This is part 2 of a series of blog posts. Please read part 1 first.
Dear X
Yes, for this email I have switched from our usual German to English. The reason (I’m sure you already guess it) is, that our long and intense dialogue over email has yielded so interesting results that I would really like to share them with the readers of my blog. Your questions, concerns are - I believe - most probably shared by many other readers. And your ideas inspired and helped me to develop my ideas - as you will see - much further. The results will - hopefully - sharpen and extend my thoughts from the previous blog post and maybe even bring a whole new quality to them.
I will, to work on your many questions, use a metaphor which will be very familiar to you: music!
Imagine a modern world, full of loud noise and painful dissonance. To listen had become a pain. But of course, even in such a world (people still being people) there still existed a very strong desire to make music together.
So when two people played together, each of them would just play what they want. Being used not to listen well (or even not at all) to the other band member, this - of course - sounded rather horribly.
As a remedy people therefore started to invent rules about how music should be made. To avoid dissonance, they invented scales („after these notes you are only allowed to play exactly those notes!“), rhythms („we always repeat after four beats of the bass drum!“) and sometimes also rather random rules which complicated making music unnecessarily („you have to finish your song in a major scale, it sounds so vulgar if you finish in a minor scale!“). And the play of the heavy drum kit (let’s name it „BDSM“) was regulated in great detail, as this instrument was able to really torture the ear if not used properly.
Let’s call all these rules „moral“ instead of music theory for now.
But unfortunately the music played using all these rules did not sound really great. Yes, it was mostly free of dissonance (if the players strictly adhered to the „moral“) but it was also uninspired. The tunes of the different players were strangely unrelated.
Many bands therefore decided to simplify their performances: instead of playing at the same time, they would play one after the other: let’s assume a man and a woman play „together“. So first she would play her melody (and he would only listen. Only superficially of course because he - understandably - finds this moderately interesting) and then he would play „for her“ (with reversed roles). And moral even allowed both of them to add a modest crescendo furioso at the end.
Let’s call this kind of performance „wanking together“.
But what happens if the musicians are willing to listen attentively to each other? Imagine the man and the woman are playing piano together. Each of them is only allowed to use one hand [1]. The man plays the lower keys, the woman the upper keys. The woman starts to play a tune in C major. It’s a simple tune, but beautiful nonetheless. It inspires the man and he has an idea. He plays - let’s say - a bass note G, different from C, transforming her C-„Ionian“ tune into a G-„Mixolydian“ scale, adding a highly interesting exotic touch to it.
What happens now is key to understanding „good sex“: his move is most surprising for her. And now, even if she absolutely could continue with the tune she had in mind before, she will not want to do this anymore. His play has changed everything and what she had in mind before does not matter anymore now. Her old idea now suddenly feels boring. She has a far better idea now herself, an idea she would have never had without his play. And she plays another tune, which beautifully continues the musical story.
And this illustrates what I mean when I say that good sex is somehow not under the control of any single player, it rather „unfolds“ in a way which is always surprising for both.
Both players are somehow stacking ideas on top of the idea of the other player, building a „tower of ideas“. Ideally the tower gets higher with every idea added and eventually they reach the sky together.
They both experience something far beyond what they could have created alone.
There are some important things to see here: both players remain completely whole and independent during play. You have mentioned your fear of „fusion“, a process where the individuals are destroyed and form a new entity which replaces them. This does (should) not happen. What happens instead is that temporarily something totally new (and on a meta level) is formed: a form of „collective intelligence“ which is actually in control for the time of playing. So yes, both players temporarily give up control to this entity they create together. But like an individual ant remains an ant even if it is part of a colony (which can display amazing levels of organization and intelligence!), both piano players remain independent and completely free humans all the time. Both can stop the performance at any time (which leads to the immediate collapse of the „collective intelligence“ and gives control back to the individuals).
Another interesting thing to note: The man got the more dominant keys (for example, it could equally well be the other way round!), in the sense that it will create more severe dissonance if she ignores him than the other way round. And his keys are also louder and their sound lasts longer than hers. But this does not mean that he should not listen to her and override her contributions. This would be a very stupid thing to do and would totally ruin also his fun. And her keys are by no means worse or worth less than his: because they are less loud and don’t sound as long she can play them much faster compared to him (and therefore express much more complex ideas). And she is equally well advised not to use these advantages to override his play. Both their strengths are not meant to be used to be able to ignore the other and just play what „I want“. They are meant to complement each other. They are just properties of the different instruments they are playing and not meant to be used as weapons or tools to gain power over the other [2].
Now to your concerns regarding pain and violence. Two people playing together without listening will probably torture their ears. If one always plays the same loud note again and again it is very painful to listen for the other. And the player doing this might not even be disturbed (because he is not even listening properly to his own music). Like this, the horrible „music“ can be played for a painfully long time (and even become traumatizing).
Being insensitive to pain makes being violent easy.
This cannot happen for a long time if both players are listening carefully. Of course it can happen for a short time: if one player somehow misunderstands the other, there will be one (or maybe a few) dissonant notes. And this is why a little tolerance for pain is required. It’s not like following the „moral“ (like playing safely only in one scale) which guarantees a dissonance free (but also most likely boring) music. But it also means that strong prolonged pain is almost impossible. This allows making music to be a fear free process (and I believe this is extremely important, because it allows the exploration of uncharted territory).
I hope you like this text (which I could have never written without all the contributions from you) and I really can’t wait to read your reply!
Most kind regards
Marco
PS:
This letter was also the result of a long, intense and inspiring interaction between us. So thank you for the great fuck 😜 (me: staring at the ceiling and smoking a cigarette).
[1] No, the reason is not that the other hand can do that
[2] Playful wrestling does not count as „trying to gain power over the other“
Image: Shutterstock, Dikushin Dmitry
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