pomegranate

Driving In My Car

Long ago, before I had a blog, a friend told me I should get one.  And he told me I should figure out an angle, a niche, a view, something that the blog revolved around.

Well, I couldn't figure that out.  I wanted to write about everything.  And so I did.  And then I wanted to have categories, but I still wanted to write about anything and everything, and so I started this blog.  And then I realized that I was spending a lot of time watching Netflix DVDs, and thought that I should make that into something more constructive than just watching DVDs.  So, that became dvds and me .  And since I've read Nick Hornby's Songbook, I've really started thinking about songs I listen to, and the only songs I listen to are when I'm in my car.  So, I'm going to start writing about it in this new blog called driving in my car .  I think I'll probably write one or two pieces a week in that blog, and keep up the same quasi-schedule in the other two -- a couple of posts a week Monday through Thursday.  That's the plan.  I hope you'll visit me.

On Music and the Brain

Recently, I've started playing piano again.  It's traditional music, Celtic songs and old American tunes in the forms of reels and jigs.  They're songs that seem antithetical to paper.  Sheet music and this music should not be included in the same sentence.  It's songs meant to be played by heart.

They're rather easily learned in that they're short, generally two parters of eight measures each and then you repeat them over and over again, because that's the thing to do, and once you start playing this music, that's what you want to do.  But here's the funny thing.  I noticed that when I play this music, if I don't think about what I'm doing, I can play it.  But if I start thinking, if my brain enters into the equation and says, "Whoa there, what comes next?" then I stumble or fall, and I have to say to myself, "Don't think, just play" to regain my footing.

I don't even know what to call these parts of the brain.  One is probably muscle memory and one is the one who wants to know, the one who wants to have all the facts at her fingertips, the one who doesn't care so much about the song, but wants it to be right.  It's probably the superego, a part of the brain that i imagine as a librarian wearing glasses and a cape.

I run across a similar phenomenon when I speak French.  If I don't think about it, I can speak French.  But if I think, "I'm speaking French," then I can't remember words.  My pronounciation goes to hell.  It's a different place to be, speaking French.  It's that odd experience where when someone speaks in another language, their energy changes.  They're the same person, but kind of not.  And I think it's that part that wants to resist the big change, the submersion into this state so unlike the place where we normally reside, even though it's a great state to be in.

Billy Bragg, Con't.

In the car today, I listened to two Billy Bragg songs over and over, pressing the rewind when they were through.  This is a homemade tape that someone made me.  I think the first song is called "New England."  Some of the lines I can't make out.  When I first listened to Billy Bragg, I hadn't studied singing.  Now, I hear how his voice wobbles, how it's rarely true to notes.  But how can you argue with:

"Strange things happen when you're not around.  And our love is so strong, it moves objects in our house."?

That's from the second song, which I'm guessing is called, "Strange Things Happen."  It's such an odd sentiment, and when Bragg sings the word "objects"--there's a little extra blip to it as if he's saying to the listener, "Can you believe it?"

There's such an energy to these songs that I don't care if it's a bad recording that I'm playing over a lousy tape deck.  I don't care that the guitar sounds primitive or that technically he really can't sing.  I just keep rewinding the songs and singing along in my own imperfect voice.

On Tape Decks and Billy Bragg

I'm becoming reacquainted with music.

I'm gearing myself up for the not so distant future when baseball will leave the airwaves for a while.  I'm becoming blase about NPR.  I can't listen too much to sports radio.  The A's station carries fundamentalist programming when the A's aren't on.

So, I'm using the tape deck in the car.  Plus a friend gave me a CD adapter.  I have no idea how it works, but it does, and I'm grateful.  So, I've dug out some old tapes and remembered the raucous nature of early Bonnie Raitt.  I've been listening to Barbara Magone and Jacqueline Schwab, trying to figure out how they do what they do.  And today I brought out Billy Bragg.

