Dance 'til it hurts!

Though this doesn't occur in a simplistic or one-to-one ways, musical structure really does reflect social structure — and vice versa. We participated in a concert at an "anti-profit" coffee/community house in Portland last week, and the way the radical/anarchist-y people did music there actually gave me some hope for that movement. At least, in that it confirmed their ability to create some sort of collective way of life that follows a genuinely different logic from our mass-market (post-?) industrialized society. Simply put, they did music a lot like the people on the old field recordings I love, from societies before they get electricity and industrialism. That is, with little separation between "performer" and "audience," people spontaneously jumping onto their instruments to accompany whatever's going on, dancing, and feeling free to join in stomping and clapping and singing and humming, not in perfect unison with the 'leader' but notes and rhythms they pull from the air and from their heads, voices overlapping and interlocking in a diverse unity free from uniformity.

Oh but my poor words and over-intellectualized thoughts fall down and gasp feebly, not able to catch even the barest twinkle of the magic that was the best musical experience of which I've ever been part.

Thanks to all the people at Muddy Waters Community House Nonprofit who will never read this. Thanks for everything, but especially for all the hugs.