Today in the New York Times, Kristof said that there were more musicians in the military than diplomats. He was thinking of musicians as a "frill" but, as i got to pondering music-making, especially Irish fiddle sessions, I realized that military people and diplomats alike need more music in the process, not less. So here's what I posted over at Daily Kos, where two people read it during its fifteen minute life span. I'm putting it here, at the risk of offending those who hate to see music connected to the political process, because I feel music could profitably be at the very center of the political process. Please forgive me if I have offended you-- I'm just trying to work these ideas out and truly love the feedback posting here gets back in return from music lovers and makers, my constituency of choice.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/10/93432/6864/801/565662

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I'm a believer that music should be so fundamental a part of our education that it becomes like breathing-- as a folk musician, I've long been fascinated by Irish fiddle tunes as a form of sociability -- not the tunes themselves or the new competitions put on to revive and keep them alive, but the way they are played. Imagine two people in a pub-- at least one a stranger-- eying each others' fiddle cases. "Let's have a few tunes," says one, and they unpack and tune up, diffidently as if they really don't think it matters much. Then they start off with a few common tunes known by most fiddlers in a fairly standard form, the lead taken usually by the native son of the community-- though this is hard to figure out as they are playing in the traditional way: in unison. Listen closely though-- usually the follower starts by playing the basic form of the tune, deferring to the leader and his choice of ornaments and slides and small rhythmic shifts. Gradually he/she patterns his or her own playing on what he/she discovers until the tune is one shimmering voice with two different sensibilities merging as one.

If the out-of-town fiddler is as good as the native, both know it and the local will begin to ask for a tune associated with where the out-of-towner comes from. Then the mirror image of what I just described occurs. Soon, if they are well matched, the tunes start flowing with both players trying to match the other and doing so with such subtlety that, if the players are well matched, there is no longer a leader or follower and new tunes are patterned as is if they had been played forever by both players. If one is markedly superior to the other, the secondary player welcomes the chance to follow and learn. Both players are so well versed that they seem to agree as to who the moment's master of the fiddle is. The excellence of a player, incidentally, may be determined as much for breadth and depth of repertoire
as for stylistic mastery or technical competence.

These are skills our soldiers and diplomats could well use. Imagine if, say, Bush and Putin sat down before a diplomatic session and said, "Let's have a few tunes." So much more useful and revealing than trying to grasp the measure of a man by staring deep into their eyes and guessing.

People have only begun to tap the real political powers of the arts -- the artistic process can unite even though it has so often been used to divide. As an advocate for the folk arts, I believe they carry on important cultural usages and powers not easily measured in virtuosity or the ability to move huge audiences into paroxysms of delight. Small arts, perhaps, but effective at creating community and understanding where previously there was only distrust and perplexity.