knowledge and music

what did i know last night while playing
dobro at a CD release party in a coffeehouse
in st joe here's what i knew then
here's what i am thinking after now
looking back to last night

the place was loud people were talking one had the sense
that somewhere in the room there was music and with a little more effort it was possible
to discern that an actual person was playing guitar and singing
and people somehow were appreciating him being there
but it was loud

so what was he doing there
casting out his songs to a loud room
talking and singing into the mic as if
people were actually paying attention

i did notice that when the songs finished
people clapped so some form of listening
was happening
we knew the man was in the room

i sat with a couple listening
and we ended up talking
about music and how it gets heard or ignored

i am conscious of the fact that for 4 or 5 songs i tried to accompany the performer
i playing a dobro and
i trying to make a momentary sense of
what the hell we were doing
it seemed like playing into the mayhem
of human mental disturbance
it seemed like a storm of deafness
was 10 ft away

when all was said and done i don't know what happened
it was a performance
people stood around and talked loud
music happened in an all but negligible fashion
i guess that's a good thing

i don't know though
what is music how should it be heard
how should it be experienced

to me it seemed like the raucous
gathering of locals was simply a
way of being with the musician
the music was secondary
it was enough for the folks gathered
to be in the presence of the musician playing
even if they were not fully conscious of
what he was doing

what does it mean to try to play and hear
music in the midst of a noisy crowd

the dobro had such a piercing effect
in the sound system the feedback started
and could not be contained it just kept humming
so i played with feedback as part of my sound

from time to time i am given to comment on musical performance
with the idea in mind that somehow our understanding of ourselves is
tied up with our understanding of music
so then
music as an avenue to epistemological insight
is legitimized

we've yet to fully explore the possibilities of
playing music only against a backdrop
of complete quiet
in a quiet place with merely a few listeners

i must now to the role of cantor
attend