Final Note: Pleasure Has an Opposite, or Somewhere over Whose Rainbow?

Pleasure, Music, Sound and Self

Pleasure has an opposite-pain. One of music's great gifts is its offering of an open landscape in which to explore experiences over a bridge of perception connecting outer with inner, potent with the possibility of our living the unity of the two and upheld by a foundation of pure sound. Entering the risky realm of considering something called a pleasure principle applied across musical styles, however, presents a challenge filled with dangerous quagmires in which the true value of music can easily become mired, severely constrained and fractured by needless dichotomies. The antiquated and artificial debate about mind versus body or F-sharps versus drum tracks is a dead end. It might be fruitful, though, to look deeply into our understanding of pleasure, to find out what our presumptions are, what we might be missing and what could be that we have never conceived. How can we gain insight from the eons of philosophical thought that have already been devoted to this examination? How can the human spirit evolve in a progressive direction towards a better understanding of all the dimensions of music and the joy that can be found to exist in all music?

In our culture of rampant self-promotion, there is a risk that such a debate may rekindle old, artificial, confrontational arguments, which only demean and damage our art form. The elementary mistake is to get caught in the trap of dichotomizing music as being either of the head or of the body, thereby encouraging needless polarization among musical styles. Such tiresome diatribe obviates approaching sound sans a priori judgment and restricts the joy of discovery latent in all sound experiences.

So to begin, what do we mean by pleasure or to please. One dictionary [1] includes things like "to be agreeable; to cause to be happy or glad"-oops, as soon as we think of causes we're in trouble-"to be the will of"-yikes, now we have to understand will-"to wish, like, think fit"-oh no, now we're shouldering all the weight of our wishes as well. For pleased and pleasure, we read, "to be moved to pleasure"-then, who is doing the moving?-"To be disposed, like, choose"-OK, we can choose as long as we don't proselytize-"a feeling of being pleased; enjoyment; delight; joy"-OK, this is important to remember. Unlike pleasure, true joy does not have an opposite! And more, "something that pleases; cause of joy or delight"-no deal; true joy has no cause! Finally, "anything that amuses; sport; play; worldly or frivolous enjoyment; sensuous gratification; one's will, desire, or choice"-wow, are we in trouble!

So, where do we go from here and whose pleasure are we talking about? It must be the pleasure of the self, of course. Let's draw from the wisdom of Charlotte Joko Beck. "A 'self' is simply a person who believes his or her concepts are the Truth, and is obsessed with doing anything possible to protect the self with concepts to promote its pleasure and comfort" [2]. Seeking-rather than enjoying-pleasure in music is another form of seeking reaffirmation of ourselves as separate beings. When a particular formulation of music isn't giving us that reaffirmation, then we seek to correct things and try to make the world the way we want it to be. This can involve the sociopolitical put-downs and manipulations intended to devalue that which we feel works against our reaffirmation. We think that we alone know what is human. There is a degree of phenomenal arrogance in this.

When we think we are receiving pleasure from music, are we truly aware of what we are actually experiencing inside, the true nature of the emotional state underlying our transient feelings, its cellular nature and the physical-mental collaboration producing the mind-body contraction we label as pleasure? Are we really paying attention to ourselves? "The question is always the same: in this moment, what do we see and what don't we see?" [3] Or, for our purposes, what...