Music Dystopia

Bloody drumsticks and snare drum from Whiplash movie

Science-fiction.

The genre can take whatever is happening at the time and extrapolate it to see what the world would be like if things were to keep heading in the same direction. Orwell’s 1984 was written in the era of hyper-nationalism that led to World War 2 and paints a picture of the future where propaganda is life. Written in the burgeoning age of television, Fahrenheit 451 takes anti-intellectualism into the future, offering a dystopian world where books are illegal. Planet of the Apes, written in the course of cold war militarization, shows a distant future where nuclear fallout has obliterated humanity. I loved Whiplash for the same reason I love sci-fi. Hear me out…

Whiplash does for jazz competitions what Planet of the Apes does for nuclear war; it shows, in vivid detail, the spooky dystopian future we are in for if music continues down the same path it is currently headed. Now, of course you can't always practice until you bleed, but have you ever stayed up so late you were out-of-it at work or class the next day? Of course you haven't dumped your significant other in order to spend more time practicing (perhaps). But have you ever weighed your love life against your life's love? You may have never crashed a rental car and sprinted to your performance bloody and concussed, but have you ever been stressed about being on-time, unprepared, or underdressed for an important meeting, speech or performance? 

Some parts of the movie definitely hit extremes, but if you've been to music school, I know you can relate. Perhaps you’ve never hidden the first chair's sheet music so you can steal their spot, but I’ll bet at some point, you've been just a little bit happy to see your peers fail so you might succeed. You may never have had a chair thrown at you by your band director, but I bet you can remember a time when you floundered and got a serious dose of public humiliation.

Here’s the thing… Most of what I did in music school, I loved. I got to do all the things Whiplash doesn't portray; songwriting, interactive playing, jam sessions, etc. The lion’s share of criticism I've heard is that the movie gives no attention to the positive side of music school, only the negatives; the stress, a ceaseless work schedule, constant criticism. Not once does it show anybody having fun. This criticism is warranted. If one is attempting to offer a well-rounded documentary of what an education in jazz is truly like, then the joy of making music - for the sake of making music - should be at the heart of the story. Whiplash, however, never intended to be a well-rounded documentary. It's a chilling dystopian parable. It's the consequence of a style of music education that places polish above soul, that places technicality above originality, that values perfection above connection. Most of my friends and teachers aren't like this, but I'd be lying to you if I said I haven't seen it. I've seen it at jam sessions where solid musicians, after maybe a year of college education in their instrument, are too intimidated to step up and play. I've seen it at "history of jazz" retrospectives that start in 1915 and end in 1965, thereby leaving out half the history of the art-form. I've heard it on professional albums released on major record labels where musicians play, note-for-note, the exact solos transcribed off of a famous album with all of the “correctness” but none of the spontaneity. If music keeps heading down this path, Whiplash is where we end up.

Some of the older musicians I've played with talk about playing music like it's a vice... like chocolate or sex. But the younger, music-school cats I know think about it more like a sport; as something to succeed or fail at. Whiplash puts this competitive, athletic view of jazz center-stage, but it can’t be the whole picture. Music must allow oneself the freedom to jive and to thrive, not to languish for fear of being scrutinized.

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