Pie Anna & The Snob

Music is one of the few global processes we know of in the brain. Hooray for music then. Now, music has done much to me and for me. My ears are damaged, though only time will tell to what degree and how it'll all end up and whether I consider it a fair trade-off. Music has also shaped me though, and made me much of the person I am today as well as allowing me the opportunity to travel to many places I most certainly would not have done and play to people that would otherwise have ignored me.

Apparently, when you reach a certain age you begin to lose somewhere in the region of 50,000 neurons a day. It means that starting something, learning something new, is more difficult than if you tried it when you were a kid and your brain was a sponge soaking it all up. I was daft enough to start learning the piano a year ago. 35, and taking on something as monstrous as the piano. A year later, I am pleased with my progress, though I never imagined for one minute it would be as difficult as it is, with or without losing my brain cells.

I think that everyone should be made to take piano lessons. Here's why; it teaches you to take things one step at a time, it teaches you co-ordination, and it teaches you expression. Three bloody good reasons. Not least the first one. In piano, learning a piece, you do it bar-by-bar. You learn a bar, you move on. Then you piece them together. It gets programmed into your fingers, your motor cortex, and you know it. And its a good lesson to take with you. Do things one step at a time and its easier. Go rushing in and you'll fuck up.

Now, the piano is something I've kept relatively secret. I play for me, to me, its me me me. I get a huge amount of pleasure from it, especially when it just works or you pull off something fiendishly difficult that has been plaguing you for months. Why then, would I not want to shout about this, record me playing pieces and stick them on Youtube? Because I play classically. I play Bach, Chopin, Debussy and Schumann. 

Sadly for these splendid fellows, many people view classical music as the domain of the upper class, of the snobs and the stuck-ups. The upper classes have done nothing to dispel the myth that classical music is for the rich or the especially intelligent. The morons. Beauty is for anyone fortunate enough to turn their senses to it. Many are afraid of introspection for fear of what lies within, and I think certain pieces of classical music are so affecting, looking in is the only thing you can do. If you don't like what you see there, see a therapist, but don't blame the music.

Why you would not want to listen to music of such beauty and power with all the sonic garbage that clogs up the charts is quite beyond me. Sure, you can't put up with it all the time, you need a beat, you need some noise, some anger and some fun. But when you want to be moved, and I mean really, really moved, where every fucking emotion you can imagine is moulded over a couple of staves and spread out over 6 or 8 minutes, I don't see how you can go anywhere but to a piano. 

Chopin's Raindrop Prelude. So called because the one note (A flat) that plays throughout it is supposed to symbolise the pitter and the patter of raindrops. Plus the middle section could almost be a storm, a storm that later recedes and is replaced again by a light rain.
Aww. Nice. But come on. Such an adolescent interpretation. For me, the Raindrop Prelude demands to tell you that it soundtracks your life. It begins very delicately, then the initial theme is expanded upon, then it gets darker. And as we grow, we learn the important things; that people don't always get what they deserve, that we are often exploited, that we lose things and people we love, and we get very, very pissed off about it. This, to me, is the middle part of the Raindrop. The anger you contain throughout a lot of your days. Then, at the end with the refrain, so it goes with us. We return to a state similar to the one when we got here. We realise the little things don't matter a fuck, we realise life is a thing of beauty, even with the tragedies, and as the song closes, we too find peace. The one note that plays throughout, to me is a heartbeat. Not rain. Rain is a daft idea.

Would I be afraid of saying the above to some bow-tie wearing knob shank of a classical music critic? Damn right. But why would my interpretation of that piece be wrong? It is what it is. He doesn't agree so what. I'll take it to the grave, to my last chord, because its what the piece says to me. Therefore, it can never be wrong. 

Imposing limitations on your musical tastes is a daft idea. I remember when I was at school you could only like Def Leppard. Anyone else and you were out cast. Whilst it now seems okay for anyone to like anything, still classical music is the elephant in the room. I wish more would embrace it. I know it seems dense, I know it seems overwhelming, but by jingo its worth it. 

The people who wrote this stuff weren't snobs either. Many of them lived awful lives, lives of poverty, lives of heart-break, lives of ill health. Chopin died at the age of 39 of Cystic Fibrosis, heart-broken that his great love was not there as she promised she would be. Beethoven died at 56 from unknown causes, he was a raging alcoholic, had chronic diarrhoea, and was profoundly deaf in his later years, the worst thing you could wish upon a composer of music. He was also twice nearly beaten to death by his alcoholic father when he was a child. Bach had 10 children die in infancy, as well as experiencing the death of his mother and father before he was 10, and the death of the love of his life. Who else can be more qualified at expressing tragedy. Yet this music is for everyone, they created this stuff that was so beautiful, and the upper classes got hold of it and made it feel exclusive to them. Fuck that, take it back off them. Its out there to enjoy, to plough through, to soundtrack your life. If needs be, start with one of those arbitrary 'Best Piano Album In The Universe (though we have no proof of that) Volume 3 (How can they do Volumes of something that they proclaim to be the best in the universe?). Whatever you start with, just try it. Dip your toe in the water, see how it feels, or else you too will be a snob, only an inverted one.