Beauty

I spent the last couple hours at the Johnson's house. The intent was to play ping pong--Jeff, Ryan, and Chantal did--but I (not surprisingly) spent the entire time talking to Jeralee, first about her upcoming mission in Finland (I'm so jealous of her but I showed her the Helsinki Complaints Choir and the Sauna Championships on YouTube), then about Disney songs (with Jeralee, Jeff, and Ryan all leaving on missions in the next few months, we YouTubed classic Disney songs in Finnish and Portuguese--so funny), and then to music in general, of course.

The conversation on music stemmed from the Broadway version of "Under the Sea" from The Little Mermaid. Tituss Burgess, who plays Sebastian, (he was also Nicely Nicely Johnson in this season's revival of Guys and Dolls and he totally rocked the boat :-) ) wails on an amazing high G on the key change at the end of the dance break (round about three minutes--maybe a little after). I was so excited to show Jeralee because I thought she'd be just as wowed as I was. Surprisingly she hated it. While she was impressed with the technique and the range, she did not find it beautiful. As much as I tried to explain why it was so great, she would not agree. She explained that as a performance major, she was all about the product, not the process. She didn't want to be explained into enjoying something, she just wanted to enjoy it. That made me wonder if I truly found it beautiful. It was a strange thought, and it has come to me once before, backstage of a performance when a friend of mine was belting a money note. I asked myself if I enjoyed such vocal fireworks because of the difficulty and technique, or because I truly found the sound beautiful?

I realized immediately that I really do find the sound beautiful, but we talked for a while more about analysis itself, among other things. Jeralee's favorite type of music is music that can be enjoyed at any level of thought. If you just need some sound in your ears, then it's nice to listen to. If you really want to delve, then it's complexity is equally rewarding. But she doesn't want to be forced to analyze something just to enjoy it. I realized that analysis is second nature to me. I can't listen to something without analyzing it. I can't read something without analyzing it. I can't see something without analyzing it. I have to find meaning in everything.

Anyway, I've totally lost my train of thought. The point is, it was a great conversation--much more complex than I've communicated here. It was riddled with examples on YouTube, some good-natured vocalist-versus-instrumentalist jabs, and lots of philosophising about the respective values of complexity and accessibility and other fun topics.

I don't know if anything is important is in all those words I just wrote, except for the youtube videos. I hope it was enjoyable to read. I hope, but it's late so I don't trust myself.

Love,
Christian

Here's a cute and clever song from [title of show] called "Secondary Characters" so enjoy it :-)