I’ve narrowed down the field for my new miniature powered PA/Bass Amp combo speakers. The top contender is BOSE and I’m arranging to try out a set. Biggest advantage besides tiny size is that they don’t look like speakers. The stick-like towers get lost among ordinary stage clutter. It is an interesting innovation that uses eight two-inch speakers to simulate the throw of one sixteen-inch. There are minor shortcomings, but one is not the sound, which is remarkable, and that is fine by me. This system may well be the first truly portable rig I’ve seen. And I see a lot. A little mixed blessings this morning, again it is medical (blog rules the most novel or unusual or superlative event of each day is listed). I have an actual gain in heart functionality. Over the past month. Physiologically I sense the improvement and today came a little confirmation from the gamma camera. As a test, I walked home from Washington St. without any major symptoms (but some minor ones after a mile). This is still good news and these days I’ll take it.
I was in the clinic until past noon. I’ve been starving since y’day, so I hit the Burger King at the Pines Mall like a refugee. Then, feeling good, I strolled around the mall to see what the public is wasting their money on these days. Or are they wasting the banks money? Good question, for the amount of American money in circulation in this country is only $2,675 per person. It doesn’t take long to throw that around. It is worse in Canada, with only $1,345 per person, meaning most everything up there is bought on credit. Déjà vu?
When I bewailed the hefty price tag on the speakers this morning, Wallace informed me (for around the fifth time) that “live music is on its way out”. Since he was out to prove some kind of point, I asked on what he based such an authorative statement. He said that “people will get their music listening to iPods”. (He admitted he has never used an iPod, but he knows they play music.) He said look at the joggers with iPods, and son-of-a-gun, he may be right. I have never yet seen a jogger who hired a live musician to accompany him around the park.
So, this must mean any day now, I will walk into Jimbos to find my music gear in the dumpster and my audience listening to headphones. I asked Wallace if he thought I should hang up music and donate my bass to charity. He didn’t reply, but did say (for around the sixth time) people would “turn to iPods for their music”. Please understand that Wallace is basing his conclusions purely on his keen powers of observation. He states for certain that a portable recorded music device (the iPod) spells doom for live music.
For example, he would have witnessed how the portable CD player closed down all the operas houses and night clubs during the 90’s, and how the Sony Walkman made people quit going to concerts by the 80’s. Why, he probably remembers when the invention of the portable record player put the Beatles out of business in the 60’s. Wallace went on to say that playing music is “really easy”, since he had once seen a book that “had the music written out”. All one had to do to be a musician was follow along. Yes, he actually said that. That could explain why all musicians have books on stage. And you dummies wasted all those years on lessons and practice, my God, you must be a stupid, untalented lot.
I pointed out to Wallace that what he had seen was a “fake book”. These have been around forever, and are not the real music scores, which are copyrighted and sold as sheet music for each instrument. While fake books give lyrics and a melody line, they do not show the all-important accompaniment, nor the arrangement or instrumental breaks. It is not lost that this mysterious book, the likes of which Wallace says I have never seen, was on the other coast and unavailable for examination.
No, he kept saying it had “all the music”, which struck me as odd, since he can’t read music. But still not quite as odd as his declaration of the end of live music, since he can’t play any instruments either. Possibly when one is smart enough, clear-headed enough, and knows that others are only capable of doing the simple things in life at best, matters like practical experience just get in the way.
I’m reminded of my start in music, the summer before I turned eleven. Within 19 months, I was already planning the creation of my own band. In the ensuing year, I started two bands, after the first one became infected with “older people”, grade-niners (who just would not listen to a grade-eighter like me). When I was sixteen and a seasoned musical veteran many times over, my sister asked me one Saturday afternoon if I would teach her to play the piano. Shucks, if I’d known Wallace back then, I could have introduced them and asked him to bring along that book.
