Life lessons from heavy metal music

Because of my husband and brother, who are heavy metal musicians, I started listening to this art form. Initially, I tried to understand the music and the emotions behind it, and I was disappointed. Over time, I have started to stop trying to ‘understand’ heavy metal music instead, I just listen and be present. Surprisingly, I started liking it. That is all it takes - just be present and observe in a nonjudgmental mode. 

This article by Ryan Holiday beautifully describes the emotion and thought process behind someone embracing this not-so-mellow music genre. Apparently, heavy metal music appeals to people who consider themselves as outliers and struggle to fit in. 

“It is probably every parent’s worst nightmare, especially parents of the generation mine came from. This was dumb people music to them. It was ridiculous, ugly, and only a few short steps from tattoos, drugs, long hair and dropping out of school.

So yes, most parents might think that metal songs are about drugs, violence, suicide, the devil and whatever other ridiculous stereotypes scared people project onto it. More directly, the assumption is that they somehow advocate these things to impressionable young people. Of course, the opposite is true. In fact, the music is often about coping with the complicated and dark feelings that come along with a serious intellect at an early age.

A few years ago a study found that kids with the highest IQs are disproportionately attracted to heavy metal. The reason is that the themes of alienation, frustration, and even pain, match the experience of a smart young person struggling to fit in and make sense of the world.”

Many of us fail to see the artistry behind the heavy metal music. Here’s what the author saw.

“When what we had to read and study in school bored me out of my mind, it was music that stimulated me–that inspired me to think about how words could be used, what was worth studying and just what the human experience was.

Even though Kirk Hammett landed his dream job, he continued to learn and stay a student. I remember thinking how different that was than the notion that geniuses are just naturally that way. No, it takes practice and work to be good at something—even a thing that many don’t respect as real “art.”

Something you notice quickly about the genre is that it is more than just music. Heavy metal album covers are some of the best in the history of music. Because the bands understood that they were not just recording songs, but creating brands.”

Despite not being a mainstream music, how did this genre of music survive and has been thriving? This is where Kevin Kelly’s 1000 True Fans concept comes into play. 

“These are acts that rarely got on the radio or television. How did they survive? How did they keep going? How do they currently sell out stadiums—literally stadiums—when most people assumed they have broken up? Because they know who their fans are and exist exclusively for them. They were also smart enough businesspeople to figure out earlier than the rest of the industry that the money was never in record sales.

In any case, to see these bands continue to thrive when the economics of music have supposedly collapsed is a testament to the power of a loyal fan base and a universe of products.”

The author mentions how heavy metal turned out to be more than just music. 

“I learned that you really could be good at more than one thing. Moreover, that stereotypes are total bullshit.

If there’s one model that I have used to justify my peripatetic career, it has been Bruce. Why shouldn’t I try new things? Why wouldn’t it be possible to get excellent at this thing? If he can do all he is done, I can do a fraction of it.

The entire time it was making me smarter, introducing me to new ideas, teaching me about the business of art, and inspiring me to pick a different career.

Plus it was fun.”

Lastly, the point that most resonated with me was how music could help tune out distractions while you work and how it can ruin the ‘music’ element.

All that said about being an outlier and trying to fit in, if only people knew that average is just a myth and hence, there is no point trying to fit in, would we still enjoy heavy metal music? Something to ponder on. 

Why practice music?

If you are looking to cultivate a hobby or take up a new project to fill up your time in a day, I urge you to learn to play any musical instrument. It is a keystone activity and its effects can spill over the rest of the areas of your life. This TED-Ed video will persuade you to practice and play music instead of only, listening and consuming. Here are some useful excerpts from the video.  

“Playing music is the brain’s equivalent of a full-body workout… Playing an instrument engages practically every area of the brain at once — especially the visual, auditory, and motor cortices. And, as in any other workout, disciplined, structured practice in playing music strengthens those brain functions, allowing us to apply that strength to other activities. This may allow musicians to solve problems more efficiently and creatively, in both academic and social settings.

Because making music also involves crafting and understanding its emotional content and message, musicians also have higher levels of executive function — a category of interlinked tasks that includes planning, strategizing, and attention to detail, and requires simultaneous analysis of both cognitive and emotional aspects.

This ability also has an impact on how our memory systems work. And, indeed, musicians exhibit enhanced memory functions — creating, storing, and retrieving memories more quickly and efficiently. Studies have found that musicians appear to use their highly connected brains to give each memory multiple tags, such as a conceptual tag, an emotional tag, an audio tag, and a contextual tag — like a good internet search engine.”

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-playing-an-instrument-benefits-your-brain-anita-collins When you listen to music, multiple areas of your brain become engaged and active. But when you actually play an instrument, that activity becomes more like a full-body brain workout. What's going on? Anita Collins explains the fireworks that go off in musicians' brains when they play, and examines some of the long-term positive effects of this mental workout.

Articulation, age, and art

We often say, ‘where words fail music speaks’. Art forms exist to compensate for the limitation that language provides. Does that mean when we get better at articulating our emotions, we tend to rely on art and music less? Well, I guess so.  

