MEANS

Bodies. Beats. Being. An extended discussion on musickality with John garner and Alex Herod.

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JG: When I began violin lessons aged seven, I was, without knowing it, initiated into the world of ‘tuning’. Some sounds were ‘in tune’, others ‘out of tune’; some ‘sharp’, others ‘flat’. Where certain individuals had the mystical ability to discern these nuances at a seemingly microscopic scale, others had no apparent aptitude for it whatsoever. The unluckiest of these latter were labelled ‘tone deaf’ and summarily dismissed, relegated to the dustbin of musical potential, ejected from an exclusive club whose rules were unstated yet enthusiastically policed. A series of peculiar quests over several decades would punctuate my path to aural acuity. These included painstakingly matching every note in a piece to the tones of a piano; agonisingly slow repetitions of scales; listening for the ‘shine’ when striking the sweet spot in Elgar’s Violin Sonata (still decoding this kernel of string school esoterica); tweaking string quartet chords and grappling with the perplexing truth that what might feel horrendously discordant from where you’re sitting magically translates to a celestial emanation a few metres distant.

AH: I would fall asleep to the sound of my dad’s metronome or lean against the big bass amp while it rumbled my belly. But my ears rang with words that I had absorbed into my body. A throwaway comment about me not being ‘musical’, not ‘holding a tune’. The small guitar bought for me remained untouched. At school, the recorder sounded fine to me, but I knew my ears weren’t to be trusted, and singing in assembly moved from something joyful (a moment, please, for the harvest banger: “the broad beans are sleeping in a blankety bed”) to something self-conscious and mumbled. Three streets away though, sprung floors greeted the soles of my ballet shoes and the taps on my toes several times a week. From the moment I could walk, I danced. I found a beat, or it found me. I adjusted my rhythm, developed technique, and guided my muscles. I was rewriting the story without knowing it: If I couldn’t make the music, I would move to it.

JG: It’s only in recent years that I’ve begun to understand musicking as, chiefly, an expression of bodilyness, of being a body in space and time. Perhaps I once knew this intrinsically, as most children do—picture a toddler gleefully hammering the ivories or windmilling their tiny arms against an embattled drum—but at some point, in the process of ‘musical training’, I must have forgotten. Music was about deciphering melodies from dots on a page, improving sight-reading, scrutinising interpretation, developing technical accuracy. This last is a matter primarily of how the body moves, but instead I would conquer the body through knowledge of superior technique. How ironic, then, to later realise that all of this practice, cultivation, discipline, is an ongoing process whereby, most significantly, the body is shaped and transformed, so much so that, far from the music existing in the sonic realm, it is instead written irreversibly into the muscles, nerves, veins, and organs themselves. I tune to the world with a body conjured through all the music I’ve played.

AH: Eyes closed, I sensed hands not quite touching the hairs on my arms which stood on end, anchored to me but reaching up, trying to connect. “Breathe, two, three, four, feel the movement of your partner. Eyes closed at the back!” A low track played in the background. Something nebulous. Music but not. In my head but not my ears. “Ok girls, focus.” We were paired up, one with eyes closed and back to their partner. After focused breathing exercises, the person behind was to move: an arm going up and scooping down, a lean to the left, both arms sweeping the floor. The person with back turned and eyes closed was to sense the movement and copy it. Feel it and replicate it. Movement passed from one body to another without sight, touch or speech to guide it. I could hear the girl’s breath behind me, and the air gave way as her weight shifted. I could see-feel the movement in my mind. Someone coughed and I peeked at two girls reflected in the mirror–perfectly in sync, good at this. I started to analyse it, and the magic was broken. I closed my eyes again, focused only on whether I was doing it right.

