I've just spent the last hour or so going through all my old mp3's of stuff that I wrote, and of course it brings back all sorts of memories about the setting and time of my life in which I wrote that music.
But I can't get over how much a lot of it really, really sucks.
I remember being so excited to share some of these tracks with all my friends and family, and now I'm embarrassed that I actually created some of this crap. Seriously, it's hard for me to listen to it. It gives me that awkward, queezy, anxious feeling that you get when you think about that time you made a complete idiot out of yourself.
Think about it.
And this is stuff from only two years ago. Maybe three.
Some of it sounds just like the garbage that I would hear from younger writers and fellow students, and look down on. In my head, of course. I would never insult someone about their music, but in my head I'm like "bleagheagehghehg."
Which leads me to wonder if the stuff I'm writing now, that I'm so excited about and proud of, is in reality just a collection of useless barf that I'll be ashamed of later.
And what is this incredible change that I go through that takes me from loving some creation of mine, to loathing its very existence?
Understanding that, makes me have a more open mind about "snobs".
You're a doctor. Imagine for a moment that all those countless hours that you spent studying medicine, through 7 or 8 years of college... imagine that you spent them studying music instead. Think of all the late nights you stayed up delving deeper and deeper into all the history and theory and technique and such that even self-proclaimed "music buffs" don't even scratch the surface of.
You've listened to and studied a wider variety of music in a few years than most people hear in a lifetime. When you hear music, any music, you immediately start breaking it down in your head, analyzing the chord structure, instrumentation, figuring out the relationship between the melody and the harmony.
Because you're so fascinated by it, you're always looking for something new and unique, and you're always trying to achieve a higher standard of quality. Both compositionally speaking, and in terms of sound quality.
So naturally, what happens when you hear something that's pathetically simple, and hardly even "catchy"? All of a sudden, you're a snob.
Sure, you appreciate low-quality music for what it's worth... to relax, not think. You have to come back down to square one to enjoy it. It's the most basic and unfulfilling form of entertainment.
In that context, does it really seem so surprising that professional musicians have little patience for low-quality music? And that they can appreciate and really truly enjoy music that most people just don't understand? Like modern art music... They literally hear it very differently than everyone else, simply because they've studied.
It's just like how professional photographers see pictures differently, and professional film producers watch movies differently.
If you were to study photography full time, the way you take pictures would change drastically. If you delved into music full time, your compositions would undoubtedly improve, and you would look back at your old music and wonder what you were thinking.
It's exactly why a lot of people don't understand Mormons... or any devout Christians for that matter. If you were to really dive into the scriptures and study it full time, the way you see God would most certainly change.
In fact it would most definitely improve. And then you would become obsessed with learning more and trying to reach a higher standard. And then you would look at those who have made no effort whatsoever to learn anything about God at all, and wonder why they can't see what you see.
And of course they'll make fun of you and call you snobs or self-righteous or what-not, just like how unlearned people make fun of modern art concerts, and visual arts, and modern dance concerts. Just like how fast food-goers don't understand gourmet food.
They've never experienced anything above the lowest plane of enjoyment and so they don't believe there is anything higher. They don't realize that higher planes of joy require work and dedication to experience.
Which is why some people think that waiting for marriage is a noble pursuit but ultimately pointless. They reduce love to something merely physical and temporary.
People are too obsessed with the idea that they shouldn't have to put any work into it. Instead they laugh at Christianity and advanced forms of art and music, as well as literature and philosophy, devoting themselves exclusively to cheap entertainment and fleeting thrills, unable to understand why some of us firmly believe in this ridiculous concept known as
"God"
They just don't put forth the effort.
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