A Musical Argument

Yes yes, it's been a long time since I have posted on here. I've been busy, okay?

To make up for it, here is an email I have just sent to someone.

Some context; a friend of a friend baited me on Facebook recently by talking some guff about music. This argument went round on a fairly superficial level until the other person said something that really got my goat.

"I won't ever study music. That would curb my creativity in the music I make"

Here's my response. I hope that my massive over reaction at least amuses you. Enjoy!

I felt compelled to send you this message as I didn't feel our conversation had reached a sufficient conclusion.

Don't take anything I type in here as being personal, I am a contentious bastard at the best of times and I am not particularly even directing many of these arguments at you, as I don't know enough about your musical background to do so. I hope you appreciate however that I am often confronted by people making statements similar to those you made yesterday, and as a staunch defender of music education I feel obliged to outline my exact objections with what you said.

Ignoring the opening of the discussion, which was really just a bit of facebook banter, I want to jump immediately to your dismissal of studying music on the grounds that it stifles creativity.

I have heard this argument many times, and there is certainly a legitimate argument for this in two respects;

1) The study of art of composition (which is firmly what I am interested in) is something that is indisputably separate to the study of music. This has been the case for a number of years, and although there are certain schools of thought that are entrenched in tradition (See Joseph Schillinger's system of music composition or the serialist movement lead by Arnold Schoenberg ), there are enough other school of thought to provide some credible arguments to this going as far back as the writings of Bach.

2) In order to create music that is successful, worthwhile, interesting or any other flattering adjective you care to imagine, it is not essential that you have a traditional music education.

However, whenever someone has presented such arguments to me (and I must say I've never heard them qualified with either of the bullet-points outlined above) the reasoning behind the presentation has always struck me as being disingenuous.

Again, this isn't aimed at you, but more at other people who have said similar things to me in the past. That, I must stress.

This argument always seems to come from a viewpoint of being open minded, however I cannot see how restricting your input is anything other than being narrow minded. It's actually very dismissive of an enormous world filled with an enormous range of musical ideas, from those laid out by Luigi Russolo in the futurist manifesto to the broad church that is pop music.

Yesterday two words kept coming up in our conversation. One was "influence" and the other was "study".

Now, from what I can make out you were against the idea of things that you might learn from study influencing the music you make.

The first thing I would like to get to the bottom of is that I'm not sure we are understanding the word study to mean the same thing, at least not in a musical context.

As I outlined earlier, studying the art of composition is very different from studying music. A lot of people seem to think that the study of composition means understanding complex harmony and contrapuntal rhythm, how to write a fugue etc.

This isn't really the case, when you study composition it is assumed that you either know that stuff or you don't. It's music theory that you study at GCSE and if you don't know it, well it's really not that important. The study of composition is the full understanding of the piece you are getting your teeth into. Understanding conceptually what the composer is trying to do, understanding what all the rather boring musical language is there for, not what it is doing in itself. Composition is an artform, the musical devices used to achieve the art are merely devices. They are often handy to know, but it doesn't change the fact that it's something you can learn from a book, given the time.

Okay, so at this point you can still argue that learning these intangible, etherial qualities that dance in the vapor, you might still be influenced by things you learn.

My response to this is, at what point do you consider your mind to be pure. You said you use a guitar, a bass and a computer. These are fairly conventional things that are used in music making, so to some extent you are adhering to things that you have learned.

If you are using a guitar and presumably playing notes, you are making use of western tuning. If you are using a computer for anything other than recording then you are almost certainly sticking to quite strict rules outlined by very traditional music theory. Meter, dynamic, etc.

All of these things are therefore influencing you in the same way that someone who has studied the work of Wagner might be influenced by some of his ideas.

The art isn't in the mechanics, it's in the creation, and I firmly believe that by absorbing everything from the traditions of the Javanese Gamelan to the experiments of Karlheinz Stockhausen, you are only adding further sophistication to your pallet.

There is something in what you say about being influenced to the point that you are merely mimicking, but if this is the case then a) someone who does this has NOT understood the fundamental internal dialogue required compose, b) this argument can only hold water if the person holding these opinions is creating something utterly mind blowing that redefines how we think about music.

Imagine how stupid I felt when I noticed the typo in paragraph 5.

Bye

Charity And Me

A question I often ask myself is a question that troubles my tired brain whilst I fail to drift away into the world of slumber most nights.

I imagine it's a question that many of you ask yourselves too;

Am I an awful person?

Most of us would probably accept that we are more often than not extraordinarily self centred people, who don't really care about anything that doesn't affect us.

Anyone who doesn't accept this is either a liar, thick or too deluded to be in anyway introspective or self critical.

