Letter from the Editor

Waking up to music and art

My life might as well be a movie because I already have a soundtrack. Unfortunately Danny Elfman was not available at the event of my birth to take up such an honorable project, but he certainly would have been at the top of my list. As it is, music plays an integral role in my life—whether as a passive observer gently setting the tone for the moment, the focus of my very being and the source of thought and inspiration, or a partner in deep melancholy or joy.

Music holds an unquestionable seat in the history and invention of civilization. Music predates the instruments we use in its creation, the words we sing, and the movements of dance it inspires. Music is, in a very real sense, pure expression and communication.

I know that every month I spout about the very inception of each field of Art, its role within humanity, and the scientific and psychological underpinnings of our natural inclination [or not] to its creation, but I assure there is a point: today’s society is less educated and less aware of the virtues of art since any generation since the Dark Ages. Ok, I didn’t pull that out of a text book, but I’m sure I heard it somewhere reputable, and it can’t be denied.

A basic requirement to understand and learn from Art is to understand your place within it. You don’t have to be an artist or a musician, just a breathing person. I have been spending the last few months [and will continue] to try to convince you that art is as necessary and inherent to your survival as air, water, or the mastery of a language. Without it, we can not hope to know ourselves, one another, our history or our potential.

Far more about humanity is encapsulated on the walls of a museum, scratchings on cave walls, in the hymns of a Sunday mass or a pop rock album than any textbook or professor can ever teach you. Art is a living, breathing entity every bit as real as society and civilization itself. The nuances and emotions that Art can communicate between artist and audience, one culture to another, across generations, far exceeds the complexities, and, similarly, the basic commonalities of any language. To think and innovate in colors, emotions and symbols unchains the limitations of words and opens a whole new world of perception.

And this brings me back to music…it is the last and most prevalent Art form in this modern world that thrives and is readily available. It accompanies us in our cars on the way to work, celebrates the ones we love as they walk down a wedding aisle, and say farewell to the ones we love as we return them at their very end back to the earth.

But do you take it for granted?

This month we celebrate Music and its inexorable bond with all Art. Here in Phoenix, and especially the East Valley, we have one of the most progressive and respected experimental and indie music scenes in the world. Expand your appreciation of beauty and look to the creation going on around you—you live in an amazingly rich world.

We invite you, and the followers of music, to share your love and acceptance of music with all of the arts. If we break down the barriers of our common conceptions and open our eyes and ears to the entire spectrum of possibilities, they and we will all benefit.

Imagine, a world in which music is actively enjoyed and not just played while on hold trying to pay your credit card bill…a world in which we may journey into the depths of a beautiful composition of paint and texture to find something wholly unexpected instead of flipping the switch off in our minds like a commercial advertisement has trained us to do.

That world is already around you…you just have to participate. And if you made it this far, you already have.