At a live music show, I often wonder the same thing. Do musicians get bored of doing the same thing? I look at the guitarist’s face as he plays his solo, and he may so expressive in his features. I think: he can’t feel this every time. He plays every night, often the same songs. It must not mean anything to him at this point. It’s a mechanical routine he’s doing, because that’s his job.
But to a musician this must be such a stupid question. It’s like asking me if writing gets boring. Writing is the manifestation of my emotion. It is a need, or my feelings will bubble under the surface till they erupt in a meaningless outburst. Without writing I cannot be whole, I cannot be myself in the external world. Musicians must feel the same. Every strum of the guitar is an emotion let out.
That is also why I will never buy into the claim that anyone can play music. When I say “I wish I knew how to play music” and people say encouragingly, “You can!”. I can’t. Yes I may learn how moving your hand in different ways makes different noises. But I will never be able to learn to play music. I will never be able to express my emotion through a musical instrument. My way is writing, and each person has a different way of wholly expressing themselves.
But as an audience member, I love music. I love seeing someone else express themselves in that way. I believe there is a lack of music in the Middle East. At least in Jordan, you can seldom walk down a busy street and find live music. I find it that to be extremely sad. Such an accessible art form, yet there is a lack of it. I wish to understand the self policing we have of art. It is actively discouraged.
Art is by nature non conformist. The presiding fear in our society, in most societies, is to not conform to the flock. There is public opinion, and there is your opinion. Your opinion cannot stray too far from the public. And so you self police, calibrate the compass, to force your opinion to align. People feed themselves all kinds of different lies to do this. Far too many lies.
To produce art is to begin the process of self acceptance. It is a viscerally embarrassing thing to do at first. It feels like being naked in public. “I’ve exposed myself too much! No one should be seeing this side of me”, is what may run through your head. You hate your own voice, you see yourself in the worst way. All the worst perceptions you have about yourself will come up. But with every thing produced and shared, you get more comfortable. And after comfort the pay off comes, and it is so worth it. You can look in the mirror and not hate what looks back at you. You can let all that go. It fades away.
You see yourself for your attributes and flaws. And you’re okay with it.
My favorite quote from Taha Hussein, and one that I actively tried to memorize due to how important it was to me, is this:
“People have different approaches of lightening worry and getting rid of sorrows. Among them are those who seek relief from them through reading, among them are those who seek relief through exercise, among them are those who seek relief through listening to music and singing, and among them are those who go to other than these means, all of them so that they may forget themselves for a while and flee from their present life and what it burdens them with of hardships.”
You must find what that approach is for you. No one will tell you what it is.
And so in the same way I may read the same book again, enthralled just the same. Or keep writing the same phrase over and over again, not seeing the boredom of this task. A musician will feel the same playing the same song again and again. There is no boredom it. What you love you can repeat endlessly. You do the same thing everyday for the people you love. You take your kids to school every single day, because through repetition there is love. They can be one and the same. Photographers take pictures of the same subject. A painter may paint the same vase of flowers for their whole lives.
Love is that kind of devotion, whether it’s to art or to a person. And in that way loving someone is art. It is living, breathing, evolving art. It is the most real kind of art. A lack of love is a lack of art, and a lack of art is a lack of love.
And that is my case to advocate for more live music in our region.
“The important thing is that a person should meet his life with a smiling face, not a frowning one; serious, not playful; that he should bear his share of its burdens and perform his share of its duties; that he should love for people what he loves for himself; and that he should influence people by the good that comes forth from himself. After that, it should not matter to him whether life becomes heavy or light, or whether people are pleased or displeased.
For we were not created in vain, nor were we left neglected. We were not commanded to seek the approval of people. Rather, we were created to perform our duty and our obligation. If we do not do so, then we alone are to blame, and upon us alone falls the consequence.”
- Taha Hussein, 15/12/1954
