3 posts tagged “culture”

"...literally adapting the body and mind to the way of nagauta. This notion of adapting the self to the art form is common in Japanese training and contrasts with Western notions of "mastery" of art in which individuals seek to control or subordinate the material to the self. The goal of Japanese artistic training is not the perfection of an art object as an end in itself, but the development of the experiencing self as a never-ending, lifelong process, conceived of as a "path" or "way of art" (geido)." - Shaped by Japanese Music, by Jay Keister

I just got spammed on facebook...lol.

So I've been listening to a lot of World Music lately...and I am continually struck by one fact: That I love it because I don't understand it; it is similar to my love for Thousand Cranes and Beauty and Sadness, which I also don't understand, but feel I am capable of barely grasping at aesthetic references...

I love this not understanding, because I take a great comfort in it. Most World Music (that I've been listening to, anyway) is indiginous...it is the people of that region's natural way of expressing their own desires, feelings, frustrations. It is a primal, instinctive thing, just like all music, but also like all music, it has a structure, a rhythm, a purpose.

And I find it so fascinating that, though we are all human, and we can communicate through it, the structure is what bars us from fully comprehending...the difference in structure between Japanese Festival Music and Dvorak...I understand Dvorak. I can feel Dvorak...but Japanese Festival Music...I can just appreciate.

So  it is fascinating that culture prevents us from understanding the same basic feelings of fellow humans, even though culture is a product of humanity...we create barriers which prevent us from understanding each other, even though we are all the same...

I think that the not understanding is comforting because it means that there are things in this world I just have to accept I cannot understand; it is also comforting because I have no obligation to feel this music...there is no obligation at all to even understand...and I am free to draw whatever conclusions I may, because I am protected by this impermeable veil of ignorance...this filter through which my culture has subjected me to, and which, even if I tried, immersed myself in another culture, it would take me years to comprehend.

It is sort of like when people dedicate their entire lives to the study of a foreign language, when others are born so easily into it and just know...just because of location, it can determine the fate of a person's life...but doesn't it almost seem a waste? That someone could spend years learning something that came naturally to another? And a waste that they don't revel in what was naturally imposed upon them?

I got my digicam back :) The 7th Art continues...