Clued In

“I don’t want to be here.”

This was the foremost recurring thought in my mind as I walked up the steps of Hertz Hall. Surrounded by older, whiter, richer appreciators of art and music, an odious portion of whom were wearing overpriced scarfs paired with outdated haircuts, I dragged my considerably less refined self to join their ranks in the audience of Steve Reich.

This setting was unlike any other I would frequent. If my friends knew where I was, they would most certainly have been laughing at my expense. Grades, as (nearly) always, would have to take precedence over my reputation.

After thwarting more than enough stares for having been outside of my house for less than an hour, I shifted my focus from the sea of ignoramuses to the stage. The lights began to dim. I was thirty whole seconds closer to going back home.

In all fairness, I had walked in a skeptic. I wanted to dislike the performance and everyone who had paid to see it. I wanted to find it utterly frivolous and a waste of time and laugh my way through it. And, granted, there were hilarious parts: the bearded man sitting stiffly on the edge of his seat, standing every so often to turn the pages for the pianist, for one, actually caused me physical pain — some laughs are harder to hold in than others. His role seemed so miniscule, and he was taking it so, incredibly seriously.

I began to realize that in an effort to pick apart the performance and diminish it to its unglamorous parts, I had entirely ignored the actual music. What I could not ignore, however, was the feeling.

In the name of honesty, I must admit I am no expert on music (surprise). In fact I am the opposite of an expert. ‘Amateur’ would be too forgiving a word to use to describe me. So, no, I cannot explain the technicalities of the composition. I can’t name or describe or relay much at all about what I was hearing, but I could at least recognize that it was having an almost metaphysical effect on my emotions and thoughts.

You can write music. You can read music. You can create it, hear it, love it, hate it, and criticize it — there are infinite mediums through which to share it. However, I don’t think you can compose a feeling. You cannot use words to break it down into its parts in a way that makes it comprehensible to anyone who reads it. I believe that makes it all the more meaningful.

I thought more about the pages, the preoccupation of the bearded man. I marveled at the fact that what I was hearing was being reproduced from the markings on those pages.

This is not unique or unfamiliar. Written words in the form of poetry and novels exert indescribable forces on the reader. This is the true talent of the writer and, I realize now, of the composer.

I struggle to think that Sunday night’s performance could have been a universal experience. It was uncomfortable for me. I could not separate the music from the setting, which was one of perceived elitism and, in all honesty, whiteness.

But in my room that night, I opened my laptop and found Steve Reich’s music on YouTube. In that setting, one of comfort and protection from the prying eyes of those who could not wrap their heads around a woman in a head wrap, I listened to the xylophones and in them I found pure, unblemished joy. In this context, the music felt like it really could be universal.

This is something I have battled with ever since the first day of this class. I could not determine when to separate the art from its social, political, and historical context. As Professor Boas showed a copy of the letter Joan Brown received from the dean when she defaced the school walls, I could not help but remember the Black elementary school girl who was body slammed by a police officer for simply being disruptive in class. When a white girl breaks the law, she gets an amusing letter from the dean. When a Black person attempts to exist peacefully, they get a bullet from a supposed protector of the law.

I believe it is important to look at art and artists in context. To divorce Joan Brown of her white privilege would be a disservice to every artist of color who could never rise to fame the way she did. Even to attempt to listen to Steve Reich’s music, separate from his history and his narrative, would be dishonest. Despite whatever discomfort may result from doing so, truly appreciating art requires appreciating the circumstance under which it arose.

This same mindset should be applied to all forms of study; history without context is less like actual history and more like portrayal. Even scientific study and discovery has to be considered in its temporal and physical context; what led someone to seek a technological solution to this exact problem at this time, in this place? The answer to this question can help us understand an advancement more deeply, and humanity more broadly.

Steve Reich was born in New York. He was raised in California. He majored in philosophy at Cornell. He went to Juilliard. He also grew up with a profound respect for prominent jazz musicians. Much of Reich’s early work was produced in response to major political events, such as the Civil Rights Movement and the Cuban Missile Crisis — the San Francisco Mime Troupe largely served as an outlet for his chosen form of response to these events, among others.

All of these things, and more, led to him being described as “the most original music thinker of our time.” And they are important to note.

These have been the musings of an unrefined, less-than-amateuristic person who is actually now a fan of Steve Reich. I think.

“All music does come from a time and place. I was born an raise in New York. I moved out of New York, but it’s inside of me and it will be insie o me until they put me in a box in the ground.” — Steve Reich