Nature Versus Nurture

My father was a great musical artist.  He could sightsing the tenor voice in a church choir rehearsal, he could play most of the wind instruments, and he was an expressive jazz pianist.  His teaching influenced many people and still we hear from them years later.  With that mammoth mentorship happening in my own home, it was easy to become a musician myself.  I had a propensity for the piano and wanted to take piano lessons, but our local teacher felt first grade was too young.  I began anyway, and twelve years later I was a formidable pianist.  I wish I could remember playing George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" on my senior piano recital.  Music was around me everyday, at school, at home, everywhere.  It is not like that anymore.  While I must include music in my daily routine its importance ebbs and flows.  My family often accused my father of living wearing rose-colored glasses. Not much rattled him, until he had a mild stroke in early 2001.  Slowly we watched him deteriorate until my mother had to place him at the North Carolina State Veteran's Home.  Is it possible I have lived my life wearing rose-colored glasses?  My musical journey was not an easy one.  Graduating from UNC-Chapel Hill with a B.M.E.degree was the most difficult thing ever I have achieved.  Their academics were challenging, because the musicology program was one of the top ten in the nation.  It seems music still does have meaning, just not in mainstream America.  Not in pop culture.  For that reason it has become difficult for me to justify pursuing music.  I am happy to read about Adele's new album "25" and am equally as happy that an outsider has broken some musical records.  The music industry is a joke, and like the rest of the America wouldn't it be nice if someone told the truth rather than trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the public?  There are several reasons why the music industry is dead.  One is the air is so polluted with industrial sound, music no longer stands a chance of having an impact on our souls.  This is my topic.  Nature Versus Nurture.  When our playing field, our biosphere, our arena are so polluted is it even worth it to play?  We are defeated before we begin the game.  This is America today. Do I don the rose-colored glasses and live like this is not the case?  Do I simply ignore the pollution that is controlling our souls and thus our delicate psyches?  Do I try to defeat it or at least lead like great art does?  It can set an example for enlightened living.  I don't know the answer.  I can't pursue music that has no basis in today's reality.  That doesn't make sense.  That is living in a vacuum, or donning the rose-colored glasses.  I like to understand the truth of what is around me.  It is the only way we can survive as a species.  Eventually the grim reaper will come knocking, and you better be prepared with something other than great art.  I take comfort in my loaded guns.  They make me feel more adjusted to today's reality.  Today's reality is not cake, and as such you would think culture would take notice of it and respond accordingly.  Ironically America's pop culture dons three layers of rose-colored glasses and ignores reality.  When war does come to our native soil, these people will be the first to go.  History is what provides guidance in these situations.  Does it make sense to ignore the War on Terror, racial injustice, and civil inequality in lieu of warm bubbly art?  Unequivocally the answer is, "No," yet still America blatantly ignores the relevant art of our century.  Twentieth Century Music rarely sees the light of day.  America's modern music, the most relevant music to our existence is kept in a vacuum.  The same is true of jazz.  It is easier for me to understand how jazz has faded from popularity.  The acoustic sound of jazz has no chance overriding the negative vibrations of industrialized America.  Is that what pop is doing today?  It must be, that strident, stiff, mechanical noise lurking above us in grocery and drug stores.  Feeling does not stand a chance.  When I listen to my own choice of music most times it works.  Most times the timelessness of the music is capable of transcending the pollution surrounding me.  The music I would naturally play today does not accomplish this task.  It makes me feel warm and bubbly, but when I listen from an outsider's point-of-view, it makes me nauseated.  It is too emotional, too expressive, and too sensual for our time.  Hence pop music has taken this approach to strip traditional America pop music of her soul.  If you have nothing at stake in the vacuum on that unlevel playing field, in that tainted biosphere, or at the arena, you can't lose, but you can't win.