Disliking Things

Since I’ve been here, the scope of my leisure activities has been reduced significantly. There are some very notable new ones, to be sure (scooter-driving, beach-going), but generally, I read, write, listen to music, and watch the occasional movie when the appropriate channels decide to work at the appropriate time. Consequently, my consumption of all those things has gone way up, and one of the nice perks of being here is that it has offered me the time to really delve into worthwhile projects and reconsider things that had become so familiar as to probably need that reconsideration.

One of these projects has been educational: I’m trying to introduce Silvia to classical music. This has the potential to be a more difficult project than it sounds: the term “classical music” encompasses such an incredible variety of styles, sounds, moods, and ideas that it seems self-defeating to just put my iTunes on random and click “play.” Not every incarnation of classical music might be to everyone’s taste, and there is a definite tendency towards extreme generalization when encountering classical music initially, a tendency to dislike or like a single piece by a single composer and then apply that judgment to the rest of the repertory. This almost inevitably results in disappointment.

Part of the problem here is the tendency for classical music to be viewed as something distinct from the rest of the arts. While few people would dislike a particular painting and infer that they then must dislike all painting, that attitude ends up turning a lot of people off to classical music. I completely (well, mostly) understand that impulse: classical music is intrinsically a lot more nebulous and harder to get a handle on than many other things, and the way that you absorb it is drastically different from the way we generally absorb popular music (two key differences being classical music’s length and kind of narrative as compared to pop). Furthermore, there tends to be a pretty big culture of elitism and pretentiousness (or at least a perception of one) surrounding classical music, and that air of “Unless you play three instruments and know the key of Chopin’s fifteenth nocturne from memory, you’ll never really be one of us.” (It’s f minor, incidentally, and thank you iTunes.)

But all that is a totally valid way to encounter classical music for the first, or even fourth or fifth time. It’s true: it’s hard, it’s abstract, it’s opaque and it can be pretentious as all hell. If that’s your reaction, then don’t try and ignore it, and don’t try to tell yourself that you just don’t “get it” and that you’re just not a classical music person. Use that reaction as a starting point: if you don’t like it, you don’t like it. That’s okay. Visceral, emotional responses—informed or uninformed, biased or unbiased, strong or mild—provide the starting point from which to move forward, and the one point of secure leverage around which you can pivot the whole world.

Figure out why you don’t like it, and know that for now, that particular stimulus generates that response in you. Try listening to something else; the breadth of the art is so large that there is probably something you will react to well. (If you really just don’t like anything at all, nothing whatsoever, then I got nothing. You just don’t like it. It happens.) When you discover something you do like, figure out why it appeals to you and leads you to feel that way. Encountering something new is a process, like anything else, and progress doesn’t come overnight, or even over several. But as long as you’re starting from a place of honest reaction, that journey can be undertaken with as much confidence and surety as any self-proclaimed connoisseur .

And to a certain extent, I think that same process can inform one’s encounter with other things as well. When it comes to traveling, it can be immensely counterproductive to force yourself to acknowledge the beauty or history or richness of a place. For sure, all of those things should be acknowledged, but forcing that judgment renders it hollow, all form but no content. In a way, you have to be unafraid to find things uninteresting, to let yourself be bored, so that the moments of genuine meaning are free to be truly genuine. Not everything comes in earth-shattering revelations or even revelations at all; some things are exactly what they seem and no more. Some things are more than that too, and as always, it’s a tricky process of negotiation. Sinking into complacency and apathy is at least as bad as seeing only what you want to see, so this is definitely a case of “everything in moderation, especially moderation.”

So while I will probably continue to find Kitty Wharf beautiful (see below for supporting evidence) until the time I leave, I have to remind myself that sometimes, negative reactions can be a valid way of encountering the world as well as positive ones. And though you’d have to ask her, Silvia can probably testify to this as well with classical music. Not everything I’ve played for her has been a well-received by a long shot, but openly acknowledging the lack of appeal or understanding in reaction to particular pieces has allowed for some overwhelming successes: she is currently in the midst of a love affair with Tchaikovsky that shows no sign of stopping anytime soon. (And if you’re looking for a place to jump-start listening to classical music, or just for something to do when you’re procrastinating at work, check out the first 3-4 minutes of his piano concerto. It’s the kind of thing that storms out of the speakers, that demonstrates the full, bombastic potential of music in all its overwrought emotional glory. Even if you don’t intend to listen to another classical piece ever (and you should! it's good), it’s worth checking out. I’m sure it’s on youtube somewhere.)

And in the interest of full disclosure (and to belie all of this), I should confess that I've been listening to energetic pop music like nonstop lately.