Just thought I’d share something that I think about almost daily, but I think most people don’t.  It’s a simple little fact: musicians have broken brains, and it makes them better people.

It occurred to me after listening to the umpteenth argument about music.  You can only try to set people straight on the subjectivity of music so many times before you have to accept the fact that most people’s brains just aren’t broken the way a musician’s is.

Is your brain broken?  Read the following and tell me if you agree.

Music criticism is a precarious task, poised between the horns of a dilemma. On one side, every person has musical ideas that you don’t (using the impersonal “you” here).  Even “nonmusical” people have musical ideas from which you can be enriched if you are an active listener.  The problem is that the brain instinctively rejects the unfamiliar, or that which it can’t easily understand. Many people consider this instinctive reaction to be “dislike.”  But if you really want to listen critically, you must first mentally accept the unfamiliar and give it a fair chance.  Consider that your negative initial opinion may stem from the sound feeling unfamiliar (unfamiliar = uncomfortable = mental reaction of dislike).  After you get past that, you can decide to dislike it based on its merits and failings.  Musicians and critical listeners are generally weirdos because their brains are broken; they have, through habitual use of willpower, broken their brains of their instinctive listening habits.

“There is wisdom in turning as often as possible from the familiar to the unfamiliar: it keeps the mind nimble, it kills prejudice, and it fosters humor. -George Santayana, philosopher (1863-1952)

For that reason, I think the more time you spend critically listening to music, the less music you end up disliking.

I see far too much musical criticism that attempts to take one person’s opinion and make it prescriptive. Don’t get me wrong — criticism is vastly useful for every artist and appreciator of the art.  But although there are many things about music which can be discussed somewhat objectively, most criticism seems to degenerate into a debate based solely on subjective opinion being presented as objective fact.  Subjective opinions are useful criticism, as long as they are understood to be just that.

Let’s all try and break our brains a little.