JG: How do you know when you’re doing it right? Sound is, after all, by definition intangible. But that’s not exactly true, is it? Sound is touching, being touched, at a distance. The brain does the clever work of creating the conscious impression of tones and timbres, translated from the changes of air pressure in the ear canal, enriched by vibrations running through the skin, muscles, and bones. How do we know in which direction to coax those precious tones that emerge from our instruments to best entwine with those of others? Here, the ‘in tune’ / ‘out of tune’ binary collapses. There’s really no such thing as ‘in tune’, only things that conform to or violate our expectations; consonances and dissonances. Although there is a mathematical way to quantify and describe the relationship between two tones as a ratio—the more complex the ratio, the more ‘dissonant’ the interval—what we perceive as dissonance is, to no small extent, culturally conditioned. Indeed, there is much music which is largely consonant according to rational abstractions, yet leaves plenty of listeners viscerally disaffected (take, for example, the string quartets of the late American composer Ben Johnston). Understanding musical intonation is about becoming increasingly sensitive to the infinite nuances that arise with each unique combination of tones as experienced in the body and the (inner) ear; being willing and able to slip through sonic colours with tiny adjustments in pitch and timbre. Mechanical though this might sound, the effects are most often perceived emotionally. Certain sounds tug at your heartstrings precisely because of the emotive power of intonation.

AH: When you’re little, no-one tells you that learning something new as an adult is so hard, that your sense of play can be paralysed by self-consciousness and flailing when observed, by notions of being good and productive, and the need for costs to be a good investment. Having adult swimming lessons–wearing floats and snotting chlorine water down my own face in a busy hotel pool–taught me that while hard, it is possible to learn new things, and more importantly, that to swim, to move, to listen, to create in ways that bring me joy, I would have to embrace the initial discomfort. Swimming reconnected me with my body, movement and feeling free, and I started regular dance classes for the first time in twenty years. After years of missing it and feeling like my time with the music had passed I felt at home again, and without the pressure to do anything other than enjoy it. I started to do more, new things for the version of me who was asked to leave the school choir, and who was ‘not musical’ enough to learn an instrument: I sang with a community group a few times (and cried after each), and I took up guitar lessons. In my guitar lessons I’m encouraged to let my inner kid be loud, confident and wrong. I still feel occasional bubbling frustration or flushed cheeks, but I focus on my breathing and the fact that I’m connecting with myself and these sounds and this instrument and my body. One day at the start, as I was feeling all kinds of life feelings, I sat down without knowing any chords, notes, or technique, and played, figuring out how to make a sound that matched what I was feeling inside.

JG: Nowadays, when I improvise, rather than working towards a fixed goal of ‘good tuning’, I opt instead for a playful dance across the spectrum of intonation. Depending on how I’m feeling, this might manifest as a comfortable consonance; other days, the trickster in me wants to disrupt these ‘pure’ intervals, sliding instead into dissonance, where the wild beats live—a phenomenon produced by the interference between two waveforms. But this is not a game of the intellect: it is a world entered through the body. From time to time, I have dreamt of singing in joyful chorus with others. The air hums and shivers as we tune away the space between us.

JG (remixed by AH)

1.

the mystical ability

the potential of peculiar quests

my path to the ‘shine’

to a celestial emanation

musicking as a body in space and time

deciphering melodies from how the body moves through

this practice, cultivation, discipline

transformed in the sonic realm

sound is touching the

conscious impression of

tones and timbres that emerge from the

infinite sonic colours

a playful dance

where the wild beats live

2.

striking the sweet spot in a

celestial expression, written irreversibly

into a body conjured

touching, being touched

creating the conscious vibrations

running through the skin, muscles and bones

to coax those previous tones that entwine

with those of others

the spectrum of wild beats

between two waveforms

shiver as we tune away the

space between us

AH (remixed by JG)

Throwaway comment

Absorbed into my body,

Conscious and mumbled.

I would move to it,

The story, without knowing

My dad’s metronome.

I would fall asleep,

The soles of my ballet shoes

Not holding a tune.

Something nebulous

Anchored to me but reaching,

Perfectly in sync.

Hands not quite touching,

One body to another,

Movement and copy.

Movement and feeling,

Be loud, confident and wrong,

Learning something new.

Notions of being,

To swim, to move, to listen

Without the pressure.

Chords, notes, or technique,

These sounds and this instrument,

Discomfort swimming.

John Garner (JG) is a musician, educator, and PhD candidate based in North Shields | @johngarnermusic | johngarner.co.uk

Alex Herod (AH) is a Manchester based writer, researcher, and performer | @thebetterwithbooksclub | thebetterwithbooksclub.com