The Soundtrack of Reintegration
How certain music can help us grow while we work
The vision and purpose of Tectonic School is one of reintegration; taking the separate categories of what makes a life, and recombining them into a more holistic and meaningful pattern.
Our work should not define who we are, lest we are devastated by events that leave us unable to work. Yet it’s also wrong to despise work; we were made to create, improve, and cultivate, everything that contributes to that goal is worthwhile.
Trade jobs are great opportunities for reintegration because they require use of the whole person:
Gross motor skills
Fine motor skills
Problem solving
Cooperation
Interpersonal skills
Despite this wide range of skills and operations, our capacity as humans takes much of this work in stride, allowing us to integrate further levels of complexity into our work day. This often takes the form of conversation between coworkers, or we can focus our attention on listening to something through speakers or headphones.
Without purposeful direction, both our conversation and the content we consume can turn to rather banal subject matter; sports, news, pop culture, or crass jokes. Such things are often overheard on construction sites. This need not be the case. I’ve written before that this is one of the key benefits to a trade career that doesn’t limit it - as educational materials are increasingly available online, many language based skills can be learned while working. But there are other times when it would be difficult to focus, or when it’s necessary to maintain verbal communication with your coworkers. This is why the most common thing heard on the construction site is music.
Music, whether lyrical or instrumental, can often be “added on” to other activities. It’s become ubiquitous in shopping centers, and the characterization of “elevator music” is an apt description of how music can be used to fill awkward moments when people share public spaces, on private business.
Different music affects us in different ways - its rhythm sets the pace for the activity at hand. A gym may blast intense, pounding music, helping patrons to push themselves past their limits. Yet despite how much someone appreciates energetic music in the gym, it would be totally inappropriate in a museum or an art gallery.
Music has often been an accompaniment to work - from the drums on galley boats that set the pace of rowers, spiritual songs sung during planting time and harvest, to the radios and smartphones of the current day.
On most of the jobsites I work on, Spanish language music is the most common, and while I am almost totally ignorant of the language, you can still discern different types. Some of it is more in the vein of electronic dance music, or urban sounds, while others are more traditional in instrumentation, accordions, trumpets and guitars. I can sometimes discern a ballad by the lyrics, if “amore” and “corazon” are mentioned often.
Nevertheless, until I can do more research, I will comment instead on the parallels of English music.
There are times where you will hear heavy metal being played, and this type of music can be helpful when a task is straightforward, repetitive, and big. The pace can help motivate you and your coworkers to keep going at a fast pace when moving material quickly is what is needed most.
I am always pleasantly surprised to hear worship music of various types. Oftentimes it’s of the sappy, K-Love Christian Radio type, but occasionally the type of songs that are good for corporate worship are heard as well. These songs are edifying to listen to, and dwelling on the goodness of God and his love is always a worthwhile pursuit while we work. Perhaps one day, if programs like tectonic school can gain enough influence, we may even hear men signing praises to God together on the jobsite.
But the other type of English music most likely heard on the jobsite is Country music. This is perhaps more prevalent in the south, but I originally took an interest in Country music while I still lived in New England, and there were quite a few country radio stations to choose from.
Over the last half a century, there has been a shift in tone in Country music that reflects a greater national appeal. Southern specific references have been toned down, as it instead reflects the lifestyle and experience of working class people everywhere. In the arenas and stadiums outside metropolitan Boston, country artists would regularly sing to a full house.
What is it about Country music that appeals to people? It’s often mocked by people who believe they have good taste, or it’s singled out as the sole type of music to be avoided by more eclectic listeners. When you ask a normie what kind of music they like, it's not uncommon to hear “anything but country music”.
It’s not because of a lack of musicianship - the old characteristic of “three chords and the truth” has a bit of truth about it, but it’s not because three chords is all they can play - it’s because they know that sometimes, less truly is more. While some country stars may seem unsophisticated, much of that image is the product of PR and marketing agencies. Nashville attracts the best musicians, and the limited availability of touring spots and studio jobs are settled through fierce competition. For an example of what these players can do, when they want to show off, check out the song “Time Warp” by Brad Paisley - a genre-defying instrumental through various tempos and time signatures that features virtuosic performances from his whole band.
I think what hooks people is simply taking the time to notice. Not too far back, there were a few country songs that made a blip on the news cycle, the first was the song “Try That In A Small Town” by Jason Aldean, and the other was the song “Rich Men North of Richmond” by the overnight sensation Oliver Anthony.
