It seems like I've been posting a lot lately about the idea of communication without words. Of course, it's always a strange subject to write about because you actually have to use words to do it. Which means there's no effective way to do it. (Which also means I should probably not even try.) It would be so much better if I could just say, it's like this, where this were some sort of magical image or sound that could somehow convey the whole thought. Musicians do this (or try to, at least) all the time. If you've ever listened to a conversation between a bunch of musicians, you know it can be pretty entertaining in its own way. Just pick up a DVD sometime like the making of Let it Be or I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, which is the documentary about the making of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Or listen to an interview with just about any rock, blues, or jazz musician. They're speaking English, for the most part, but it's layered with some other dialect, some other mode of speaking. Okay, okay, maybe some of it is drug-induced. But I think mostly it's a result of what happens when people try to talk about music.

Basically, words only take you so far. While there is the practical, almost mathematical rationality of music - the actual notes, key signatures, tempo, style - the elements that can be described with a concrete, structured language, there is, at the same time, the irrational, emotional side of music, for which there is no real language, but which usually takes the form of bursts of laughter, anger, or incomplete sentences and thoughts that don't make much sense at face value. . . 'it's like this, only not, you know?'

So yeah, musicians talking about (and playing) music is a strange communion. Probably part of the reason people think musicians are half-baked all the time is because they don't really think in words. They think in sounds. And emotions. So when you get a bunch of musicians together talking and playing, it's often abstract like a drug trip, even when no drugs are involved. It can also be a bit volatile, concluding in either exhilaration or animosity. But there's nothing better than having those exchanges, especially when you're all on the same page musically. And you don't know if you're going to be until you try. I've heard many musicians compare it to sex, which is usually uncomfortable to acknowledge, but is probably pretty accurate.

Anyway, all this is sort of a lead in to this: I've been taking jazz piano lessons from a musician named Robert. They are going really well and part of the reason is that we speak the same language. Robert comes from a 'stride' background. Fats Waller, Count Basie, Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson: the kind of stuff I love. We spend a good part of each session talking about their different styles and what can be taken away from their playing. We talk about theory. I've had a lot of theory in the past, but the cool thing with Robert is he actually shows me ways to apply it. He likes pointing out the mathematical rationality of music, but he also acknowledges that at some point all that goes out the window and you just do it. He's taught me several new styles and techniques that I'm sure are going to improve my playing over time. My fingers are picking up a new vocabulary, new expressions, new ways to say things. The strange and 'disruptive' part about this whole process is that my fingers are simultaneously having to 'unlearn' their native tongue, the street slang and bad habits they've picked up over the years. Yeah, my left hand feels kind of like Eliza Doolittle.

So I've entered this strange new territory where my mind is telling my fingers to do new things, but my fingers haven't reached the point where they can do those things easily. At the same time, my fingers no longer seem to want to do the old things they were doing before. They've become self-conscious. Hesitant. Unsure. As a result, I find myself hardly being able to play anything at all, either the old way or the new way, which is kind of annoying. And unsettling. This is going to be a long process, but I'm making a progress each week and I'm just anxious to see where things wind up in a year or two.

So there it is, another long post about music. Or language. Or both. I'm sorry for subjecting you all to these. But I just need to get this stuff off my chest, however inadequately. I realize that writing about language of any kind (music, art, or literature - writing about writing) is pretty dry, decidedly un-sexy stuff. Maybe that's why linguists don't get much play. I mean Mr. Safire is smart and witty and all, but would you want to sleep with him? Maureen Dowd, on the other hand, not a 'linguist,' and, the answer there? Um, in a heartbeat.

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