Hayward...............”Does Toan -> Feelz?”

Does toan imply feelz?

An explorative discussion with Cisco Hayward

Does the emotional conviction of a song forgive its technical faws? In many minds, this question is an obvious “duh” and deserves no further discussion. Many people will be quick to defend an attack on their musical tastes with a call to emotional capacity. “No man, I listen to REAL music with FEELING! My music doesn’t need to have super-fast guitar solos or good production because it SPEAKS to MY HEART.” It’s a pretty well established perspective that emotional content can forgive technical inability. Whether or not this is “valid” is a fruitless debate in many ways because nobody actually cares about whether or not you listen to better music than they do. People think that their musical taste is the best and that everyone else is stupid. Very few people try to actively “expand” their taste, and very few people are

“...when someone displays no emotion whatsoever, that scares us.”

willing to accept the fact that they enjoy objectively bad music (and that there is NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT). Thus, the conversation of whether or not feeling should forgive technical faws is a Sysiphusian task that is not the point of this essay. That said, the issue (whatever it is) is easier to attack from the other side. Does a lack of emotional energy make a song bad? This is a much more interesting debate because people don’t really think about it. Why is that? Even though we all have emotional vulnerabilities (and we all fucking know it), when someone reveals too much of their emotions, we interpret it as a sign of weakness. However, when someone displays no emotion whatsoever, that scares us. The notion that music should be “free” from emotional constructs is not a new idea, but it’s also not a wellknown idea outside of academic circles. In its simplest explanation, the term “absolute music” refers to music that is not about anything. It is music that is free from all “extra-musical” connotations (according to the Wikipedia page). A musical absolutist would argue that music should be thought of purely as sound, and that if you have to justify the goodness of a song by the quality of its non-musical elements, then it is not a good song. Basically, musical absolutists are big fans of instrumental music and like it a lot.

“In its simplest explanation, ‘absolute music’ refers to music that is not about anything.”

But if you stop and think about it, what does it really mean to appreciate something as sound and sound alone? The actual meaning of words is only one of many “extra-musical” actors that color our perception of a song. The cuteness of the band members, our perception of our own musical tastes, whether or not our friends like it, etc., effect what we think of a song, because they effect what hearing the song reminds us of. The brain works by associative memory, and if we associate a song with a particular person, then when we hear that song, we think of that person, and that affects what we think of the song. But we don’t just stop at people. Sounds can remind us of cars, movies, our sweet 16, ANYTHING! So if hearing a sound makes us think of things, then do we enjoy the sound or the memories it triggers? Is there a difference? Some might argue this as meaning that there is no such thing as a sound without “extra-musical” connotations, because our opinion of a sound is based on our ability to relate it to things outside itself. Thus, our enjoyment of sound is strictly determined by things that are not sound. I don’t know enough about neuroscience to confrm that theory (nor does anyone) but one thing becomes clear. If people have certain memories, ideas, and emotions attached to a sound, that means putting certain sounds in a song can trigger those ideas and emotions within people. By combining and sequencing certain sounds together e can tri er these ee in s in a s ecifc order. By doing this, we can create in the listener a simulation of consciousness. Furthermore, via conscientious and thoughtful manipulation of timbre, rhythm, volume, and pitch, we can create experiences that are otherwise beyond the capacity of natural reality. So, to answer the original question posed in the title of this paper, toan does imply feelz. There is no such thing as a feelz-free toan, in the same way that there is no such thing as a feelz-free color or word. Every sound has a unique emotional connotation, and whether or not that counts as “extra-musical” is irrelevant, because it is inextricably tied to the experience of being human. Does that mean that music doesn’t “exist” outside of humanity? I don’t know, and I don’t really care. All I know is that I am grateful to be capable of perceiving it, whatever that actually means.

“...we can create in the listener a simulation of consciousness.”