Inside a Song

Anybody who knows me at all, knows that music is really important to me. I listen to lots of different types-- instrumental piano/orchestral and cinematic scores are my favorites, but I also enjoy classical, jazz, pop, some country, and even a fair bit of metal and alternative music (which often surprises people, since I don't really fit the "metalhead" type).
The other day, when I was finishing up the second book of The Lord of the Rings, (which is the second half of The Fellowship of the Ring, see previous blog post)I was at the part where the Company arrives at Cerin Amroth in Lorien. Samwise observes that being in the land of the Elves is like being "inside a song;" an expression which I liked very much. What does it mean to be inside a song? As a musician, I think that studying and performing music is getting inside a song. To learn a song well, you have to really work at it. Even once you've learned the notes and the proper fingering for everything, you have to make sure you're interpreting it well-- putting in the crescendos and diminuendos, using rubato where appropriate, using the pedals properly, etc. Once you've mastered all the minutiae of the composition, you're free to put yourself into the song (although, as my Piano Ensemble instructor last semester pointed out, only a singer can perform a "song." Instrumentalists perform "pieces." Technically.), which is something that is really hard to describe. I do it better when I'm alone.

For me, performing music for other people is a lot different than just playing for myself or for a teacher. And not just because I get nervous, either. When I'm playing alone, it's much... freer. It's hard to describe. I'm playing exactly the same notes, with more or less the same technique and the same expression, but the music moves slower. Most performers have a tendency to perform things at a higher tempo than they practice them, but it's more than that; even if I manage to keep the tempo is the same, the music feels slower to me, because I'm in kind of a "zen" state. More in the moment. When I'm performing, it's like driving on the freeway instead of on a county road. Everything seems to happen faster, and the stakes are higher. I'm not usually nervous while I'm actually playing-- only before and sometimes after. The performance itself is kind of a rush, and I'm usually very comfortable with it-- if very focused. But I'm much more self-aware. I can't always predict whether the performance quality will be better or worse than practice. Sometimes, especially if I haven't practiced as well as I should have, little mistakes that I thought I'd ironed out pop back up in performance. Sometimes (and it's so cool when this happens), I've practiced the piece so much that the technical aspects of it are second nature, and I get into that zen state where I'm able to play even better than I thought I could. Finishing a good performance is like standing on top of the world-- you want to punch the air and yell, "Ha! Take that, world!" It's a great feeling, being inside a song :).

Feminism

The subject of feminism has been on my mind a lot today. A lot of people I know think that feminism is a bad thing, and I find this both saddening and frustrating-- so I'd like to put in words exactly what (I think) feminism is.

I believe that, at bottom, feminism is exactly the same thing as "liberty and justice for all", applied to a specific group that had some trouble getting liberty and justice. Feminism states that women are, legally speaking, persons. The word "person" has certain legal implications (as indicated by the fact that legal documents use the nonstandard plural "persons," rather than "people," in the interest of precision of language). Susan B. Anthony's great address in 1873, "Are Women Persons?" addressed this topic. If you are a person, you have certain rights, privileges, and obligations-- in fact, if you are a person, the Constitution and Bill of Rights apply to you. You have certain inalienable rights, among these being life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

All this seems quite obvious to me-- that women are persons, and as such have rights equal to those of men. The question is not one of gender, but of personhood. Gender is irrelevant to personhood.

All this means that, as persons, women have the right to vote (which was recognized legally with the 19th Amendment in 1920). They also have the right to make their own choices regarding their lives-- to marry or not to marry, to work in any field they choose (and receive pay equal to that of a man doing the same work), to have children (or not), to stay home with those children (or not)-- in short, they have the same choices, and the same options, that men do.

That's all well and good, and I'm sure that nobody would disagree with me, as far as I have gotten. The trouble comes when you start to think of the "feminist" as a bra-burning, family-spurning, career-obsessed, man-hating minx. There's a reason that this image springs to mind, but it's not what some people seem to think.

The problem is this-- feminism is a philosophy, and that philosophy, just like any other, can be and has been interpreted, implied, and reworked, for both good and ill. I think that it has been reworked for ill (and, in fact, against itself) in two ways.

Firstly, some feminists have taken the "women are equal to men" too far, and insisted that women are superior to men. This is in fact contrary to feminism itself, the basic premise of which is that all persons are created equal.

Secondly, feminism has sometimes been interpreted to mean that all women should be career women. However, this also goes against true feminism, which states that women, as persons, have the CHOICE to live as they see fit-- if they see fit to pursue a career, that's wonderful. If they see fit to stay home and raise a family, that's wonderful. And if they see fit to do both (whether simultaneously, or at different seasons of life), that's wonderful, too. It's all up to them. Any person, entity, or philosophy which tells women (or any other sort of person) that in order to be "good enough" or "fulfilled" or "worthwhile", they MUST do or be ______, is trying to take away the freedom of those persons, and as such is violating the very meaning of feminism. Such an ideology is a tyrant in liberator's clothing-- but to look at these people and conclude that feminism is bad is to throw the baby out with the bathwater.