At first one hears the lonely sound of an oboe, hovering in the ether, which is followed by other, um…..oboic noises. There is no rhythm, nor, technically, a melody, unless one considers the possibility that the notes played are a kind of artistic language, and that this language itself may pass for a melody. Other familiar landmarks of conventional music are missing as well–words, phrases, other instruments (that I could hear), reasons for being performed, etc.
This last comment is unfair, I suppose; the song Glimmerings by Catherine Lee is intended as a musical response to Shoes, by Xan Indigo, who is, like the oboist mentioned, most likely someone.
This kind of music is likely to perplex the average listener. For those of you who have seen the movie, most listeners would likely react like the Hebrew school teacher in “A Serious Man” (2009) upon hearing such music, after he gets his gnarled fingers on a confiscated transistor radio, slips the earpiece in, and hears, like a chorus of heavenly angels…music!(?)
Or maybe it’s a Sports Talk Show–we never hear–but the effect is the same. The teacher gapes, his eyes stare open-mouthed heavenward, and his jaw falls, as if ready to say “I’ve heard something like this sometime–perhaps before my birth, or behind the wall of the place I’ve barricaded myself in, there where I played outside as a child in the sunlight and I knew what it meant to just…be…”
One listener, random user #781789376 (name changed to protect the innocent), commented thusly: “Brilliant glimmers of whalesong…”, which is interesting; I was thinking the same thing. It immediately brought to mind another Coen brothers movie in which Whale Songs played an integral role: “The Big Lebowski.”
In one scene, main character Jeffrey Lebowski is sitting in his bathtub listening to Whale Songs and smoking a joint when German Techno musicians break into his apartment and smash his answering machine with a club, but that is neither here nor there. The important thing is that these whale tunes were heard, they had meaning to the main character, at least while he was high. Which is about the only way music like this will ever get heard by a larger audience.
As a matter of fact, later (or earlier?) in this movie the Dude goes to visit the carpet-owner’s daughter (don’t ask), who is a modern artist. She paints, at least in this scene, naked and while hanging from an ingenuous zip line contraption in her studio. The song she is listening to in this scene, “Walking Song” by Meredith Monk* [Link below]–who is also someone–is technically the first thing I thought about when I heard “Glimmerings.”
I must note here that Meredith Monk is an acclaimed artist, honored by President Obama for her talents. It is also not her responsibility, as an artist, to conform to her audience’s desires. That being said, go ahead and listen to “Walking Song.” I rest my case.
Both compositions have never, or will ever, breach the fortress walls of that dreaded colossus named conventional pop music. But is this such a bad thing? For mere mortals both songs are a collection of noises: oboe in the former, breathing in the latter. Both are composed by white females born, assumedly, to financially secure families. Such persons always have something or someone to fall back on, should this life, or their careers, disappoint. As they most assuredly will, at least financially.
The masses do not have such an option. They, sadly, are required by circumstance to perform whatever tasks are necessary to get them through another hard day in these permanently hard times. Their music reflects that. There is no guesswork involved, no interpretations, no theories, no deep thoughts or grand takeaways.
The result of which, sadly, is that popular music tends to gravitate to the superficial, the materialistic, and the, like, stoopit. The aforementioned two songs, on the other hand, bravely take us to aural realms we have never heard before–and end up sounding weird. They are not grounded, and have little place on Earth, amongst lowly common humans. If these songs were food, they would taste like a peanut butter and horseshoe crab blood** sandwich–on sea shell "bread."
What can one do with the tools one has? This question is worth asking for the great mass of men and women, who have no deep pockets to buoy them. For many a wealthy artist, however, the rule seems to be: what kind of cool-ass tools no mortal can afford can we use to do something no one has heard before (or will want to hear again)? I am informed looking at the “Glimmerings” info that the electronics were “performed” by the Scuffed Computer Improviser (SCI), and programmed by Taylor Brook.
What does that mean?
A drum. A guitar. A damned triangle. Two wooden blocks, fer Chrissakes. Humans have shown through the ages that they are capable of performing amazing feats with the simplest of instruments. Why bring this middle man in? Why involve big business at all? When has big business ever concerned itself with our lives and dramas down here on Earth? Where did this SCI study music? More importantly, when did SCI ever feel it?
A far more interesting task, in my opinion, would not be bringing technology into music, or making whale sounds with an oboe, but to get Shakespeare out into the streets. Or, if we’re sticking to similar artistic genres: put Mozart out there.
Life is not lived inside a computer, no matter how well this idea fits into our business schemes.
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*–At $53,250 a gallon, it's easy to see why horseshoe crabs are hard to find now.
