Naked Music - The Manifesto (or How to Play Title Rock)

I believe that anyone who has been playing music for any length of time, if allowed to play what they have been working on in its totality, without the trappins or worries that come with being a musician (what others think, whether they will be able to get another gig, whether they will be like or not, whether it is good music or not, whether it is the correct style, whether it is correct for the gig) that music will be beautiful. It will not be cliche because it will expose the work and pressures of an individual's whole life up to that moment. In this form it can only come out, in an individual style that has been shaped by everything up to and including that moment.

Stripped down in this way (Naked!!), without superficial concern, is when the actual experience of music happens. To play naked is to try and expose what lies beneath style. Styles come and go. They are external permutations of the live energy underneath. When a musician makes this explicit then a listener can get the real experience of music. And that can be really powerful, life changing. People can realize their unhappiness and make changes from the release that happens when things are just right.

Even more beautiful is the picture of actual harmony that evolves when there are many people interacting in this way. I once overheard a conversation where a fellow was saying that no matter how alike and in tune with another individual we are, at a certain point we will find differences. The important thing is how we deal with differences. In music, if we are open minded, we can hear that two or more different sounding people (both individually perfect) can always be heard in harmonious association (it's just a matter of what you allow the brain to organize), and that is counterpoint.

The horror of music as a commodity, is that it forces sound into categories. We then alot those a class. Classical music equals pomp, money, European upper society gatherings. Rap equals lower class, impoverished, poor folk struggling. This is madness. Sound has no class affiliations. That becomes obvious when it is Naked.

These are a few of my thoughts. Many would say that writing about music is useless. You can't depict music in any other way than its own language. Some who have given me great musical experience say that. They must also be correct. Symbols and languages aren't the things themselves. It seems to me two views of the same thing. One says in a cliche-ejaculation "A picture is worth a thousand words." I say "If you just look and don't read, a thousand words IS a picture."

Talking and language is music. Speak and play Naked.

--Jonathan Freilich

Jimbo Writes:

Marketing Statements

Naked means unclothed. Clothes are fashion. Fashion is style. Naked is not stylish. Naked is true. Naked is vulnerable. Naked is brave. Are you naked? Why not? Be vulnerable. Be Brave. Get Real. Get naked.

Philosophical Ramifications

As I write this the Taliban are destroying statues of a man who did not think that statues made much difference in life, scientists speculate whether life may exist in a vast ocean that lies beneath the frozen surface of a moon of Jupiter, a lake has been discovered in Antarctica that lies miles beneath the ice and has not had contact with the atmosphere for many millenia, the American political structure is disintegrating, light has been captured and held for a time, the human genome has been unravelled and the universe has been shown to be expanding rapidly and contains much in it that we cannot see.

What then is the Naked Orchestra? How can there be an answer to this question when I know not even what I am? I look at my hand before my face and presume to behold matter... and yet I cannot comprehend what this matter is. I have been told that matter and energy are one, so then I suppose my hand is energy trapped and given form somehow. Light is energy, one supposes. Is my hand then some sort of extremely dense light, some gnarled mass of wavelengths so tightly tangled that it can hold a baton and wave it, and sometimes drop it during performances? What kind of light would that be? Light that is jealous of sound perhaps?

--Jimbo Walsh