My brother Brian is an enterprising fellow, always has been. As a teenager, he learned how to turn eels into guitars. Brian loves fishing. He learned that his talent for catching fish was of value to others. So he caught eels and sold them. He accumulated enough money to buy an electric guitar. Brian wasn’t a fisherman, or a guitarist. He was an alchemist. Transforming slimy river monsters into pinch harmonics. This is the power of money. Cool huh? Well yes, unless you’re an eel. And that’s an important piece of the puzzle. In the eyes of money, nothing is what it is. Everything is everything else. Money flattens everything. It has 2-D vision. A tree, from the perspective money is only “good” because it can be transformed into lumber and paper. Which is counter to a natural way of looking at a tree. Because a tree is good in and of itself. Because it is beautiful. It doesn’t need to be anything else to be good. It just is good.
This is my thesis on money. For now. What happens when this strange force is applied to music?
Music Meaning and Mystery 