Exploitation of the Worst Kind

 I am a musician because of my father.  Judgement was cast upon me early for such.  My first and most significant girlfriend instinctively knew a musician would fail to provide.  (at least this is what her family said in quiet spaces)  It didn't effect her opinion of me, because we were in love.  That love we shared early in life from high school through college, was authentic and pure.  I wanted it that way, so I gave of myself.  I had a vivid depiction of romance and worked diligently at it.  Being a musician was a part of the formula.  Back in the day it was accepted to express love through music.  Because of my father's talent and knowledge, I was blessed.  (I worked diligently at it playing George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" at my senior piano recital.)  I can't remember how I did it.  Actually I play by analysis, not reading.  Being a great musician appealed to my girlfriend, and she loved me for it.  The love I felt for her and the love I expressed through music was the same.  Once this was called "Romanticism, although it has a different connotation in academic music.  Romance when I grew up was in vogue.  Much of life in the 1980's involved love and romance.  Not today.  Romance is dead.  Nothing much in America today resonates in me, and it is becoming depressing.  I engage in musical activity.  My girlfriend's family had wisdom, because I am poor.  My life has been laden with strife.  Four years of depression at the loss of music, a job, and a girlfriend, and two cornea transplants.  I have forgotten these ills.  The depression though is seeping back.  "No man is an island," but in today's America there is no cultural sustenance.  Being a musician is being human, and the activity of playing music on an instrument is highly physical and spiritual.  It is highly skilled and equally as celebratory as sports.  Music no longer is important in America, because it has been hijacked by technology. (technology being internet providers and social media)  Initially downloading music from the internet became a convenient and thus viable business acumen, but several decades later it has proven fatal.  (MP3's are compressed and don't sound the same)  We as a nation have forgotten what music is.  It is a matter of perspective.  Reality TV is not real music.  The art and craft of music is no different than ever it was.  It began with the Greeks who devised the scientific and mathematical fundamentals of audible pitched sound. They invented music theory based on the harmonic series.  It is fascinating.  Like most things today, because there are no jobs, America has turned her back on the Humanities.  I understand trying to train young people to find real paying jobs, but with the onslaught of technology and smart phones, the substance of human existence has diminished.  To put it in a nutshell human life is moving toward a cyber existence or virtual reality.  This has been the push, and this change has destroyed the economy of America for the masses.  I am an avid computer user, and I love what it can do, but computers should not take the place of live music.  Real music is learned in school with a formal education through a centuries old tradition of schooling.  Wanting to sing on "America's Got Talent" and being magically transformed into a pop star is not realistic.  Simon makes it seem that way, just like state lotteries make you spend your money foolishly.  The Lottery is a joke.  First it is ridiculous for one irresponsible person to get that much money.  Second to call it as North Carolina does, an educational lottery, it is a lie.  That money does not go to education, or teachers would be better paid.  It is embezzled and siphoned off by corrupt politicians, before it gets to the school systems.  No one should be spending their money on lottery tickets.  There is no magic, and the way you become a formidable vocalist or musicians is to train.  I have matriculated at three major universities.  To me musicians no longer are understood or supported in everyday life.  For me to sustain my musical inclinations, I must listen to and play music.  The population in general prefers you to be seen and not heard.  When I do either of these things in my home, play recorded music of many styles, or play music on keyboards, the neighbors are disturbed.  I have discovered that most of them have no understanding of music.  They just don't get it, and certainly they don't understand the music in which I am interested.  I am white, but always I have played black music.  My father played "standards" on the piano in the style of George Shearing, and it rubbed off.  I majored in music at UNC-Chapel Hill, got a B.M.E. degree, and am certified to teach K-12 music in pubic school.  The later chapters in my musical vocation have molded me into an arranger, composer, and performing musician.  I have studied the complete history of jazz, I play Gospel organ, and I play trumpet and electric bass.  I love the Blues and feel it should be a core part of every musician's repertoire.  If you can't feel the blues in one way or another (and there are many) then you musical expression will be stunted.  For me music always has been life.  Life without music is life in America today.  It is dead.  It is communist.  It is oppressed.  It is limited.  It is flat.  It is boring.  It is selfish.  Playing music in an ensemble is an experience that should be revered, because it teaches life skills.  It is no wonder America is becoming a fractured, violent, and unfair.  We are not teaching the things we need to be teaching, because school employees are are trying to avoid mass shootings.  I was told today that my yard now is a danger zone, because it offers access to the playground of the school.  The perimeter of the playground has become a war zone.  This is paranoid.  Many don't understand the language of Jazz or Gospel.  They call it devil music simply because it reaches into the depths of your soul.  Expressing one's self is threatening to others.  Your spirit upsets their demons.  One thing that has been forgotten is that the only way for real music to be actualized is to have been heard.  When you perform it, you need to understand what it sounds like.  I missed this boat as a youngster.  I heard my father's music, and it was enough to inspire me to be a musician, but America's history has a wealth of artistic recorded music.  It is one of our biggest national attributes, and yet it is forgotten, neglected, and ignored.  Radio was the appropriate vehicle for the dissemination of live and recorded music.  The internet or satellite is not effective.  Music is not digital.  It is analog and human, but the human aspect of music has been lost.  The traditional places where music was provided, clubs, are few.  I try to use my home as a place for music, but fervently it is rejected by my neighbors.  They must not get it, and I have to get angry to overcome their passive aggression about denying music.  It upsets their demons.  Perhaps the world has become too volatile for people to have time to process they real effects of artistic music.  It distracts them from making a living.  It's like having parents who want the house quiet, and I can understand that.  America has been hijacked by cheap foreign interests, and true American tenets are getting lost.  It is "Cancel Culture."  "The Sporting Life" could be a questionable American behavior, but hard core pornography is rife on the internet.  Human sexually is so skewed and exploitative, it would be difficult to understand the real thing.  I agree with Sigmund Freud.  The "Id" is a quintessential component of human nature, as it is in Mother Nature.  Life is not worth living without sexual expression, unless you are  enslaved.  This oppressive existence is where America is headed, but real music could save us.