Most people will find ways to justify the awful things they do; "oh, I don't give the homeless money because they'll just spend it on drugs, so I'm actually being kinder to them not giving money" or "I don't give money to charity people in the street because then they take a cut of the money I give".

Or they do good deeds and quickly tell everyone about it on Facebook or Twitter, making the kind act something that is entirely self serving.

Of course this isn't new information to you, you've probably already had these revelations yourself.

Obviously I have a moral crisis quite often. I've spoken about them on this blog before; pretending to be blind so I could keep a seat on a train, pretending to be disabled so I could get one over on a rude woman. Dreadful acts by a dreadful human, I'm sure we can all agree on that.

However, the above are both quite amusing. My new one, I'm not so sure about.

It happened entirely by accident. I didn't even realise I had started doing this, which is a real concern when you discover the level of planning and research that has gone into this particular act of wickedness.

I've started lying to charity workers. I know that a lot of people do this, but not to quite the same extent as I do.

I'm not talking about a mere "sorry, I'm late for a meeting" or "I actually already give to this charity". These lies are obvious and the clip-boarded clever-clogs are well aware that you are just avoiding them. Which is fine, at least they know where they stand.

My lies are designed to make me sound like a good human being, arguably the best human being. Certainly the best human being in this exchange.

Around 6 months ago, when approached by someone trying to get a hold on my cash, I would say "oh, actually your mate up the road has already got me". This makes them think that I have agreed to give them money, and buy saying "got me", they probably think it was down to a hard sell and a bit of intimidation, making them feel thoroughly guilty and ashamed of themselves.

This trick was good for a few months, until one day a man collecting for a children's hospital smelled a rat and starting asking questions I couldn't answer.

Now, most people at this point would feel awful at lying to someone from a charity. Not me, I was furious. How dare he question my charitable generosity? How dare he assume that I was trying to deceive him? I mean, I was and his suspicion was bang on. But still.

In my flustered rage I stormed off to work and spent the best part of an hour researching charities and learning where their head offices were. Why? Read on, but I warn you, it might make you never want to read my blog again.

I was so furious with being found out, that I wanted revenge on all of those poxy do-gooders. My plan was to, when next approached tell the person asking me for money that I worked for their head office, and that I actually didn't appreciate the aggressive manner in which they approached me, and I didn't think it was really in the spirit of the charity. If they had any questions I sure as fuck had the answers now.

A while passed before my next encounter, and it wasn't until sometime last week that I was in a situation to try my new plan.

I did try my lie, but obviously I had forgotten all of the details (although the charity was one I had researched). The boy looked utterly bemused as I started claiming that I worked for the Manchester office, and that the street team does a "fine job". The conversation ended with us both shrugging, and me not giving him any money.

If all men were like me, the world would be an enormous playground for a handful of wealthy, powerful men, leaving the rest of the weaklings to scuttle around in the mess that we make, desperate for scraps.

I'm sure that's not a good thing, but I'm also sure that it's true.

Follow me on twitter @monkeyhotel

Hold That Bus You Toasted C*nt

You know when you have one of those soul-piercing moments of self realisation, the ones where it suddenly dawns on you that despite your lifelong efforts to be 'one hell of a guy', you've somehow managed to become exactly the sort of person that your former self would hate?

Yes, I talk about this kind of stuff a lot. Look, if it's boring for you to read, imagine how crushing it is to live, yeah?

So anyway, I've decided to buy a scooter and learn how to ride it. I got the idea after watching an old introduction video to the popular channel 4 show Football Italia and seeing its host James Richardson reading Italian papers whilst drinking a coffee sat on the back of a Vespa.

“That’s the life for me”, I thought and ever since that moment I have spent pretty much every spare moment looking at prices for the bike, insurance, road tax, etc etc etc.

This is odd, because I can’t stand people who are into two wheeled vehicles. I put them in the same category of people who get into martial arts in an extremely pathetic and casual way and start to believe that they are part of some underground culture that makes them somehow unique.

Not long ago I saw photos from a friend of a friend’s wedding. The couple happened to be into biking, therefore the whole wedding was themed on people wearing leathers and boots. Fine, do that if you want, but don’t then bang on about how “you did it your own way” and wanted to do something “a bit different”.

Anyway, even though I still absolutely despise these people, I’ve decided that I’m not the sort of person who should use public transport anymore, and I can’t afford a car because I live in London.

When I say I’m not sort of person who should use public transport, this isn’t meant in a snooty, hoity-toity sort of a way. I mean it just brings out the worst in me. If anything I’ve been looking for reasons to not get a scooter, but my awful experiences on public transport leave me with no other option;

Last week I saw an actual racially motivated fight on a bus. It’s one of the most surreal moments you’re ever likely to be involved in. On one hand you need to be sensitive to the issues that caused the attack to happen, but on the other hand you can’t condone violence from the victim of the racial abuse. I dealt with the situation by offering the seething man some water, as though that was the solution the middle east has been begging for, if only the world leaders asked me.

