The Hills Are Alive With... That's Right...

It's time to talk about music...

Photo by Dark Rider on Unsplash

Something that I get asked a lot about is music.

Do I like music?

Do I listen to music?

Do I perform music?

Most often, however, it’s what kind of music do I like?

I tend to avoid answering that question, and I will tell you why, but first, let me say very clearly. This is not a challenge. Do not take it as a challenge, because I am allllll challenged out. Okay? Everyone got it? I know you think you do, but the minute some of you read the next part you’re going to forget all about what I am saying here. You know how I know? Because it happens every. single. time. Let’s break that cycle, shall we? Good. Moving on.

As I mentioned, I get asked what kind of music I like. What do I listen to? My answer, it never changes is, I listen to all kinds of music. I am not drawn to a particular sound, I am not drawn to a particular person, I like what I like. There isn’t a consistent pattern to my music tastes. I hear a song, and I like it or I don't, and usually I can figure it out pretty fast.

The whole, but you like so and so, why don’t you like this, annoys me. I like so and so’s song, I don’t care one dinkus damn about them. We will get back to this part in just a little bit. First, let’s explore my relationship with music, and also what music does, or does not do for a psychopath.

For starters, psychopaths are not going to cry because they are moved by a piece. It doesn’t matter how emotionally a person sings a song, or how much the lyrics are relatable to most people who listen to the song. It’s not going to happen. Lyrics are often not even paid attention to for me. I am just as happy listening to someone sing in Japanese as I am listening to an English singer. There is not going to be an emotional moment for me.

Another thing, psychopaths do not “relate” to music. That also will never happen. I am not going to hear a song and feel like they are talking about me. I am guessing that this is a process of emotional empathy, I have no idea for certain, however, and it will never happen to me.

As I mentioned, I don’t listen to the lyrical content, that the voice might as well be just another one of the instruments, and I have said this for a number of years. Recently, however, someone informed me that there are people that cannot discern the vocalizations from the music, and it is usually due to a stroke in one of the hemispheres of the brain. That is not what I am referring to. I can hear the vocals, and if I paid attention I could of course hear the lyrics. They simply aren’t important to me, so they are ignored and listened to through the lens of them being part of the song, and nothing more.

I will say this though, I am a picky bitch about a singer’s ability. In fairness, I am also a picky bitch about dancers as well (god help those that insist on taking me to the ballet). With dancers, I am picky because I used to be a dancer. I understand ballet, and I know what perfection looks like. I am hypercritical when a dancer is even slightly off in her performance.

In singing, while I do sing, I think it is more that I am tuned to a performance that is off due to the voice not being perfect because I listen to it as an instrument.

This song is an excellent example;

You can find this song sung by many people, but this is by far the best. Yes, it is eight minutes of a girl singing, and when I saw it (damn you YouTube and your ability to read my mind) my reaction basically was;

Me: Oh come on YouTube. I am not watching some chick sing for eight minutes. I’m a picky bitch, and she is not going to be worth a minute. Also… is she seventeen in this?

Also me eight minutes later to my SO: You know how I am a picky bitch…?

Him not letting me finish and has no idea what I am talking about: Yes

Me: … (glare)…You have to hear this.

Go figure, he agrees. She is ridiculously talented.

As I said, you can find this song done by a lot of singers. Usually, the voice is overdone, it is too loud, and pushed out to the dramatic. It doesn’t have the ease or tonal beauty that Patricia Janečková does.

I don’t relate to this song. Hell, I don’t even know what it’s about. I can derive from the performance that she is a doll, but I haven’t dug into it. I don’t know where it comes from, and perhaps I will care, perhaps not.

Let’s talk about a song that I do know what they are saying, because I understand English, it’s a skill I picked up recently.

Let’s talk about the song “Bring Him Home” from the play Les Miserables. The original version of the play featured Colm Wilkinson singing this song. Now, to be clear, Wilkinson’s performance is excellent. He was Jean Valjean in many people’s minds, and the performance that I will be using is from some anniversary show that they did. They brought Wilkinson back to perform this with three other excellent tenors.

Why did I bring this one up? Simple, it is a very emotional song. I have seen many people tear up at this point in the play, or just when they hear the song. Wilkinson does an excellent job portraying the character, and it made the song well known… unfortunately.

There are a lot of people that want to sing this song, and with many of them, the song isn’t even recognizable. In other words, there are a LOT of bad performances of this song.

That is a great example of someone that shouldn’t have sung it. It’s just wrong on all the levels. The music doesn’t meld with her voice, her vibrato is shrill and doesn’t marry well with anything, and her tone is completely off. I had to find an original version of the song to play for my friend because she had no idea what the hell she just listened to. When I did, her response was, “That’s what that was?! Seriously?” This is why it is an excellent song to use for this example.

The song, “Bring Him Home”, is sung in the musical Les Miserables. It is a really well-done piece, and was made iconic by Colm Wilkinson, who played Jean Valjean. What makes the song work is the detail that is totally lost in the version above.

However, the one with these four tenors is truly excellent, and bully for you, the dude in the middle is the original singer, Colm Wilkinson.

They are all powerful singers with different qualities in their voices. These qualities complement each other and play off each other perfectly. When they swell up, their voices are perfectly balanced. It is a brilliant performance.

I picked this song because of its emotional qualities, but not because those qualities mean anything to me in terms of feeling. They don’t. However, I can tell when the emotive quality of the song is wrong. Just like I can hear when the singer is off and the performance is inadequate, the same thing goes for emotional expression.

Emotions have tones to them. Most people never consciously pick up on this because their empathy sort of muffles that fact. They feel what the other person wants them to feel or what the other person is feeling. It’s like being led on a leash. That doesn’t work with me, and over the years of listening to emotive tones, I can tell when it is right and when it is wrong. People who are faking it tend to miss the right tone, and I pick that up immediately. The same is true in music.

What makes a performance in a play beyond excellent is when the character is embodied by the actor. It takes the audience into the world that is on the stage and they are living with the character in their story. When the actor feels what they are supposed to feel, the audience does too, and for me, while I lack the feeling, if the tone is right I will know. They hit the right mark. Colm Wilkinson hits the right tone, every time. Go figure, the man is a legendary singer. When a person misses that mark, I don’t have the empathy to trick me into thinking that they hit it. Other people do, and that makes them less of a picky bitch than I am.

Other than that, music that I like isn’t common. A lot of it sounds just like everything else, and it is rare that something catches my interest. Again… picky. Almost no one can find a song that I actually like, but god lord the number of people who try is staggering. I tell them not to bother, they won’t get it. They will be wasting their time and their energy. I have had thousands of songs sent to me, and out of them the only ones that I cared for were the ones I already had heard and liked to start with.

A person over on Quora had a front row seat to this, as he was convinced that he would be able to figure out what kind of music I like. He sent me song after song after song to no avail. It was an exercise in frustration and finally, he just threw his hands up and quit trying. This is why I said, this is not a challenge. The only person to consistently nail my musical interest is my SO. For whatever reason people feel the need to take it upon themselves to try and find me music that I like, no matter how many times I say not to bother.

While I don’t relate to music, I do enjoy it, but I know when it is right, and when it isn’t. Due to that, I can be a bit of a pain to share music with. Likely I will just not be interested.

Edit: Those of you that are wondering why you got this Wednesday instead of today, I am having one of those weeks where you think that it’s a day that it isn’t. Thus you got this early.