Final Post: Music a Torture?

Final Post:

The pleasure taken in repetition, in abrasive textures, in the ungodly volume of rock music suggests two things: we are all masochists and we are all eternally unsatisfied.

Schopenhauer was correct when he characterized our individual will as perpetually striving. We are never satisfied—and never will be. A musical melody could continue at infinitude and we will always want more. The pleasure we find in a melody is never a complete satisfaction. Just like hunger, it will resurface again in greater pains than before.

This is also twofold evidence of our masochism. When we listen to a repeating melody, there will inevitably be a deliberate refusal of our pleasure, a limiting of our intake. Essentially the song will end, and leave us as empty as we began. Yet, a more powerful illustration of our masochism would be the pleasure we take in abrasive and ostensibly harmful sounds. 

For this reason, the exact interpretation of torture will always be hazy. 

I originally included a song by the band Swans as evidence of the grey area between a tortuous repetition and a pleasurable one. As would be fitting to the song title, a comparison with sex could be beneficial. The incessant rhythm continues without break, in a near salacious masochism. The downbeats on the 1 and the 1 &  seem to hint at the act of intercourse. The song fades out almost the exact way in which it comes in, as if climax was never reached and we deliberately refuse our own pleasurable end. 

Original Post:

One defining aspect of music torture is repetition: the idea that if something is played repeatedly then it becomes obnoxious or even psychologically harmful. The detainees at Guantanamo were subjected to the same music for hours, sometimes days at a time. This extreme level of repetition caused a paralysis of will and cognition. 

But repetition itself is not harmful. If anything, small amounts of repetition can be beneficial to psychological awareness and stress purging. The issue lies within the degree of repetition, from healthy to lethal. As Paracelsus said of substances, “everything is a poison. The difference between a poison and a remedy depends on the dose.”

A band that I believe straddles the fence between healthful and harmful repetition is the noise-rock outfit Swans. 

Below I included a link to one of their songs.