
The Classical Music Kama Sutra
By Christopher Corbell Illustration “Immodest Mussorgsky” by Ezra Butt When I was 13, neglected, and stoned, music began to take over my life. Though I’d been fascinated with classical music from an early age I had no support to learn it, and it was already much too late for me to be a prodigy by Suzuki-school-kindergarten or even junior-high-marching-band standards. Not yet aware of that shortcoming, in my own meandering escapism from dysfunctional-family chaos I’d taken to guitar and gone beyond the Beatles’ songbook and easy Jimmy Reed blues licks, giving myself to the dark journey: Black Sabbath’s Paranoid on scratchy vinyl. Hazy hour after hour I’d wrestle to master by ear the next phrase of Tony Iommi’s solo in “Iron Man,” worked out on my $50 Univox electric guitar. I didn’t have a proper amp, so I’d plug into an old tape deck and max out the recording level gain to get a really awful sounding distortion through the stereo. Those were the last of my stoner days; I was to get my shit together and clean up at 14. The music love would continue, on to Zeppelin, Rush, and Zappa with some punk and darkwave detours, meanwhile also…