Music

I strongly believe music is a very important part of human life. It always has been for me, that’s for sure. And I think if you haven’t yet accepted music as an important part of your life, and a driving force that helps you get by with life’s issues, then you must make the time to discover it. Make time to understand it. Take time to discover the connection between the audio and you real life.

And I don’t mean manufactured pop bullshit. I mean real music. Music concieved from the heart, mind and soul, written on paper as a language foreign to most, but when married with the cold silver or warm wood of the instrument and it’s master, produces a magical, yet poignant message or screenplay to your life, past and present.

How I would love to have been involved in the good old days of music when the industry wasn’t a gigantic corporate competition with each act fighting each other for sales and that elusive deal. The good old days when bands and musicians would chill out in the studio just jamming and laying down experimental pieces of music, and then sharing each others skills and ideas. The good old days of writing about life, your own philosophy, your interpretation of current events. Then using real instruments in their purest form to deliver the message. Just look at old photos of the 1960’s and 1970’s and the artists at work in small, manual studios like Abbey Road and Soho.

I read a story in a men’s magazine many years ago about a famous sound engineer at Abbey Road Studios and one story that I remember is that during those days bands would hire the studio and most time the studio was being used nearly 24 hours a day. There were times when The Rolling Stones would be laying down some tracks and quietly waiting in the mixing room, enjoying a smoke, would be the boys from Led Zeppelin, who just arrived as Pink Floyd were packing up and chilling in the cafeteria. These are the days I’m talking about.

In his autobiography Stoned, the man who discovered and first managed the Stones, Andrew Loog Oldham, told a story of one day Keith Richards and Jagger laying down some tracks in a studio in Soho, when they were stuck on a particular song and couldn’t get it quite right. So they left the studio to go for a walk and clear their heads. As they were walking down a street two men ran out the door of a building and were about to get into a cab, when they noticed who they were. It was Paul McCartney and John Lennon who had just been to lunch at the Lions Club where they were being presented with some award. RIchards and Jagger told them they were working in the studio and stuck on a song, so Lennon and McCartney joined them and help them out in the studio. These are the days I’m talking about. And the song Lennon and McCartney helped them out with was I wanna be your man.

Music in the ’60’s and ’70’s had meaning, and it was an era when these bands and artists such as The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, The Who, Roxy Music, David Bowie were experimenting and had to invent sounds and the machines to play these sounds because things like synthesizers and computerized mixing decks weren’t around then. These guys were the real innovators of music we listen to today. This in itself gives their songs more relevance to life and our personal journey. It is music from this era that you need to accept into your life, to help you understand your personal journey in the world today.

Once you have accepted and experienced this, then you will know.