The Escalator to Hell

I am trying to learn to play keyboard. I took a class a while back and since then have been practicing and learning on my own.

But I am very pissed off. This is classical music. It was written 300 years ago. It is a contribution to the human legacy. This music is one of humankind’s greatest achievements.

But does it count for shit in the world?

Think of all this shit that humans expend often unimaginably vast amounts of resources on. Then think of all the stupid things that humans also expend vast amounts of time on. There is all this shit. Mountains of it. People are surrounded by it. Touch it. Taste it. Breathe it. Hear it. It cannot be escaped because its ubiquitous.

And out of all of it, how much has been expended to enable people to play and learn this music? Almost nothing. It sickens me.

Its not just a matter of being able to download some version of a piece. That is not how you learn an instrument. You need to study fingerings in order to learn. And not just fingerings, but other aspects of the pieces as well such as ornaments. That means being exposed to different editions.

You would think that, given the devotion of vast resources to so much other shit, that at least some resources would be devoted to this. You would think that if any human being, in the year 2016, wants to learn how to play keyboard, to study some of the greatest achievements humans have ever accomplished, that it would possible. That the materials would be available and easily accessible.

But they are not. Hell fucking no. You can barely even find sheet music stores anymore. And the ones you find may have no selection at all. Certainly you won’t be able to go in and be able to look at 5 different editions of some Bach invention in order to see what fingerings you like. Hell no.

I just ask the question: What the fuck are humans doing, what the fuck have they accomplished, in the year 2016 if they can’t even acknowledge the greatest achievements of the species and make it so that any human being who wants to learn and study it can do so?

Another thing that completely sickens me is that, at least among some cultures, there is this kind of value placed on learning classical instruments. Especially piano and violin. Kids are prompted to play them beginning at a young age. It is part of the “path” bullshit, or perhaps it is called the escalator, that parents start prepping their kids to be on starting at a young age.

So ostensibly there are all these people in the world who have been trained in classical music. Based on the amount of training, the emphasis placed on the escalator bullshit, and all this supposed talent, one would think that we would be living in a society saturated by artistic energy. But are we?

Hell fucking no. We are not at all. We are not even close to it. We are moving away from it at high velocity.

Do any of these zillions of people ever play classical music anywhere? Or any kind of music for that matter? You would think that if you walk down a street, past cafes, restaurants, and other places, that – given all this supposed talent and training which has occurred – that it would be everywhere, that you could not avoid it.

But in fact the opposite is the case: Its nowhere. You don’t hear shit or experience shit anywhere and no one is playing, spreading artistic energy into the world. And that’s the point: The whole escalator thing is not about actual love of arts. Its not about spreading the glory of amazing human creations into the world and raising the energy levels of the world. Its about greedy, disgusting, self-serving bullshit that has to do with “success” and “achievement” which ultimately deprives the world of art and inspiration, not provides it.

It just goes to show how much bullshit there is and what an immense farce so much of society is. In the end people are just stupid dumbfucks who mostly follow orders and are complicit while the Earth is killed. The escalator is turning out to be an escalator to hell.

So much for the love of the arts and the inspiration of the great masters.