The View

Today at work, I was listening to beat tapes, which are generally instrumental (original or previously released) with a snip of interview or lyric thrown in, set to a repetitive beat. Apparently, the beat aspect was too loud and bothered my boss, who referred to it as a clock.

The interesting thing was his focus on the beat aspect of the music. I realized that I became accustomed to the beat because of it's repetition, and was mostly listening to the actual music and lyric choice of the beat producer. In this way, the image of a window came to me.

In the context of a beat tape, the beat is like the muntins and the view from the window is like the underlying music. Of course, there is the argument that the beat is an inherent part of the song not to be separated. Applied to other disciplines, say literature, perhaps the muntins are like reading the surface meaning of the words, or reading without actually perceiving; and the subtext is the view from the window. When we perceive things, are we unconsciously focused on the mundane, or are we going beyond?