Posted by Duke [ 63.87.108.184 ] on July 01, 2006 at 17:41:09:
Have you noticed that more men than women really get into music, and often by extension into this hobby of ours? Why does the music matter so much to so many guys?
Well I have a theory on the subject. Let me introduce it by telling you a story.
My stepfather is a retired Marine aviator who flew helicopters for two combat tours in Viet Nam and completed a third tour flying fixed-wing aircraft. He is a genuine warrior - tough, practical, honorable, logical, and in control. Never ever emotional. He makes Mr. Spock look like Richard Simmons.
Now my stepfather has a passion for opera, and one day I gave him a Cecilia Bartoli disc. He invited me to listen to it with him. This was a first, so I did so. He has no sense of speaker placement or sweet spot, but I've learned not to try to impose my audiophilia on him. We sat in silence through the entire disc. When it was over, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. He was quietly wiping away tears. I was stunned. What had happened?
This is what I think happened: This old warrior has been conditioned (and has further conditioned himself) not to feel or show his emotions. Music - in his case, opera - has the power to take him past his conditioning, deep into what is normally forbidden territory. Nothing else has the power to do that for him. Music is where he goes to feel. Music is his connection, his lifeline perhaps, to his well-hidden emotional side. Despite the warriorness - and I'm convinced that's who he really is; it's not a facade - he has a suppressed side that needs to feel things, and to feel them deeply. And for him, there simply is no other way.
Now I'm not half the man he is, but still my feelings are not something that I let out. I have my barriers too. Music serves that role for me as well - it facilitates my feeling things that normally I put up barriers to and keep locked away.
I speculate that music plays this role in the life of many men. I do not think it's as essential for women because they aren't as walled-off from their feelings as we are. They can cry or mourn or show giddy elation and it's okay. They don't need the inner therapy session that we get when we put on an album we love, close our eyes, and feel all it way way down deep to the very bottom of our souls. And when it's over, we come away just a little bit better than we were before, a little bit more true to that part of ourselves, and perhaps a little bit healed from the wounds we would never let anyone know were there.
Music well reproduced does this better of course, but even the car radio can work it on me.
Duke
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