It was one of those tapes that somebody gave me.  I can't remember who.  It was one of those tapes that I listened to umpteen times and thought I could never listen to again, but now I turned it on, and I felt this wave of emotions.  It's an interesting mix of music--part pop love songs and then there are the political manifestos--those I used to tolerate more.  Now they seem one-dimensional and naive to me, but I think that cames with age.  The love songs I couldn't take in as fully as before as well, although I'm always a fool for a good pop hook, the feelings were more about remembering what it was like to once truly believe in those songs wholeheartedly, whereas now they are still fun and catchy, but they can't be taken seriously, although I do want to hear them again.

Musical Rests

Hopefully soon, I need to sit down and write a note to an acupuncturist I met this summer and send it to him and say thank you, and it probably won't be for the reason why he would think I would be thanking him, because it is true that the herbs helped and that my cough, the reason for my visit, eventually did go away, but the real reason that I would thank him is because through talking to him, I reclaimed music, and it was as if a spell had broken and I remembered something so important to me that I had forgotten.

I've already written this story but I'll write it again.  When I first went to this acupuncturist, I expected to fill out a many paged form.  Instead, he invited me into his office, and we sat down and talked for I would guess an hour and a half.  At one point in the conversation, he asked me if I had any hobbies.  I told him I walked.  I said I ran.  And then I said, "I play piano."

A voice inside my head whispered, "It's been two years," but I held on to what I said, and listened while he told me that hobbies were important, that it was necessary to take time out for yourself to do something you loved.  That day, I sat down at the keyboard and played.  I was thrilled I could still remember some songs, and others came back to me as if they were old friends just waiting for an invitation to meet again.

Since then I try to play as much as I can.  When I don't, I think of the songs.  I think returning to the piano has made me a better person.  It's like a piece of the puzzle has been put back on the table.  It's like I rediscovered an anchor that I had thrown overboard.  It's a lot like writing.  It's very private and deep,and when I spend time doing it, I feel like I replenish myself.  I feel like I know in my bones what it feels like to be blessed.

So, I'm listening to music.  A friend lent me a cassette of the Civil War songs from Ken Burns's series.  I listen to it while I drive. It is amazing to be riding around downtown with "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" surging all around you.  Or "Dixieland" or "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" or any of these songs written by the folk during these times to express the concerns of the day, to try and persuade or brag or shame or transport or console--all these different feelings expressed so strongly, often in a manner that we now would see as politically incorrect, but there's so much life to it.  Even when I don't agree, I can be moved by the depth of emotions in these songs.

This evening, I sat down to play, and I had to get out of myself.  I have songs that I play regularly now.  I'm beginning to know them, and tonight I felt at the beginning I took them for granted.  I played things I had figured out rather than let the song play me.  I had to relisten and go back to the basics.  What are the notes?  How do they want to be played?  What do I hear?  What does this song say to me?  It's a process of abandon and recovery, one after the other.

On the Art of Play

I've had small cushions to time to play piano lately.

It's such an interesting process.  When I first sat down to play after a week or so's absence, everything sounded so unbearably clunky.  It was definitely a chop wood, carry water moment, of just playing notes that didn't sound so great, but just doing it, until seemingly despite myself, the click came maybe a half hour later, and for some precious moments, the music seemed to flow, and then I had to stop and enter the mundane world again and do errands that had to be done.

The thing that quietly thrilled me today is that I felt that I came to an understanding with my left hand.  I'm a lefthanded person, and my left hand has a hard time understanding that when it comes to matters of the piano, it is not generally intended to be the dominant one.  So, I've been trying to convince my left hand that less is more and that it doesn't necessarily have to come up with ideas, that maybe it doesn't have to embellish, look at Jacqueline Schwab, sometimes a single bass note can be very powerful.  Today, it was like my left hand got it, and started making these single note patterns, these traveling motifs that sounded nice to my ears, and my right hand was happy and got to be the emotional diva and convey the story of these melodies while my left got to play at being in Funkytown and bassing out a bit, and it was a good time had by both, and I swear moments like these strengthen your brain. It's like both hemispheres start cooperating with each other, I think, and it can send a person into this deep state that I would call bliss.