While comments were often qualified by a statement about not being fans of the particular genre, the thematic elements of these songs resonated with people, and many of the “reaction” channels on YouTube were quite favorable towards both songs, despite being outside their normal purview.
I think the divide between those who openly love and those who publicly scorn country music is a reaction towards sincerity. Malcolm Gladwell spoke about this as a divide over “sad songs” in his podcast episode “The King of Tears”, but I think sadness is only one element of this split. Sincerity is about revealing the inner person; when someone sings from the heart on any subject, our response reveals something about ourselves. For those who dislike it, what is often revealed is a deep discomfort with facing the complexities of life.
Popular music of various genres is detached, it’s about detaching some part of life from the whole experience. From joy we extract fun, from celebration, we extract partying, from love we extract sex, from tragedy we extract anger. Imbibing emotions in these pure forms inoculates us from seeing the reality around us. For one thing, we miss the tragedy of life spent partying, but we also miss the joys of a normal life.
There’s a period of time where it seems natural to live in this detached mode, when teenagers are distancing themselves and their identities from their parents to find a path toward adulthood. But it’s deeply sad when middle aged people are still infatuated with the musical heroes of their youth. When we look at the careers of aging pop stars and rockers, there’s a natural progression towards maturity.
The hard edges soften, the frantic tempos slow down, and the lyrics tend to turn inward. If the fans have matured, they will appreciate this change; when they don’t, they begin to embody the sad songs that they are afraid to listen to. Perhaps the only thing sadder is when the pop stars themselves fail to move on.
If you happen to know such non-serious persons, you may find a chink in their rubbery armor around particular sentimental songs, often written by country musicians. I’ve heard people have a special spot in their heart for some particular song that was attached to a memory, perhaps from a funeral of a loved one, or the wedding of a friend. It’s likely the only country song they are familiar with.
Some of these particularly sappy songs are no doubt written solely for the sake of capitalizing on these moments and memories (they are in the business of selling songs), but when you listen to country music for a while, you will begin to notice a recurring theme, that the songs are actually about something. Emotions are present, but they are secondary to the experience of what is actually happening. The narrative structure invites the listener to stand in someone's shoes and walk through a memory of the past.
This makes the potential field of subject matter extremely broad, and it is expanding as the reach of country music spreads beyond the southern states. This has probably caused a considerable amount of disconnect in the past; as the lyrics reflected a rural lifestyle with the distinctly southern elements, there is a barrier between the northern and urban listeners. Some elements of this will likely remain in country music even as they disappear from culture itself; nostalgia is a central theme; the career of a cowboy endures far longer in song than it does in reality.
But those external trappings, the honky-tonks, the pickup truck, the worn out cowboy boots are not what makes a country song. At its heart, country music is about storytelling. It gives a format for making the particulars of one man’s life universal.
Whether it is the loss and regret of divorce, death or financial ruin, or the joys of hard work, home, marriage, fatherhood, patriotism and simple songs of celebration, these are all routine subjects for country songwriters. While the particulars may not always be familiar to us and our experience, the way that people relate to those particulars are shared by us all.
The country song translates the poetic and emotional truth of life into something we can all relate to.
This act of “translation” is one of the central goals of Tectonic School - by translating the experience of a 1st century carpenter or tentmaker, or a farmer or artist from antiquity to the life of modern man, we can gain the wisdom that they discovered in a particular environment that we can’t quite recreate.
In his book “Art Needs No Justification”, Hans Rookmaaker explains that the difference between the tradesman and the artist is artificial; it's based on human perceptions of value. But the work done well is equal in its value as an act of worship. Similarly, in his book “Jazz, Blues and Spirituals” he highlights the high spiritual value in the simple folk music that developed in the slave plantations of the southern states. The measurable qualities between Bach and the blues may vary greatly, but the spirit behind them is the same.
While the musical genius of Bach glorified God in the cathedral, pointing to the transcendent beauty and truth of God, the spiritual songs of the slaves put flesh and bones on the gospel. The experience of the Israelite slaves was made real in the songs of the south, and their hearts were strengthened by faith in the God of freedom.
Country music has long been overlooked for its aesthetic failings, but I think it shares many of those same spiritual virtues. It’s an echo of the first steps of creation, the transformation of dusty soil into nourishing bread, of fruit into wine, and undeveloped land into hearth and home.
If we are fortunate, we may go our whole lives without falling into the dire circumstances of slavery, imprisonment or oppression. To express our gratitude requires a song. But if we do find ourselves in shackles and cells, the solution is songs once again. They may not always bring down the walls around us, but they will connect us to the humans on the other side.