A note on my last post.
I apologize if I seemed harsh, or flying off the handle. We all as humans have different beliefs and different priorities, are turned on by different things. One man’s poop is another man’s pie.
“Music” can mean lots of things to different people, and we all must either play or listen to whatever suits us. All of us have different tastes. No one is better than the other.
St. Augustine actually wrote on music – that it should be used to invoke a pious feeling of God. African rhythm is less still and pious yet activates the soul in a different way. There are all kinds of gradations along the lines of introspection and extroversion in music. There is no absolute, yet there is a “thing” that makes music great – “the muse”.
Something that can be awesome intellectually can be disregarded by a listener seeking a different experience. In high school we had a string quartet play Mozart and a fellow student heckled “Yo, play sumthin’ ’88!”. Classy, huh? Vice versa is also true. I have seen jazz and classical musicians put down blues and funk because of it’s seeming simplicity, and inability to be touched by it. I can dance to hip hop or funk and my mom would look at me and just not “get it”.
The point is, there is something for everyone.
Jazz started out as music you could dance to and has basically turned into everything and anything.
I like making people happy, and can honestly say that maybe yes – the sophistication in my music could be higher. However, my feeling is that once my mind is exhausted after thinking, thinking thinking, I let the feeling of love brew over into the music.
From there, the music is a vehicle to get the vibe across to the people. Connecting to the audience is really important to me. In me, that wins over cleverness. That is my choice.
I know, anyone can simply “emote” so I am hoping that years of playing at least give me some skill to actually play well, as opposed to a kid getting a guitar and emoting the first week he bought it!
So, there is room for all of us in the sandbox. Music music music! I love you.
Adam,
Just found you on “you tube” two days ago and am totally thrilled to see you play and hear your music and now read a little bit of how you feel and express.
I loved your talk about the metronome . . . it has always been a killer for me while playing guitar or piano but it wasn’t till I started to play with it while drumming and that’s were it became my friend and I love to play with it there. Guitar and Piano are so technical in fingering that it is nearly impossible to get everything perfect in regards to timing. I seriously doubt that Mozart or any of the greats played their music to perfect time as it is written down . . . I am willing to bet it was a one time deal they captured and never played it that way again.
Anyways, after listening to your music I went home and played a whole new way and cleared some stuff musically that had become a minor wall . . .
More than anything . . . what I see come through you is the beautiful expression of . . . yea, I play like this and you can too!!! I respect that and look forward to getting a couple of your CD’s and will look for you to come to Colorado sometime.
respectfully!
s-d