In life, musicians are under appreciated, taken
for granted and stolen from. In death they are treated like gods. The other day
I was surfing itunes and found that the number 2 song was … you guessed it “Whitney
Houston’s I Will Always Love You”. It’s generally been the accepted vernacular
in modern times. Society ridicules a music star into creating an unrealistically
perfect image of themselves they can’t live up to. As a result we run them into
drug overdosed, so called “tragic” deaths. The media becomes flooded with amazing
moments of their lives and we all feel a little bit better about the way we’ve
treated them while they were living.
Our musical history can be seen as vastly
different. Look at Beethoven, a god amongst men as he walked and is much of the
same in death. Even today he is the most
played music in any orchestra. You hardly find a movie today without hearing
his famed 5th and 9th
symphonies or ‘fur elise’. Sure
Beethoven dedicated his life to musical perfection and deserves his immortality
in every sense of the word. However a musician is only as good as his audience
and the audiences today simply aren’t interested
in supporting musicians. They expect perfection for nothing. There is no value;
music is more of a product than an art. I feel as though the art of performing
and artistry is slowly but surely dying.
A few days ago we lost a great musician, a
once in a lifetime voice and today we grieve. However next time you see something
that is superhuman, something that is beyond musical feats be sure to remember
that they are still human. They make mistakes. So next time you’re about to
click on that pirate bay music download think about what that musician went
through to be able to create such a work. Think about the decades of practice,
training and pressures. It’s not about money; amazing musicians have enough of
that. It’s about showing your respect and value for that music and musician. If we don’t value music then how are we that different
from any other animal? We are intelligent life so let’s show some. From
Tchaikovsky to Whitney Houston, we will always remember the ones that have
shaped this great phenomenon we call music.
Let me know what you think. Feel free to leave a comment and I'll get back to you.
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