In this chapter, Davies talk about instruments being honorary persons. He talks about how he feels when an instrument is destroyed and what may be the root cause of these feelings. As we got into a discussion about this topic on Monday an interesting statement was made. I don't remember the direct statement but it compared destroying instruments to destroying the body. Why is it that people can cringe at the sight of instrument abuse and have their favorite past time be wrestling, football, boxing etc. Or how could abusing instruments be looked at as absurd and people cut themselves and kill their lungs slowly with cigarettes and their liver with alcohol?
I think this all depends on what you are actually interested in and where your belief is. Let me break this down by looking at my interest. I like music and it interests me, but I do not cringe when an instrument is abused. I do wonder why the person is breaking a perfectly good instrument and wonder what real satisfaction they would get out of it, but it doesn't affect me to the point where I wince in pain. I ,however, have total and absolute respect for my body. My interest and belief is in my religion and a part of my religion is to respect the body because it is the temple of God. I don't put any strong drinks, or unclean products in my body, nor do I take interest in a person bashing the brains out of another. I believe the body should be respected and when I see it being harmed or disrespected I wince and cringe and even shake my head and turn away. The people who can watch wrestling and be glued to the TV may not have an interest in how holy the body is, the person who smokes the cigarettes doesn't care about what it is doing to their insides, just like the person who gets excited when a guitar is smashed and a piano is burned, they don't have that deep love or connection for instruments. I know it may not seem right that people care so much about an inanimate object like a flute or guitar, and can watch the most questionable things on TV and do the most immoral things to their body; however it is their preference, their interest. Why should someone question that? People who are able to treat their dog better than they treat another human being is another example. Their interest is just simply in canines and not people. It isn't out of the ordinary that we hold certain things higher than other things and therefore treat things better. To one person an instrument is an "honorary person" and they hold instruments above themselves and other bodies. What we believe and what we are interested in drives how we react to the misuse and and abuse of that thing whatever it may be.
My question is can playing a burning piano or even a submerged one be looked at as art/music? Do people destroy instruments because they want to be unique in their art making?
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2 comments:
Michelle,
I am so happy you decided to post about this. I heard you talking about it in class and I was looking forward to you writing a little bit more on the subject.
I responded to your question and the question I posted with it is something that I have really been thinking about lately in class. Could you possibly take a look and let me know what you think?
I blogged about this as well.
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