Dancing about Architecture

Last night I was celebrating my bass player's birthday at a bar called 40C. I was sitting at a table with him, along with my drummer, and a musical engineer. The front side of my drink coaster said: "Musical Truism no. 18." I rolled my eyes. A beer company was going to tell me something about music. The back said: "Music is more telling than logic."

It was exactly what I had anticipated. I said to everyone at the table: "I hate this." I hate any sort of "music for music's sake," "music is the best thing ever," "music is the TRUTH" sloganeering. Not that I don't harbor similar delusions.

I drew attention to the fact that this coaster was "telling," and utilizing a logical medium (language), to express its truism. The engineer repeated another truism: "talking about music is like dancing about architecture." I suggested that you could in fact demonstrate architectural structures by dancing awkwardly, and perhaps that's what this blog will attempt.

I don't think you can talk about music, insofar as you can "explain" it, and I'm not sure that most things of worth are explainable in any descriptive fashion. On the other hand, I don't really do anything except music and I have a lot of thoughts about it. I don't want to criticize or act like I understand something the artist doesn't. I want to celebrate and appreciate what I don't comprehend.

I told everyone at the table: "maybe the problem with this is that most of the time, I don't like to share." So I'm going to share.

Let the wild, condo-shaped gesticulations begin.