Music and people

This analysis started when I read a quote on iGoogle: Classical music is the kind we keep thinking will turn into a tune. - Kin Hubbard

For a long time now, I had gotten into a habit of sharing quotes with my friend, over messenger. But, now that she has migrated to a foreign land to assay if the pastures are really greener, I kind of miss the remnants of the grins that we usually exchange when we meet—the ones that we did not have time to share amidst the busy schedule at work. But, you don't really have to worry about not being able to share your thoughts, because the messenger medium is still going to be the same except for the time gaps after which I get a reply. The time gap is close to 12 hours, which is an expected modus vivendi and to which I have got pretty used to, after a bunch of my sidekicks and thought partners left to the US about four years ago.

Well, the reply was: I really don't understand what he is trying—if he is making fun of classical music, I do not agree to it and if he is trying to make a point, I do not understand it…

Fair enough, I thought.

The reply that I managed to send was: I don’t know if he is trying to make a point or make fun; but given that he is an 18th century cartoonist/comedian, I guess it is the latter. Seriously, I mean, accepted that it is really difficult to learn and master classical music (be it hindustani, carnatic, or western), but still, I think the frequency of the patterns are so sparse in a given 4 to 5 minutes time space that it is really difficult to comprehend it. May be if I acquaint myself with its structure by methodical learning, I might enjoy it better than I do now.

Not sure on what lines she is going to reply. Meanwhile, I thought I must gather some of my scattered thoughts together before they get volatile. So, what is the relation between the words in the title, and the title and the contents that you have been reading till now? I do not have a concrete answer for the latter question, but I seriously thought understanding music and people were similar in some kind.

Certain people connect to you so well, match your wavelength very well, that after one or two conversations, you think you would be able to predict much of the person's behaviour and become friends. Same with music—certain tunes catch you real quick.

Sometimes, you feel the need to know a person for quite some time, to get started and going. Same is it with music—certain songs stay in the testing grounds for a relatively long time before it stirs you deep inside.

With people, you need patterns to judge a person's behaviour. You would like to see certain patterns in them and would want to see them quite often to actually accept them as friends. Almost all songs that appeal to us follow this simple logic or mechanism. I mean, it is not that you sit with a paper and pencil, or laptop to jot down the observations—the brain keeps registering all the behavioral patters associated with a certain person in a certain memory slot allocated to that person; it could even be an incident for that matter.

Certain other people fall under the category of fast music—they catch your attention pretty quick and leave you without any damage, with the same speed they came zooming into your life. You were happy as long as they were there, but did not really bother or worry you after they left you. This could be because of the entry of another person of the same or a different kind, like how one number replaces another, on music charts.

Some people leave lasting impressions and they might happen to be your school-time friends, who come all through your life's up and downs. They would have accompanied you in almost of kinds of moods—moodswings. Like certain songs that you just want to listen whether you are bored, tired, depressed, irritated or uninspired, or happy, elated, or fully loaded and in full throttle.

What I have written can well be passed off as worthless, but still it seemed to have derived some kind of satisfaction of having me gotten an opportunity to reel off my thoughts. Alright, it is time to wind up the free fall...