate between country and bluegrass, though some do.) I started thinking about this statement because I probably would have shared this idea myself when I was younger. Now, my perspective has changed to where I see excluding an entire genre of music as really a missed opportunity to experience a different range of human emotion. It’s often said that mathematics is the universal language. When we sent a message out into space to broadcast our existence, we sent it in binary code with a variety of mathematical constructs included since this would be the only way to send a message that says “Hey, we’re intelligent life. And if you are too, you’ll understand this.” So, if there is a universal language in math, I believe that music is the universal emotional language of humanity.
Why neglect a giant piece of emotional context that is carried in bluegrass and country music? I think about the classical Chinese performance music with which I am now involved and am reminded that most traditional Chinese music revolves around the very intricate use of the five notes of the pentatonic scale. I get the feeling that this type of music would be less rejected by the common man today than country music or bluegrass. And yet despite being a massive gap of time, space, and culture apart, they share a similar emotional context delivered in the complex and deep way that only music can. Chinese music is very environmental, often carrying with it themes of the land. It also deals with subjects of profound loss and sorrow. Suicide is not an uncommon theme in Chinese folklore. Through its music and dance, China paints a picture of its people and its land, along with its sorrows and its triumphs.
The music of Kentucky is no different, but it paints the picture of its own land, spoken in its own musical language. Bluegrass music is highly environmental as well and often sings about simple concepts. It contains large amounts of sorrow in its storytelling devices. It’s often about blue collar or farm workers struggling to make a living, or their relationship with their land or their god. The fast paced complexity of the banjo in many ways resembles the complicated play of the guqin. Why does this music get looked down upon while salsa music is considered to be sexy, or Chinese music is said to be highly cultural? It contains a unique emotional context tied to a unique land with a unique people. Neglecting this genre of music is in a way trying to claim that a piece of the human experience should be looked away from. I often sense two primary reasons that bluegrass and country music often get looked down upon.
The first reason, I think, is a kind of subtle reverse racism. Bluegrass music and country music are seen as the music of the ignorant, working-class, Christian white man. Today, that is everything that the modern multicultural perspective is suppose to despise. Most of mainstream music comes out of California today in one way or another through the major record companies, and most Californians, though I doubt they would admit it, look down on any state they consider to be Southern. Country music is against the liberal California way of life, and should be shunned in a way usually reserved for infectious diseases. Our stereotyping selves think, “Well, if they don’t want their son to grow up to be a gay Castro hairdresser, I don’t want my son to grow up to be a Mississippi preacher man!” Often, the very people that would make the argument that rap music will not turn your child into a gangster end up shying away from country music for what essentially amounts to the same rationalization. The Chinese music mentioned above soothes the pangs of white guilt by its claim of diversity, while bluegrass music pours salt on the wound.
The second reason, and the reason that brought out my own thoughts of bluegrass music on this rainy day, has to do with the topic of sorrow in love being prevalent in bluegrass music. The other common reason to look down upon country music is that it deals too often with the topics of heartbreak and whiskey, and not always in that order. Listening to sad songs makes people sad. However, once again I think that by completely avoiding presenting ourselves with the sorrow and pain of life, that we are missing a fundamental piece of our own humanity. There’s a claim these days that all anybody needs to do in life is try to be happy. What nobody ever tells you is that true happiness is not at all an easy task. Relationships will break down; people will die; the darkness will come for us all at some points in our lives. Right now, if I took five shots of whiskey, I think I could reasonably say that, at least for the evening, I would be a happy man. However, that is not really the happiness that we are suppose to be seeking. The human experience isn’t just about being happy, it’s also about dealing with the hard facts to life. It’s about working for a greater reward. Bluegrass music conveys the emotional context of a people that had to deal with hard facts of life, and worked for the rewards that their values saw fit to seek. They often did not succeed, and often feel on hard times, but they tell the story anyway. We may not want our hearts to break, or to become restless souls, or to have people die before their time, but the human story calls into play all these things. Saying you don’t listen to bluegrass because its sad in many ways indicates an incompleteness to the soul, or at least denial of a piece of the soul that we must all one day face.
However, maybe that’s the reason people tend to appreciate bluegrass music more as they grow older. After having myself experienced many dark and troubled times, I embraced different musical flavors that I would have never been able to relate with as much as I do now. So, when I listen to this bluegrass on this rainy day, it does carry my troubles away with it. I can sing a tune of folk melodies that relates my sorrow to the human experience, and my day of not having the alarm clock goes off can be met with a smile and a readiness for the next task at hand.
