Original Entry: The Human Aspect of Music
Community and Human interaction.
Current Reflections: Incomplete
When I first saw this entry for today, I couldn’t help but laugh. I promise this isn’t a joke, though it strikes me as quite funny; I didn’t even muster a full and grammatically sound sentence – “Community and Human interaction.”
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk! Seeya next time!
It’s interesting, looking back into my journal, apart from this little phrase, I left the page blank. It seems that I planned on returning to this entry and fleshing it out at a later date.
No time like the present.
What is the Human Aspect of Music?
Sitting with this now, I can’t help but ask the obvious question: “What is the Human Aspect of Music?” What was I hoping to explore in these blank lines?
This obvious question seems to possess an equally as obvious answer:
“Everything. Music is intimately tied to humanity itself; Music is an expression of humanity. The Human Aspect of Music is music itself.
It’s funny, as I wrote those last words, I realized that this could easily turn into unhelpful philosophical retching; but I suppose that we could ask a few of the questions that seem to orbit this initial inquiry.
“What is music?”
Organized sound? Harmony, melody, and rhythm? Vibration? Emotional expression? Meaningless noise?
Perhaps none of these words can quite really touch the true reality of what music is.
Regardless of how we try to define this music, the experience of music itself can be one of intimate familiarity –
[3 years later]
Eherm. It’s funny how energy seems to imprint on reality. For example, when I first wrote this entry, I left the page blank, intending to circle back and more thoroughly flesh out my thoughts on this: The Human Aspect of Music. Please note that this was sometime in the autumn of 2014.
I began this blog entry sometime in 2021, as I sit now, it is currently late winter in 2024. It seems I keep meaning to finish this thought, but for some reason, I keep wandering off into the woods.
Apologies for such a winding line of text – but it seemed appropriate to notice this trend and to take you, cherished reader, along the path I’ve experienced in this topic; even if only in a fractal embodied in a handful of paragraphs.
The Heart
Brass tacks. What the hell does this come down to? When examining this topic: “The Human Aspect of Music,” there are many avenues to explore.
Of course, in a certain way, Humanity is music. Spotify exists because Humans exist. These chimps aren’t out here getting streams because of their fire beats and dope rhymes. The capybaras aren’t touring with their latest art-record and peddling merch that they sketched up in their basement after smoking a bowl and doodling on a cardboard box.
But in another way, the birds sing, the primates beat sticks, the wolves howl, and the wind screams in the trees. Aren’t these expressions of nature, by-products of evolution, simple quirks of species, or phenomena of physics, musical in nature?
Does meaning exist in music, whether driven directly by humanity and channeled through laptops and instruments, or driven by the mysterious forces of nature?
To me, I think it matters less about the meaning, (clearly humans impress meaning into their music, duh dude), but maybe music is something stranger in this universe than these trite questions.
Vibrations. Expression. Beingness.
The birds frankly don’t give a fuck about if their song is correct. They sing. It’s what they do. The wind doesn’t scheme to scream through the tree tops. It simply does.
Music, seems to be, somehow, an expression about some truth of existence in this universe.
We exist, and so does music.
Maybe it’s as simple as this simple fact. Maybe it’s infinitely more complicated.
But…
The Human Aspect of Music – Finally
Scales, theory, marketing, and hustles aside, what the hell was I thinking about when I penned out this original journal entry?
For me, music has been a strange truth to experience. Too strange and winding for an already meandering blog entry.
At the core for me, the study of music was an intensely isolating experience – just myself and the guitar alone in a dusty practice room, competing with my ideas and ignorance.
Hours alone, wanting to be alone, struggling to realize what I working for.
Then, I found myself thrust into performance, engaging with colleagues, mentors, and crowds. As an extreme introvert, this dichotomy was painful and difficult to wrap my brain around.
Alone. Together.
Music isn’t something that happens in a vacuum, as I might have fantasized for during my college years. It happens as an expression of life. And Life happens as a relationship.
I’ve learned more from jam sessions, hangs, writing sessions, and in attending and teaching lessons, with people.
There exists the potential for magic to arise when we sing with each other, even if it scares us, makes us feel vulnerable, or challenges our understanding.
Being willing to fall flat on our face, sound stupid, be ignorant, and mess the hell up allows us to grow and be free in ways we might not currently understand in the present.
Get after it.
It still scares me, but you know?
Fuck it.
Love and Bows
_/\_
Sam
Kogen
Current Gear
Here are a few pieces that make up my current home studio. Affiliate links help me out, and this is the equipment I actually use. Check it out!
Amps
Orange Super Crush 100 – https://amzn.to/4bxalws
Orange Crush20RT practice amp – https://amzn.to/4btdpJU
Orange Crush Bass 25 practice amp – https://amzn.to/49vfsv1
Orange Crush Bass 100 – https://amzn.to/3UzDp0b
Orange Dual Footswitch – https://amzn.to/3OEd9hn
Guitars
Jackson JS11 Metallic Red – https://amzn.to/3HSXVBl
Ibanez 5-string Soundgear – https://amzn.to/3UzDp0b
Interface
Scarlet 18i20 – https://amzn.to/3SOSdH1
Audio Technica Headphones M30x – https://amzn.to/4bxbrZ6
AKG Headphones K52 – https://amzn.to/42AUKrK
Mics
Shure Sm27 – https://amzn.to/3Oym0Bh
Sennheiser e835 – https://amzn.to/3Ox8AVV
Midi Controllers
Mpk Mini – https://amzn.to/3SSLsnI
Metronome
Korg TM series – https://amzn.to/42y6afG
Books
Real Book 6th Edition – https://amzn.to/3wbnXgE
Samuel Rugg 