As good as bread

There are several signs that show me that I am getting old.
A latent interest in road construction, the new passion for crosswords, the sweater when I leave the house in the morning and a few other signs that I am not going to list, Santa Prostata!
I still don't drive with my hat on but my mom who is 90 with her red Panda goes faster than me.
Furthermore, I inexorably forget about something, and (as I always say) a guitarist who forgets is not a phenomenon. The children go with the walker, we old people with the walker ... Means of locomotion that are a little alike. After all, as Picasso said, it takes many years to become young.

Meanwhile, the music changes, even if you always hear the same songs, the same chords, the same rhythms, the same sounds. Sometimes speaking with friends and colleagues we find ourselves comparing ourselves on this or that song, on this or that author / performer and we often agree on the fact that he has not said / done anything new, nothing that has not already been expressed before, almost always more effectively. Our comments are certainly not flattering. But the point is another. Let's take the bread. It is an extremely ancient invention, which we have improved, revised over time, but in substance it has remained the same for thousands of years: kneaded flour cooked in an oven. We do not ask bread to be innovative, to be modern, to be in step with the times or a revolutionary precursor of new trends. We ask to be bread and that's it. Fresh, fragrant, perhaps still warm, crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside (because with age, even the teeth follow the prostate). In a word we want it to be good.
We would never buy bread from a baker if we don't like it, it's overcooked, stuffy, or "hearty".
We don't want new bread, we just want it good, that's all. Instead, we often ask music to be new, to be amazed.

Maybe we should just ask her to be beautiful and nothing else, not trendy, not trendy, not smart, not commercial, just beautiful.
Yet, we do not go back to the incapable baker, but we continue idly to hang out with the poor musician and to enjoy his product, because everyone does it, because it is on everyone's lips (indeed in the ears), it is in the playlists of digital aggregators, the televisions, radio, the web, etc ...
It doesn't matter if his music is good or bad, old or new, as long as it's trendy, trendy. Often we do not even ask ourselves the problem of discerning in a free and personal way, again out of laziness. I may be old but as far as bread is concerned, I go to the baker I know.
You don't have to explain good bread, you don't have to motivate, contextualize, justify it. It is good and in addition to feeding me it also nourishes the rest of my senses. If it just fills me it is already something, but not enough, because I don't live on bread alone.

I would like music to do the same, no matter whether it's old or new, or new made in the style of the old one. Just be beautiful.
If we learned to look for good music, we would have the market do a lot of meritocratic selection. Beauty and goodness make the difference.
So I wish you (and I do) that your hearing, teeth (and prostate) will last a long time.

Mauro Tabasso
NP November 2021