Music Odyssey

The trope of travel is such an old concept that it feels like something awkwardly familiar to almost anyone in the context of art, music, literature, psychology, or religion. Music programs relating to journeys, voyaging, passage, development - we’ve all been there, done that. When will we finally learn to let go of the cliché, to stop repeating ourselves?

Well, perhaps never. Whatever makes a successful comeback must have at least some merit, a force to break through novelty (the latter highly enchanting already centuries ago, not least according to Couperin). It is arguable whether things that have withstood the trial of time thus far have earned the right to be further preserved, however the question has to be asked and the answer considered.

Are they with us because they represent special qualities which don’t suffer from the passage of time? Or do we carry them as unwelcome luggage, resulting from arbitrary decisions and gimmicks of fate long gone? Regardless of our first thought on the matter, if the trope seemed worthy for a Nobel prize winner to examine and interesting enough for us to still pick up “The Odyssey” after millennia, perhaps we also shouldn’t reject it too easily.

Speaking of the epics, most people are shocked to discover I’ve been a certified sailor for the majority of my life now. I crave movement, I need change. I’ve only come back to sailing for the first time in a decade this summer, and it felt as if I regained a part of my identity. The low-stake freedom of choice, the leisurely movement of balancing between air and water, gently pushing ahead, travelling for the sake of it and semi-consciously procrastinating arriving at the destination - that’s refreshingly different from the focus on productivity we’re used to in daily life.

I think it’s similar with music. It doesn’t exist beyond the context that limits it; it’s the passing of the time between the silence that precedes it and the one that follows. Every piece is a travel in itself. And as usual, it’s about the process, not the destination - as soon as we arrive at the end of the piece, music is no more. In one way or another, aren’t we all sailors?

(Originally posted on Instagram on 21.10.2022)