On the Piano

About a month ago, I went to an acupuncturist to try to get rid of a cough.

It was an interesting process.  I had been to a lot of different acupuncturists before, and so I was accustomed to filling out a lot of forms before the first treatment.  This acupuncturist just had me sign a release.  Then I went into his office, and we talked for an hour. 

At one point in the conversation, he asked me, "Do you have any hobbies?"  And I threw out walking and running, and then I said, "I play the piano."  These words surprised me, as I really hadn't played the piano for about two years.

And he talked for a moment or two about the importance of hobbies, how it's good to sit down for 20 minutes and just do something with your hands, and I smiled and nodded, and then went home and put my hands on the keyboard and played.

It amazed me that I could still remember some music, that somehow some songs have stayed with me.  It amazed me how powerful these songs are.  I play Celtic music on the piano, a problematical venture, it seems, because these songs were not meant to be played on the piano.  They're meant to be played on the fiddle and played really fast.  If a piano is in the mix, it's for accompaniment.  I have never been big on accompaniment.  I don't think it's a diva syndrome, although it might be.  I like playing melody, and though it's hard to play melody on these tunes on the piano--lots of notes--and did I mention fast--and the fingering is easier on the fiddle than it is on the piano, and so I play these songs not as fast as they're supposed to be played, because I currently can't and maybe never could, but also because I want to drink in these songs, because they have such spirit to them.  They're just wonderful little nuggets of expression that seem to have lives of their own. And so I play them and pay homage to them, and try to figure out what to do with my left hand, because these are just melody tunes, no accompaniment provided.  Have I said that they're not really meant for the piano?  So, I try to think of things for my left hand to do--simple seems better, and perhaps that's all accompaniment really is, just to support the melody a bit in hopefully a beautiful and interesting way.  I don't think I'm close to interesting yet, but there's beauty in single notes, in soft chords, I think.  So, I don't get to it all the time, but every few days or so, I'll sit down and concentrate on a reel or a jig for a moment.  They are really beautiful songs.

The Musicians

I'm in the middle of a laundry cycle, washing all the clothes that I had brought along on the cruise.  It feels now as if my vacation is officially over.

So, I thought I'd write more about it.

On the ship, there were musicians.  What they called a classical trio, flute, piano, and violin, but they didn't play Bach and Beethoven.  They played popular standards.  There were two guitarists and another pianist heavily into Billy Joel.  They played all around the boat--in the bars, the casino, the restaurants.  You could  find out where they're playing from the newsletter, the Carnival Capers.  I really love alliteration.

Anyway, we loved the trio right away.  What struck me about this group was how their energies complemented each other.  These were quiet people who made pristine music.  Everything was well arranged.  Everyone got solos, even the pianist, although when it was his turn, no one else played.  Violins and flutes aren't exactly rhythm instruments.  I studied piano, and so I really appreciated what he was doing.  He played in a really fluid manner.  He laid down an imaginative foundation for the other two instruments to play the melody over what he was doing.  He was generous and quiet in his playing.  When he played solos, the hands played well together, although they were doing very different things, one the melody, another some kind of accompaniment.  He was a subtle, but really good player, and I wasn't sure if people who hadn't studied piano would understand how good he really was.  The other two players were really good, too.  I think my friend liked the flutist the most.  She was a very good musician, and she was blonde, and one night she wore a dress with feathers on it, which sounds kind of Charoesque, but it really wasn't.  Anyway, we would sit and listen to them.  Most people wouldn't.  It's that curse of cocktail music--you're supposed to be providing background music for an experience.  It's kind of intended to be more wallpaper than dining room table, but we listened and talked about what we heard and tipped them, and were then greeted every time we went to see them, which was almost every day.