Last weekend I had to get a train into work and found myself having only been awake for an hour on Sunday morning, face to face with those still up from the previous night’s partying. Complete assholes, boasting about the number of pills they had taken and congratulating each other for being so “hardcore”.

And then yesterday the final incident that has led to me booking a bike test – running for a bus that was within my reach I shouted to a woman stood next to the bus, screaming “hold that bus for me”, motioning with all my limbs and probably my head too. She completely ignored my pleas, and the bus pulled away. Upon arrival at the bus stop I continued my run until I was pretty much in her ear and asked quite aggressively “why didn’t you hold that bus? You could clearly see that I was running for it”. She turned around and was clearly some kind of burns victim.

That shouldn’t excuse her, but guess who the other people stood at the bus stop chose to glare at for the next 20 minutes. The burns victim or the out of breath yob?

Dinner For One.

Hello there. I have to start this post with an apology.

For the first few sentences, this blog will sound like a really odd parody of one of those hideous television advertisements. You know the ones, the ones that encourage you to take pretty much everyone on the planet to court if one afternoon whilst walking in the park you accidentally tripped over a kangaroo and broke your spleen in two.

Three questions;

1)Do you find your self infuriated at restaurants when people suggest that you order two vastly different meals and share them?

2)Does the thought of someone using their knife to cut your pizza in half, take away 50% of your chosen meal and replace it with something you don't want at all?

3)When someone arrogantly assumes that you don't mind them trying a bit of what you have ordered, even just a tiny bit, do you want to throw that person to the floor, claw-hammer out their brains and fuck those brains back into their head?

If you're a vaguely reasonable person then the answer to all of the above questions will have been "yes, yes I fucking hate those selfish wankers. But, oh, there's nothing I can do about it. Society favours 'nice' people who share food and drink cocktails for fun".

This may appear to be true. For some reason we are expected to want to share our food with other people. I don't know why, I mean apparently it's something to do with our evolution. Sitting down with people to eat shows an element of trust that you are not trying to steal each other's food, which ultimately allows for intimacy with in turn is what allows us to have friends. This is a unique trait of humans.

Fine. That doesn't mean that we have to literally share the exact meal we are eating with them though, does it? Isn't it enough to just be sat down at the same table, safe in the knowledge that if we turn our backs the person we are eating with won't use their stake knife to stab us in the neck and take off with our Thai curry?

I think that human evolution has sold us a shit one here. Food has become a symbolic commodity for sharing, and he (or she, don't accuse ME of being a sexy sexist) who shares the most is, at least in their own eyes, the best person.

Those of us who don't want to share, meanwhile, get spoken about behind our backs. The others will say to each other, "well, I mean, he seems okay, but when I asked if I could dip my bread in his gravy he looked at me like I'd asked if I could fuck his shoe whilst he wore it".

To me, sharing food is too personal and I don't like it one bit. Yes, I am happy to eat with another person, cook for another person or even buy them their own food. But once in the territory of sharing food, etiquette kicks in and it's only a matter of time before I start to look like an unreasonable maniac.

Anyway, if you find yourself sympathising with any of above described, why not pay attention to the paragraph beneath?

Hello, and welcome to a new paragraph. Yes, last week I discovered a very easy way to avoid any dinner related upsets. I was out for lunch with someone I used to work with when he suggested we got some food. He kept asking me what I was getting, and had obviously assumed that we were going to get two dishes to share.

I waited for him to order, then out of spite ordered exactly the same thing, drinks and everything. You should have seen the disappointment in his face. Especially when the waiter laughed at us for ordering the same thing.

Follow me on twitter @monkeyhotel or on tumblr

A Walk In The Park, A Wank In The Mark(et)

I think I may have discovered the exact most awkward situation it is possible to be in.

Yes, I've probably started a few blogs like this in the 2ish years I've been posting, but if you'll allow me to flap my gobby-fingers at your eyes, I've had a lot of experience of embarrassing and awkward situations recently and feel justified in talking about it again at length without feeling a bit of a wang-head.

In recent weeks I have mistaken a young woman for being pregnant, made a very horrible joke about all scousers to a girl whose scouser boyfriend had recently died, witnessed a race-based fight (after which I offered one of the warriors a sip of water to calm down), had my hair washed by a hairdressing assistant who was quite obviously deliberately getting shampoo in my eyes, forgotten my friend's baby's name (I am godparent) and moments after overhearing someone else in a hospital be told that one of their loved one's had died, forgotten to turn my phone on silent before airing this ringtone to the otherwise silent ward. (Click on player below)

Flyingmen by monkeyhotel


Recently I was in a supermarket looking at belts when I suddenly needed the toilet. I went into a cubical, sat down and started to relax into a poo.
I heard someone else come into the toilet room and go into their own cubical. After the familiar sound of trousers falling down (familiar?), the man began to masturbate. Yes, he was definitely masturbating, before you start to question this. Definitely.

