The Day The Music Dies...

It's been a helluva year. My dad's dementia progressed to the point where he couldn't live alone, and he came to live with us. Then he ended up in the hospital - twice. When we finally got him home the second time, it lasted barely more than a week before he was back in the ER again. Now he's back in assisted care, and he seems content. Whew!

There's a lot between the lines there that I have so far only expounded upon to close friends. Like the fact that while he's now happy and cared for and the most popular guy at his new place, his mental and physical health had taken its toll - on all of us. A good friend had some helpful perspective for me: "It's not happening to you, but it's happening for you." I took this to mean that it's okay to accept that it's hard for me personally, but to remind myself not to lose my perspective about what my dad is experiencing. I can't imagine what it must be like to slowly lose your mind to the point where you treat the people who love and care for you most with contempt and mistrust because your mind is literally deteriorating, and there's nothing you can do to stop it. Suffice to say, dementia and bi-polar disorder do not mix well.

This is all coupled with the fact that I my father and I didn't actually have a good relationship for the majority of my life. It was only these past five years or so that we finally engaged in some heart-to-hearts that helped us heal. I had a lot of resentment that I had to release...and I'm not sure that work is yet done. Having to basically re-live some of the worst moments of my childhood with my father as an adult was also pretty heavy.

I tell you that to tell you this...

Not only has my songwriting mojo suffered, but my desire to play music at all has come to a startling halt. I wonder often if I've truly anything to offer the world. Music is being taken over by AI. Not just music but ALL creative and artistic expression. Perhaps the day is coming when all music that tops the charts will be entirely fabricated by technology - with no human element left to ponder.

I had an interesting discussion with a mathematics professor once. One of his major focuses before he started teaching was the study of the process of audio compression. He explained the process like this:

There are sound frequencies at the extreme high and low of the spectrum that we cannot hear - frequencies that are outside of the ability of the human ear to discern because they are far to high or far too low. So, we just don't experience them auditorially (I am unsure if this is a word, but walk with me anyway). He went on to explain that even though we can't discern them, these frequencies still "take up space" when recorded. They're still there, so the information still gets recorded, even though we can't hear them. The process of compression is simple - it removes these inaudible frequencies to save space. Because of this process, we could then pack more songs onto a CD (or now, we can store more .mp3 or .wav files on a given server. Basically, it creates more real estate...and generates more cash flow for the big cats like Spotify, YouTube, Pandora, etc. etc.

I found this truly fascinating at the time - and I still do. But I also started thinking about the physical properties of sound waves. They're vibrations, after all, just like anything else in life -light, atoms, quarks, strings, rocks, cats, trees, books, wine - everything vibrates at a frequency. So...when we remove certain frequencies - even if we can't clearly discern them via our senses - what are we losing? I will always believe that there are things outside our realm of perception that influence our daily lives. I call them "vibes" because I'm a millennial and yes, I think it's a cool word.

My recent stalemate with music is certainly due to vibes. Probably some of the darker ones -I'm working through some pretty heavy stuff. But I know that things I cannot explain are helping me push past this. The music I listen to is certainly helping me push past this: Indigo Girls, Edie Brickell, Alanis, Natalie Merchant, Joni, Brandi...many, many others.

This is why we listen to music, right? Transformation, comfort, hype us up, get us moving, help us cry, rest, think - CONNECT. With AI getting into the game at light speed, I can't help but think: What are we losing?

When the music dies, the world will not rest in silence. It will instead swirl dizzyingly in meaningless noise.

In the immortal words of Ren: "We must not forget that we are human beings."

This video will give you chills:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_nc1IVoMxc