Wind for a Dead Calm: Ravel's "Adagio assai," from the Concerto in G

People make a lot of melodramatic statements about music; they will even be heard to say that a piece of music "saved their life..."

I can't go that far, as sappy and emotional as I am. My life has never been in danger that way; that way that implies a death of the soul that leads to the ultimate end...

But I have been a ship in a dead calm, sitting still in waters of various emotional hues: sadness, fear, depression, anxiety...

What is needed in those cases is a breath of wind. So, while I cannot claim this piece has ever "saved my life" I can say that, time and again, it has been that wind to push me out of the dead calm; the thing that showed me that there is more in life than death, taxes, conflict and the mundane clockworks of the daily routine; that hope is somewhere, even when it seems to be hiding from us...

Ravel's "Adagio assai" movement from his Piano Concerto in G, has been that piece for me, for more than twenty thirty years. It's always there when I need it, and I have needed it lately.

Here it is, in case you need some fresh air, too:

The Happy Bohemian

Did you ever feel embarrassed about being happy? No? Well, try being a happy bohemian. (Or a happy intellectual, for that matter.)

Once, years ago, while I was teaching, I was telling my class a story that had to do with my personal life -- something about my family I think; some funny incident. A student said, after the story (I can still see his face -- and I remember his name: Curt): "You're a pretty happy guy, aren't you?"

Reflexively, found myself wanting to correct him: Well, I wouldn't say "happy"... Heaven forbid people should think I am happy. There is not a whole lot of dramatic value in being a happy person, is there? And, as an artistic dude, I almost felt, at that moment, that I had shirked my movie/play/novel-established responsibility of being tortured and conflicted. 

"Yeah," I said, almost apologetically. "I guess I am..."

I think of Adam Duritz, the singer/lyric writer of Counting Crows. Somewhere on their album Recovering the Satellites, (which I love, by the way; I like most of that band's stuff) he utters the line "we're so ___ed up, you and me..."

The Video Question

Recently, when I posted about musical "soul" a new reader, Lincoln Hunter, posed this excellent question as a result of a video I embedded:

Why does so much music come with a video? Do I need it if I have a soul for music? Isn't the video a diversion, a distraction? Am I not being manipulated by the video? . . .  I really would like to hear someone explain the use of video with a piece of music. Perhaps you will have time to answer in a post in the future.

Why marry music to video, indeed? In my response to Lincoln, I mentioned that I prefer music on its own terms -- as a lone art form. But, I am certainly a member of the video generation . . .

Our Musical Soul

"Soul" has been referred to as a certain quality in music for years. "He's got soul," someone will say. People even sometimes categorize soul (though more rarely these days) as a form of music -- now I guess it is R&B.

(Here's where some twit comments that I don't know anything about pop music history and sets me straight on the differences between R&B and "soul". Watch me respond by making a fart noise with my armpit. Ever see the things filed in R&B in a music store? Yeah -- there is no definition. Classifying music is -- and should be -- like trying to file different types of steam in manilla folders.)

But one thing I see as consistent is that people associate a soulful performance with an R&B sound or with that sort of vocal earthiness associated with what was once callad "black American music."