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EXPLAINING_THE_INEXPLICABLE

   
During a dinner table conversation in  
the group house I used to live in              We called it Luck House.
in Palo Alto, one of my housemates             I suppose I should say 
asked me what was up with the odd              something about it someday.   
music I was into.  I very rapidly              
reeled off something like this:                   LUCK
                                                          
   "There are two ways you can go.    
   Most people fixate on whatever    
   music they happen to listen to in    
   high school, and they spend the    
   rest of their lives listening to    
   the same thing over and over.    
   Obviously people like this are    
   not axe-murderers, and I don't    
   have any right to look down on    
   them (even though I do), but     
   there's another way you can go,    
   which is to consciously seek out    
   new kinds of music.  And if you    
   keep doing that, year after year,
   you develop a pretty strange set    
   of ears."                        
            

Maybe that wasn't 
a bad answer.  
        
I get this question now and then,         
in different forms.  I think     
these are the important points:

  (1) The people who like this music really 
      do like it, they're not just copping         INCOMPREHENSIBLE_DESIRE
      a pose. 

  (2) There are things going on in the music 
      that they can hear and that you can't.
             
      (a) This is probably objectively provable.        
                                                
          Experimental design: collect a
          set of new recordings that no
          one can have heard as yet.
          Play them for the afficiandos.
                                                       
          Claims: The will (sometimes) be              
          able to demonstrate an ability to:        
                                            
          (1) predict when a piece                  
          is coming to a close.            WHEN_THE_END_IS_NEAR 
 
          (2) recognize a 
          performer by style                PLONSEY_IN_THE_OCEAN 
                                                    
                ("the same guy is                   
                playing tenor on 
                track B and on   
                track D");       
                                                   
  (3)  There is something like a                     
       learned language in play                     
       here: An ear for the music      (Though it is not universally
       can be acquired with            arrived at, even by 
       experience.                     experienced listeners).      
                                                    

  (4) It goes against the populist grain to 
      think that this is even possible:  
      accusations like "con artist" abound.           HONEST_JOHN
      The suspicion that this is all empty 
      snobbery is common.                           
                  
  (5) Empty or not, snobbery is indeed common    
      among the insiders (the flip-side of an    
      inferiority complex, I think, from being
      continually misunderstood, continually 
      denied most forms of access or reward).               
                                
      But don't let it get to you: it isn't      
      worth worrying about.  It would not be    
      easy to make a case that this music is    
      crucial in any way.  
                           
      You can live without an ear for it,
      you can be a good person without an
      ear for it, you can even be a great
      artist, a great musician without an
      ear for it.


          If you do want to get                                              
          inside the outside; if                                             
          you want to know what                                               
          it is we hear out                         
          here, you can probably                                             
          get here yourself,              Though maybe "effort" 
          with some time and              isn't quite the right 
          effort...                       word.                
                                                               
          But I couldn't tell                 It creeps up      
          you why you should.                 on you when       
                                              you think            
                                              you're going      
                                              in other    
                                              directions. 
                                                         
                                                 ALONG_CAME_RA

                                                               
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