Style as Religion: Job and Music

I want you to walk with me through a metaphore...
This one shouldn't be too hard,
but think of Music as life. Think about the congruence of this metaphore - where and how they match up, the similarities between the two, and how fitting and pleasing the camparison is.

Now, I want you to think about what makes life wonderful. Where you would go all the time, what you would do, and most importantly, who you would do it with.
Isn't relation the most pleasing thing that we have in life? Isn't it true that you can go through the most dreadful experience, but if you have someone that you love and enjoy walk through it with you it can become one of your fondest memories? Or you could be doing something that you love, only to have it ruined by the presence of someone you dislike.

(Ok now, in this metaphore, relation is relation - in both music and in life - with others.)

Think of the flow of life, and the flow of music that touches you deeply, and how similar they are.

Fantastic. Now we're ready to move ahead!

In music, we have categorized everything. We must have a box in which to put something because if we leave it in the unkown it scares us. That's just a human response in life; if we can't grasp it, we fight it.

Many artists compose music according to a particular style. Rock, Hip-hop, Gospel, Jazz, R&B, Classical, and the thousand permutations of sub-categories that each engender. In order to sell, an artist will "cut the fat" to fit into a category so that the audience feels safe enough to approach it and buy it.

But if we consider the metaphore, music, like life, is essentially dynamic.
"Styles" of music, like Religion (which will stand for boxing life into a comfortable, explicable, sterile, and understandable form; science, islam, methodism...) eventually, and consistently, kill that which is caged. Consider the freshness of Jazz when it first emerged, but how it has been amputated from its original, life-giving source.

I think of so many artists that are truly great and genuine - much like people who truly exist within a form of religion as sincere, devoute, and true seekers of God - who are trapped by this thing called "Style".

Soon, if the route is taken, people begin to sacrifice great ideas on the fact that it doesn't conform to the standard of a musical genre.

What I'm trying to say is not that religion is necessarily a bad thing (life IS, however, about a RELATIONSHIP with GOD, not a form of ritual), but that Music, like life, cannot be distilled to a style/religion. It's more expansive than what just one person has to say.


Let's use Job as the idea of the ultimate musician/artist.
Job was not concerned with the pious "propriety" that entangles us in religion. Job was concerned with speaking with God. All three of his friends tried to categorize him - to box him in to an explicable situation: "you're cursed of God; you need to repent; what did you do to make Him hate you?" But he refused to accept those pronouncements. Instead, he said, "I want to talk to God. Let God Himself answer me! I will settle for no less..." And because he didn't settle for less, he got exactly what he wanted.
Consider him as a musician, refusing definition by the barriers of category, and how that quest for the fresh, the soul, the new, the essence, was rewarded with an answer. He was not bogged by others' perception of him. He defied the gravity of their names and rose beyond. Which of his friends talked to God? None of them! In fact, the others were told to come to God only through Job's sacrifice!
Tenacity to tap into the essence is key. The press for the best must never rest. Job did not wait on the validation of his peers - or of his audience - to move. He gained momentum in spite of them.

Kierkegaard said of Job that nothing could satisfy him but the one-on-One answer from God - the answer from that which we seek. God, of course, is the essence of life. And if life and music are interchangable in this metaphore... You catch my drift. I've already said that God is like a song.