When I was in undergrad, and I had just got my first full-time job, I was at that stage of life (18 - 24 years old adult) where I had encountered a plethora of emotions such as friendships, love, financial mismanagement, identity crisis, conflicts with parents, and so on. I was an emotional and mental mess.

Adolescence is a confused phase of life that can help you make better art. Precisely why college students seek out for more new music to listen as they find solace in the most confused stage of their lives. The quality of music we make could depend on our age and at what phase of life we are in.

Another factor is the place you live in. Residing in a crowded metro in a highly populated third world nation means you are regularly exposed to pain and sufferings of people around you. All these can serve as an inspiration to make art.

Personally speaking, since I started blogging the urge for singing and making music for expressing myself has reduced. I still do my daily 'riyaz' as a way to keep my voice and knowledge sharp but, the throbbing need has definitely reduced. Maybe as our command over the language improves, we find lesser need to express ourselves through music and other art forms unless of course, it's a source of livelihood for us.

“Art is for life, not the other way around. ”

— Austin Kleon

The big flip in publishing industry

This blog post by Clay Shirky, dated sometime in 2003, still holds true. It talks about the big flip that has happened in the publishing industry and how the effects are different in writing and music.

Firstly, digitization provided a landscape where both the amateurs and professionals can participate and compete in the same ground.

“This digitization has taken an enormous amount of power formerly reserved for professionals and delivered it to amateurs. The internet has lowered the threshold of publishing to the point where you no longer need help or permission to distribute your work.

This is all part of the Big Flip in publishing generally, where the old notion of “filter, then publish” is giving way to “publish, then filter.”

A side-effect of the Big Flip is that the division between amateur and professional turns into a spectrum, giving us a world where unpaid writers are discussed side-by-side with New York Times columnists.”

However, in the case of music, even though digitization has provided us amateur production and distribution, the finding and publicizing aspects of new music are still controlled by professionals a.k.a ‘gatekeepers'.

“But the middle part — deciding what new music should be available — is still analog and still professionally controlled.

Digital changes in music have given us amateur production and distribution but left intact professional control of fame. It used to be hard to record music, but no longer. It used to be hard to reproduce and distribute music, but no longer.”

In other domains such as writing, the case is quite the opposite, and that’s because the gap between amateurs and professionals is not as wide and evident as that in music. The difference could also, be because of the lack of proper attribution systems in music. In the case of writing, we can always credit the sources by inserting a hyperlink or by listing out the references whereas, in music, it's difficult to articulate the sources that have fed a piece of work.

“The curious thing about this state of affairs is that in other domains, we now use amateur input for finding and publicizing.

In strong contrast to writing and photos, almost all the music available on the internet is there because it was chosen by professionals. Like writers, most musicians who work for fame and fortune get neither, but unlike writers, the internet has not offered wide distribution to people making music for the love of the thing.

There are distinct differences here, of course, as music is unlike writing in several important ways. Writing tools are free or cheap, while analog and digital instruments can be expensive, and writing can be done solo, while music-making is usually done by a group, making coordination much more complicated. Furthermore, bad music is far more painful to listen to than bad writing is to read so the difference between amateur and professional music may be far more extreme.

Most new music is bad, and the users know it. Life is too short to listen to stuff you hate. It is still hard to find and publicize good new music.”

That said, applying the tools of filtering and publicizing that have been both accessible and useful in other domains could change the musical landscape.

“A system that offered musicians a chance at finding an audience outside the professional system would appeal to at least some of them.”

The psychology of fame

This is a sequel to one of my earlier blog posts.

According to psychoanalysts, we desire for fame because we want us to be treated well.

“At the heart of the desire for fame lies a touching, vulnerable and simple aspiration: a longing to be treated nicely. Whatever secondary impetus may be supplied by appetites for money, luxury, sex or power, it is really the wish for respect that drives the will to fame.

Fame allows celebrities to leverage kindness and respect others. A famous name alone can accomplish in an instant what its bearer might otherwise have had to beg for over the years with his or her whole personality. This saves a lot of time.

The real cause of celebrity culture isn’t narcissistic shallowness, it is a deficit of kindness. A society where everyone wants to be famous is also one where, for a variety of essentially political (in the broad sense) reasons, being ordinary has failed to deliver the degree of respect necessary to satisfy people’s natural appetite for dignity.

If we want to decrease the urge for fame, we should not begin by frowning upon or seeking to censor news about celebrities; we should start to think of ways of making kindness, patience and attention more widely available, especially to the young.”

Apparently, the roots of this desire of fame were planted in our childhood itself.

“The appetite for fame tends to depend on both what sort of childhood one had and what sort of society one lives inn.

In the early years of the archetypal famous person, there is – almost inevitably – rejection; there can’t be any kind of sustained longing for fame without it.

How invisible one was once made to feel determines how special and omnipresent one will later need to be.”

Therefore, the desire for fame eventually boils down to parenting. 

“A key goal of parenting: to try to ensure a child grows up with no wish to become famous.”