“All that has dark sounds has duende. And there’s no deeper truth than that … Those dark sounds are the mystery, the roots that cling to the mire that we all know, that we all ignore, but from which comes the very substance of art.”
       –Federico Garcia Lorca; Spanish Poet and Playwright; (1898 – 1936).

We have a choice: one can choose to live Life superficially, as they are told; or one can decide that there is an art to living Life, and choose complexity and depth. When one chooses complexity and depth, Life must include ‘dark sounds.’  Duende is not possible without these dark sounds, yet duende is not solely made up of these dark sounds. Duende for me is about survival, not despite these dark sounds, but because of these dark sounds. Duende is difficult to define, yet I know it when I feel it. Duende is nearly impossible to summon at will, hard to hold on to, yet so embraceable. Duende is ardent and frenzied and fervent, yet it will not consume. Duende is creation and death. Duende is intimate and ferocious. Duende is paradoxical; filled with the joy of Light and suffused with the pain and fear of Living. Duende is necessary.

I would like to think that my Life is an expression of character, but to consciously think that would be an oversimplification. According to Lorca, “duende is a force not a labour, a struggle not a thought.” So staying consistent with (all of) Lorca’s thoughts and with my written thought above, to live Life artfully one must embrace the unknown and therefore can never consistently define one’s character because one can never anticipate, plan for, mold, or control duende. One can never adequately express a character except in hindsight; and then, to do so, stymies the art of living Life. To attach meaning to the mysterious and ineffable dilutes the creative moment and weakens the creative potential of the next moment. This is not to say that this stepping back and taking stock should never happen, because it will; and in some circumstance, necessarily so. But to gain perspective, one does lose some essence; (see this post ‘The Essence of Happiness‘ for further discussion on the nature of one’s essence). And no – I am not now equating ‘duende’ with one’s essence; but I am saying that duende enriches one’s essence.

I should not fret over character. Character implies depth, therefore instead of superficially grooming my character I should find my rhythm within the folds of the  discordant enchantments of Life, and I should flow in spasmodic waves; or dance with freakish grace; or sing with a strident urgency; or simply move from within to without and back again. My character will appear, and evolve, and disappear, and mature, and reappear, and ultimately show itself for what it truly is when I no longer have a say; (as if I ever did). I should not fret over character.

I want to spend some time now considering the ‘dark sounds’ that are necessary for duende. Perhaps these dark sounds are the wellspring of duende, but (as previously stated) these dark sounds are not the sole ingredient of duende. I believe when we are visited by these dark sounds one has a tendency to focus on a narrow range or small cross section of their entirety. I believe we immediately see those parts that we can define as sadness or melancholia, and I believe that many of us tend to get stuck in this mire, flail about for a time thinking since we can define this, we can control it; we think we can fix it. Duende is not something to be fixed, nor is sadness or melancholia; and we soon find that to work on fixing this one part is insufficient. I believe if we make progress in this regard – if we attack this unhappiness with modern methods, and if a certain amount of this gloom appears to lift – one will be left feeling false; one will have a vacancy about them that may be more functionally amenable, but this ‘progress’ will also erase an opportunity. Duende must reverberate. Duende must be allowed to flow and dance and sing freely across the entire breadth and depth of its darkness. Duende must be felt, and not understood; and I (within this lack of understanding – the aforementioned folds of Life) must let it carry me along until we (these dark sounds and I) reach an inevitable and inexplicable intertwining of Dark and Light and my personal essence. I believe it is this tangled network that will spark a moment of clarity that in turn will inspire art.  I believe duende is an opportunity.

I listen to sad songs. I have a playlist labeled ‘Sad’ that is made up of (so far) 91 songs; that is 6 hours and 18 minutes of uplifting sorrow. I go to this playlist typically about once a week and listen for an hour or two. Australian musician and songwriter Nick Cave has this to say about sadness, duende, and music:

“Sadness or duende needs space to breathe. Melancholy hates haste and floats in silence. It must be handled with care … All love songs must contain duende. For the love song is never truly happy. It must first embrace the potential for pain. Those songs that speak of love without having within in their lines an ache or a sigh are not love songs at all… and are not to be trusted. These songs deny us our humanness… and the air waves are littered with them. The love song must resonate with the susurration of sorrow, the tintinnabulation of grief. The writer who refuses to explore the darker regions of the heart will never be able to write convincingly about the wonder, the magic and the joy of love for just as goodness cannot be trusted unless it has breathed the same air as evil, so within the fabric of the love song, within its melody, its lyric, one must sense an acknowledgment of its capacity for suffering.”

For me, all music should be about Love; be it Love of Life, or the Love of Beauty, or the Love of God or Spirituality, or the Love of Family and Friends, or the Love of Music and (other) Art, or the Love of Truth, or even the Love of Good Food or a Cold Beer. Music as Art is a reflective reverberation that allows one to feel otherwise inexpressible depths. Music as Art is an aching and a longing for a transcendental understanding of the essence of oneself and the essence of surrounding unknowns and realities; and yes – even a Cold Beer has a transcendental essence. Music (for me) is a trigger that takes me to these places beyond words.

I know sad people who have a difficult time moving past their sadness; and because of this they are also unhappy. Sadness does not have to lead one to unhappiness. I believe that sadness – ‘dark sounds’ – can carry one beyond unhappiness. I believe that melancholia can contribute to one’s search for Truth, Wisdom, and Happiness. This is not to say that one should live in perpetual despondency, or intentionally subject their self or others to an outlook of wretched despair; but when a sadness finds us, I do believe we should be open to it and take it where it goes. I have often found it to lead from its source (whether that fountainhead be a trickle or a torrent) to a placid clarity of artfully creative purpose and meaning. And then I have just as often found this luminous serenity tossed and turned and channeled back into a flood of emotional turmoil. And then, I begin again.

And this is why I listen to sad music.