Gabe Mizrachi

Winded, I stepped off the treadmill in Robert Rainaldi’s fitness class. “Down” by Jay Sean was playing, followed by “Empire State of Mind” by Jay-Z. I saw fellow classmates snapping and emotionally moving to the tunes, as if their apparent “beauty” had entranced them and lifted them from the earth. 

All I could do was put my palm to my face and roll my eyes. Alicia Keys struggling to hit the high notes in “Empire State of Mind” and Jay Sean’s blatantly auto-tuned voice made me cringe with fear; a fear of where music has gone, and where it will soon go.

            To remedy this shock, at home, I listened to my favorite live recordings of the Grateful Dead’s “China Cat Sunflower” and Phish’s “The Divided Sky.” These artists have been warriors in the battle to maintain the weakening bastion of a once great genre: improvisational jam.

            “To jam” is to play music either completely improvised (made up as the musicians play) or to take a song and play it with one’s own personal tweaks (crafting solos, changes in tempo and key, etc.). A jam does not have a time limit; the musicians play until the right place for an ending shows up in the music. 

By playing ten to fifteen minute jams, musicians can explore a wide realm of themes and develop a song to sound one way in the beginning, but have changed its personality completely by the end. This, in my opinion, is much more sophisticated and enjoyable than a three minute song with uniform rhythm and melody from start to finish. It’s simply too boring.

My main problem with today’s pop music is the lack (and sometimes even absence) of instruments. Where have they gone? Where are the pure sounds of guitar, piano, drums and horns, now that artificial vocal affects and synthetic percussion have replaced them? Today’s most popular music has split the marriage of rhythm and melody; it has taken the former and killed the latter. 

Sure, one can say, “that’s a sick beat,” but that’s about as in depth an analysis can go. Now, the beauty of a dynamic melody is hard to come by on the radio or on MTV. The crime that pop music has committed has forced songs to be shorter and has made them sound completely mechanic and dry.

            The world of improvisational music is one that is most deep. Previously mentioned bands (Grateful Dead and Phish) are my favorite artists of this genre, but improv doesn’t stop at the groovy guitar solos of psychedelic rock. Go to any jazz concert and you’re bound to see someone, be it a trumpeter, saxophonist or a bassist take a riveting and melodic solo made up on the spot. 

Even in classical music (although the word “jam” isn’t widely used therein), composers such as Frederic Chopin (who lived from 1810 to 1849) were able to play an authentic sounding piece that has never been played before. These performances are the best to witness because you never know what is coming next, and thus you look forward to what happens. You’re always on the edge of your seat, wanting more; expecting more. To see a pop star like Miley Cyrus perform “Party in the U.S.A.” may be fun for a while, but you know what to expect. The lyrics aren’t going to be changed on the spot, and the pre-recorded background music isn’t going to take a solo. It’s simply not inspirational.

            Improvisation, in a way, teaches its listeners about the musicians and what their music is supposed to portray. It tells a story with a real plot that the listener can follow and in which the listener can be engrossed. Just like in a gripping novel, the listener can hope for certain things to happen and feel as if he or she is a part of the saga. In mainstream pop, all one can do is sit and listen to what he or she knows is coming, just like in any corny action movie. One learns very little from listening to a story that has already been told to them.