Anyone who has followed my writings here knows that I do NOT consider music to be a universal language. On the contrary, as we grow, we learn to process music as our culture dictates. In the west, music systematizes harmony, melody and rhythm into what we recognize as our classical and popular music. Yet even those wonderful elements absorbed too specifically can limit the way we perceive sound. For example, trance music with its endless repetitions frustrates anyone who prefers theme and variation, purely percussive music is wearisome to those who crave melody and chord progressions, and atonal music seems to freak just about everyone out. New Music, modern classical and free improv have made many inroads in helping us shed our preconceptions about what music aught to sound like to the extent that we may only now be capable of understanding and enjoying much of traditional Asian music. Which brings me to this performance from The Buddhist Project by Korea’s Be-Being. With its repetition, floaty tone center, and nasal horn lines it can be a difficult listening experience until one strips away preconceptions, and surrenders to the abstract sound of it. And then it becomes strangely beautiful. I recommend using headphones. (continue reading…)