Music...

It is the ultimate commonality between complete strangers. No matter who you are, what your culture is, what language you speak, what customs you follow… you love music, just like me… just like everyone else. Of course when I say ‘just’ like me… I obviously don’t expect our favorite genres to be identical. Only the fact, that for both of us… there is some kind of music… that would sweep us away.

I am not used to writing articles… at least ones that aren’t satirical or depressing… but going over a phrase I myself had used mockingly sometime back… I felt that this would be one subject that deserves to be expounded upon.

I had listed, whilst making a sarcastic comparison… the three things that off the top of my head had seemed to be ultimate heights that music could reach. Later, when broaching the same subject with a member of the preceding generation… and invariably encountering the all too familiar, ‘East meets West’ debate… I realized that there were people with radically different views.

While it’s true… that everyone loves music, it’s extremely strange how what feels like honey in my ears simply cannot be endured by another. It would not be a difficult conclusion to draw… that I fared no better when the situation was reversed.

Matter of personal tastes and choices notwithstanding… this practical demonstration of how different music apparently was, made me want to try and figure out what the key difference was between the two streams of music that we so vaguely categorize as western and eastern.

Don’t get me wrong guys… I am extremely well aware, that this classification doesn’t come close to doing justice to any of the numerous genres, sub-genres, and variations of music styles. I would be the last person, under normal circumstances, to group Soft Rock and Death Metal under the same banner… but this is just for the sake of simplifying the work ahead.

All I had to do… was to find a common factor, between every piece of music that has been produced here… at home, and tally them with the common denominator of everything originating from outside the subcontinent. A herculean task….

It would also have been rather vague and pointless… to be perfectly honest.

Before really deciding on how to proceed… if I were to proceed at all, I got entangled in another debate regarding music. It started off as a discussion with a friend about how sickening some of the popular songs of the day are… and turned into an argument as to what music was meant to be.

It was pointed out to me that, it would be wrong to look askance at people with different tastes… something I totally agree with. But, that didn’t really make it easy to be unperturbed when gangs of people begin mosh-pitting all around you to music that makes you want to throw up.

I found myself muttering some barely intelligible comebacks about how art ceases to be art when it defies any kind of purpose or comprehension… but I knew that he was right. Art is not really supposed to be something to be explained… and music is one of art’s finest manifestations. So, the question was… why did I hate a few brands of music… with such an overwhelming passion?

Considering the fact that I am almost entirely certain about my not being a self bloating egotistical arrogant prick who looks down at every choice he himself wouldn’t have made… I don’t want to accept the answer, “because, it isn’t my kind of music.”

So, there had to be something else in music, in every single art form actually, that reached deep into the human psyche and flipped the switches for liking… or distaste.

After some amount of speculation, the only semi-logical explanation that I could attribute to what affected a person’s reaction to specific music… was the sort of music he was accustomed to hearing.

A man who has grown up listening to eastern classical maestros sailing through Ghazals… will obviously not be able to appreciate Thrash the first time he hears it (and I am confident there will not be a second time involved). A real life example to validate this point would be the same guy who I was arguing with… used to listening Bollywood movie tracks (personally I don’t even know if it even qualifies as a genre), he pulled out the ear phones in the middle of Slash’s solo in Sweet Child Of Mine, unable to bear it anymore!

Every form of art takes some getting used to. A staunch follower of prose doesn’t enjoy poetry… and a hardened follower of Psychedelic Rock would not attend a Justin Bieber concert (actually no sane person would… apart from fifteen year old girls).

And owing to the sheer volume of stuff that we have produced over the years… and still do every day… it is absolutely impossible to be a true connoisseur of all the music in the world. Specialization is inevitable… developing tastes… only natural.

So, I guess the only thing to be done is carry on listening to whatever genre suits you best… and occasionally (if you are feeling adventurous) to dabble a little in other recommended formats… as open mindedly as possible.

Refraining from bashing up the guys who listens to a different form of music is essential too, unless the format he enjoys happens to include one Justin Bieber. If it does… then the bloke has got something coming it to him.