There was a solo pianist, who I imagine most people would prefer to the trio pianist.  He played in a fancy loud manner, but there seemed to be no thought to it to me.  Everything--the trills, the melody, the bass--were all played on the same volume level.  The lines were choppy.  There didn't seem to be any emotion in the way that he played.  We just saw him once and for a very short time.

A guitarist played in the casino Chuck Berry and Jimmy Buffett tunes.  People danced by the bar to the music.  One of the dancers actually jumped up on stage and danced with him while he played.  Some thought the dancer was better than the guitarist.   That's never good when a customer shows up the paid entertainment.

Then there was the Yes man.  A guitarist butchering a song by that band that we heard on the way to the glass elevators.  I was thankful then when the doors closed but when we reached our destination, I remarked that it was too bad that sometimes voices did carry.  It was that unpleasant.

The next night, we had just sat down at the bar when the Yes man climbed up on the stage.  My friend asked if I wanted to leave.

"Let's just stay and see what happens," I said.

This time, he launched into the Kinks.  It was music that suited him better--songs geared towards an everyman's voice, ordinary humor about everyday things. 

Then a man sat down next to me.  He was young and intense with a very pale complexion.  He had energy of someone who had just downed a couple of Red Bulls.  He told me that he had just won $1,000 in the casino, and had walked away while he was ahead.  Now, he wanted to buy me and my friend a drink.  It was obvious that he was someone who would not easily take no for an answer.  We placed our orders with the bartender.

This man started talking to the musician, acting as if he was a human jukebox.  "Play this, then play this, and play this.  Do you know this?"  The musician was patient with him.  At one point, he said, "Would you like to see my book?"  Inside my head, I thought, "No!! Don't do it!"  But he chucked his play book to this man who immediately began turning the pages and making demands.

When he had found the ones he wanted, he handed the book to me. 

"You choose some now," he said.

"Oh, I couldn't," I said and my friend smartly took the book and handed it to the bartender to give back to the musician and said that our pick could be dealer's choice.

The musician, no longer the Yes man in my mind, continued to play.  Some songs were better than others.  He seemed to like to do anything, and he didn't have a renaissance voice, and he had a penchant for playing most things a tad too fast.  But I liked his patience and his good humor.  I admired his  perserverance.  The night we left, he told us, "I have seven more days."   He did seem like a man who was nearing the end of his cruise.

Joni

A blast from the past in two ways this morning, readiing the San Francisco Chronicle online and finding this article written by Robert Hilburn, resdent music critic of the Los Angeles Times who I read religiously as a teenager and about Joni Mitchell, one of my favorite songwriters ever.  I thought it was a really interesting article, because you don't often read about people just deciding not to do something that they're really good at, to see how it was a calling and wasn't, to understand how a particular culture could cause you to just walk away, and to think, "What did I do first?  What would make me happy now?" and to say, "I've had many romances, and that's not what I'm doing now, and I'm happy."  It was one of those thought provoking articles that I mulled over all day while various Joni Mitchell songs waltzed through my head.

The Endangered Cover Song

This past weekend, I had a chance to talk with a woman who I hadn't seen for a long time.  She's a musician, and had just performed in a cafe the day before.  I asked her how it went.  She spoke enthusiastically of the people she played with, and then mentioned that it would have been nice  if they could played other things than original tunes, if they could have thrown in a cover song now and then.

At first, I thought that she was playing with a bunch of musical purists.  Then she told me that ASCAP had begun fining cafes for unlawful use of copyrighted material--i.e. their musicians played cover songs.  She said that she knew of cafes who now paid  $900 a year so that their musicians could have access to this material.  I wondered what would happen next.  Would cafes be fined for playing radio in their venues?  Would music teachers be allowed to use other people's songs with their students?  I thought of musicians and their time honored tradition of figuring out songs from recordings in order to learn their craft.  Would there someday be house arrests?  Could you be ticketed  for walking down the street and singing a song that you've loved for years?