I considered coughing to let him know that someone else was in there, but seeing as at the best of times I try very hard to ensure that nobody knows I am pooing, this couldn't happen. I remained silent and very on edge.

Well, I say I remained silent, I did until I couldn't hold the poo in (the poo I had already started, have you ever tried to stop a poo?) and it flopped out, along with a windy parp.
This plop, splash and flatulence was met with a sharp halt in the masturbation, a nervous cough, a murmor... then a recommencing of the wank.

Realising that he was in this for the long haul, I got the hell out of there without finishing my poo. Yes, I did hang around to see who came out of the room. I'm not sure why I did this, his face now haunts my nightmares, as does the fact that he was carrying a cycling magazine...

Follow me on twitter @monkeyhotel

Oh no... oh what were you thinking... NO NO NO

Ouch. My entire body has coiled up in shame.

You know that cringe, that really hard cringe when you try to fold your body up in such a way your shoulders could meet infront of your face? You know, you feel a shiver at the top of your neck and work its way down your spine until the cringe is over?

I got an email this morning. The email was from my old email account, the one I had as a child. It was telling me that as I hadn't logged in for years, my account was about to be closed forever, unless I signed in immediately, which I did.

Once inside, I found thousands of unread messages from the company that used to host a website I made as a 16 year old chump.

For nostalgia, I visited the website. Oh my sweet lord, I've never felt my skin crawl with embarrassment quite like it did when reading my juvenile attempts at humor, profound thought and satire.

What a little dick-weasel I was back then. What did I think of myself? I made statements about art, politics, the vapidity celebrity culture and religion, all of which are misspelt, entirely nonsensical and stultifyingly ill-informed. If someone said these things to me now, I would dismiss them as a human being and wish ill upon them.

I'm absolutely not going to share a link with you to the site, I will however show you the part of the website that I'm still fairly proud of and find quite funny; the pictures I drew in MS paint. Even as an adult, my dreadful attempts at drawing still try to inform some kind of narrative, but fail to do so. It amuses me greatly that I have in no way matured since the age of 16.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did back then, and to be honest, still do today.

Quite a simple story here, two boys kill another boy's pet. Then kill him. Kick kick kick.

A common theme in everything I've published online; irrational hatred of people. On the left is a man I knew called Tommy. What a little fatty. On the right you can see him in a ball gown having drugged his dog so she will dance with him. Notice the dog, dreaming of a dead Tommy.





More murder by me. This time it's the turn of Wheatus.

Left: Tommy again - bumming someone and right; if Satan had laser vision.


Thanks.

Mail Fail (sorry)

How annoying. My email account has been hacked by someone, someone who has sent an email to everyone I’ve ever emailed, or has ever had any contact with my email address.

This is one of the most annoying things that can happen to someone who spends a lot of time online and manages virtually every aspect of their life from a google account.

Concerns about details being stolen, changing passwords for virtually everything, having to send grovelling emails to various professional relations and hearing from people that I haven’t spoken to in years and never wanted to speak to again. Very irritating.

If I were into hacking email accounts and sending emails to everyone in a contact book, I would probably try and pull off some kind of scam that led to my gaining financially.

The person that hacked my email account however opted to send the following message to everyone I know;

“http%3A%2F%2Farqueogestion%2Ecom%2Fm28sx%2Ehtml”

I’ve googled it, it doesn’t mean anything, I imagine it isn’t dangerous to anyone opening it, but it has been sent to virtually everyone I know and various companies I’ve emailed in alphabetical batches of 10.

Pretty annoying, although since discovering this hacking I’ve found something else far more annoying. People have actually responded to this email asking why I’ve sent them this email or what it’s all about.

What do they think? I typed out these seemingly random selection of letters, symbols and numbers, thought “hm, I know who would really appreciate this dynamite chat”, typed in their email address, then thought of 9 other people with names that started with the same letter that would also appreciate this hot info and pressed send?

Have these people never received spam before? Why, when they saw that the email I sent to them had also been sent to people called Tim, Tom, Tony and T-Mobile did these people think “hm, I wonder what this could be, what he’s trying to say, is it some kind of cryptic code? I know, I’ll ask him”.

One person started their email with “LOL, what was that all about mate? Long time, I’m currently...” and then went on for 3000 words about their boring wife, boring house in Surrey and boring child.

Since starting to type this post I have had a further 5 emails from people asking stupid questions. I’ve also had another email telling me that my work doctor is working from home today. How does that work?

Bye