Miltonduff 21yo

The TL;DR here is that he whisky in question reminds me of a particular rendition of the well known and legendary song Sound of Silence, covered by the heavy metal band Disturbed. 

Firstly, a bit about Murdo the musician.

I’m forever grateful and indebted to my parents for the number of opportunities when I was small to be exposed to as many activities as they could afford. While most of them didn’t stick: like ice skating or drawing, a few did, and music was one of them. 

At the age of five, after showing interest in my cousin’s toy piano, I was enrolled in a children’s piano group class, and immediately my talent was apparent, most of my memory of that first session has obviously faded, but one episode remains forever vivid. We were taught to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, but it was deemed a bit too difficult for children in the first lesson, because as early as 5th note, the right hand would have needed to get out of its starting position to reach that note. For this reason, the teaching material was dumbed down so this wouldn’t be required, but it also meant that we weren’t really learning to play the actual song just yet. I, never the one to pay attention to what I was supposed to pay attention to, was not aware of this arrangement, in my head I was just playing the familiar tune, so as the 5th note came, my right hand naturally shifted, my pinky reached for that 5th note, and successfully played the first two bars of the song, unprompted. The look of joy on my mother’s face is still etched in my memory.

From there on, my musical journey stayed ahead of the curve expected of a typical Asian child, fast tracking through exams of classical piano performance one after another, eventually topping out on what a secondary school student is supposed to achieve at an exam level at 14 years of age. I would have pursued further, but it was around here when I acquired a new skill; playing music by ear. 

From the age of five, since that first piano lesson, it was a given that I was able to play a tune after listening to it, but that was limited to the melody line; then I unlocked a new achievement, I was able to play the melody along with full accompaniment. 

Normally musicians rely on music sheets to tell them what notes to play, a bit like a script for a speaker. I no longer needed the script, I knew exactly what notes to play without being told, playing the piano was close to as natural as having a conversation. I no longer felt that I needed a certificate to show that I was an accomplished pianist.

At this point, some of you might suspect that I have perfect pitch, let me clarify, I do not. What I have is what’s called relative pitch, it’s analogous to knowing the angles to my left and right without knowing where true North is. Imagine with that sensibility, I can draw a perfect equilateral triangle, but I don’t have the ability to line up that triangle to point North unless I’m given a compass. 

Maybe because of this musical upbringing, equipped with a well trained musical ear, I appreciate music quite differently from most.

Music, especially pop music, is a very emotive thing. A good song can really hit you in the feels, as we connect with the singer, and the story that he or she tries to tell. Taylor Swift is a great example of that, with her charisma and the way she tells her stories through her tunes and lyrics, a lot of us can feel an emotional connection to her experiences, and it often leaves us wanting more. If you’re not familiar with Taylor Swift, give Begin Again a listen. If you don’t have a smile on your face after listening to her story through her music, you don’t have a heart.

And clearly, I don’t have a heart.

Because that’s not how I consume pop music. I approach music the same way I approach almost anything, with an analytical mind, a borderline cold blooded, sociopathic one.

Every song to me was a puzzle that I would try to take apart, lay out the constituent components, understand how each element contributed to the whole, and to the best of my technical ability, put back together, taking some creative liberty to add my own touches. As a musician, I almost operate like a mechanic. 

Perhaps absurdly to most, I largely ignore the lyrics. Instead, when I listen to a song, I mostly focus on the musical components, in particular, the harmony from the arrangement, and learning under the wing of a jazz musician, I have become very proficient in recognising and dissecting patterns in musical harmony.

To highlight what a geek I am, at the end of high school, we were required to write a dissertation style essay on any topic of our choosing, as long as it can be tied to a school subject. I wrote my essay on the mathematics of musical harmony, by studying Lissajous curves. The essay was a trainwreck, but I enjoyed every drop of geekery from that experience.

When I got into whisky, the geek in me took charge behind the wheel. I share the typical whisky geekery that most of us experience, knowing about regions in Scotland, learning about the basic intricacies of whisky productions, such as the use of direct fire stills, worm tub condensers. I’m sure many of us can relate to that. 

The mindset that had dictated how I appreciate music translated to how I approach whisky, I tried to treat every whisky as something to take apart, a puzzle to solve, and my way of doing so is to analyse whisky and write tasting notes as best I could, and from my experience, taking apart a whisky is much harder than taking apart a song. 

There’s the obvious difference that I’ve had decades of training and practice as a musician, whereas I’m at most a whisky enthusiast with no education other than reading books and watching YouTube videos. To me, the experience of whisky is so much more instantaneous. Sure, it’s common to break the experience into nosing and tasting, but on the palate alone, there’s so much going on, the arrival, the development, and the finish, just to simplify things. Just as I’m trying to make sense of the arrival, the development is here, not to mention how quickly the finish comes and goes, even for whiskies with long finishes. 

When I was learning my trade as a musician, a mentor once said, “people listen to a song like they’re watching a train, and all they can perceive is the look and feel of the train, through no fault of their own, because trains always pass by at great speeds. Your job as a student of music is to pull the train to a stop, interrogate the details of the train, and identify what contributes to the look and feel that everyone else is perceiving.” I tried to apply the methodology to whisky, but I struggled to find the pause button so readily available in music, and for a long time, a sip of whisky to me was like watching a bullet train flash by.

Luckily for me, a trip to Scotland put me in touch with an elder statesman of the community. While hanging out with him, he reassured me that my there’s nothing wrong about my senses; that I can smell and taste the aromas and flavours offered by the whisky, my challenge was to articulate them, to make that connection in my brain between my physical senses and my ability to put them into words. With that encouragement, I went at it again and again. Luckily for me, practice makes perfect, and if not perfect, certainly improvement. 

Gradually, my ability to convert my sensory experience into words is developing. I’m slowly starting to be able to pull that train to slow down so I can describe in words what components come together to contribute to the smell and taste of a whisky. I’m still at most a yellow belt, but with your permission, I hope to share my development journey as a reviewer here on Dramface. Maybe one day you will see me pull that train to a stop..