One year ago today: May 16, 2016, Limestone Country Club.
Five years ago today: May 16, 2012, learning disability, my eye.
Nine years ago today: May 16, 2008, Johnny D’s bizcard.
Random years ago today: May 16, 2006, Edinburgh Ale.
Today, you get a before and after. Let’s talk music, yes, I will undoubtedly repeat myself, but as always, in slightly different words. The obstacles of forming a band are permanent and universal. Guitar players think they are supreme and can really get bent out of shape when proven otherwise. This happens regularly when I’m playing bass. I never confront the guitarist on stage, rather I let the audience be the judge. Right, Glen?
[Author’s note: here is an example of the musical scores I regularly read. I can hear this melody in my head. My point is that I went through a phase in my musical career where I felt the only “pure” way to learn music was by ear. Wrong. I will now use absolutely any advantage I can get my hands on. I am trained to read piano scores, I regularly use tablature, in a pinch will watch youTube tutorials until I get it. I’ve learned that using every resource you can is a darn good way to plow the competition under. Lord knows, they need it.]
But I also recognize this as a result of over-playing, something that is never required with my music. I also sound out their attitude toward allowing the bass to sometimes play the occasional lead breaks. The majority of egotistical guitarists find that outrageous. Curiously, that’s only if you play the lead notes, but not when you play a piano or sax part. Don’t confuse that with them being tolerant; the reality is that they have never even listened to the non-guitar parts and thus could not arge. Bloody hypocrites.
The guy is 22 miles away, but worth a tryout. He is unfamiliar with the negative stage effects of slow music or that certain songs which are just not good candidates for duet work. (Like “Good Hearted Woman” and “Chattahoochie”. They just aren’t.) But on the other hand, he picked up instantly that what he’d be playing was unadorned rhythm strums, and it was his task to make them sound as professional as possible, a far more difficult proposition than just learning to play a given song. The one difference here is this guy is far more phone-interviewed than the others. I am no longer hoping to find a diamond in the rough. I’ll be at the guy’s place in around six hours, so wait a bit and you’ll get the report.
Which is not to say I don’t have an excellent solo bass line to “Good Hearted Woman”, but it is a bass line that overshadows the guitar, who cannot physically play the pattern I’m playing and still finger the chord. In any case, I’m loathe to have the guitarist play in unison with bass notes. I could not get that rotten New York guy to quit doing that. Buddy, that walk-up is a bass line. And even then, if was a guitar riff that interrupted the rhythm strumming, then YOU leave it out. But he was a lunkhead who thinks everybody must bow down to the way he used to play it in New York. He played it wrong. He also got antsy that the bass was “stealing” his best lines, although he never felt that the other direction when he played bass riffs. The guitar world is full of that brand of azzhole.
Abandoned Georgia farmhouse.
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I was at the new guitarist’s place for over two hours. I was happily surprised by his aptitude. More than any of the nine before, this guy had a basic grasp on music theory. He even understood the circle of fifths, although did not know it was called that. The important thing is that he recognized this was a different approach to playing the music and he did not resist learning something new. This is vanishingly rare in Florida. So, I gave him duo theory 101-201-301 and within the hour we were playing respectable versions of a number of songs. Songs that the other smart asses who didn’t need no stinking theory were still struggling with weeks down the line.
His approach to this new method was admirable. He gave each new concept a fair try. He’s woefully out of practice, but he caught on fast that this was a golden opportunity. He grasped that the reason I wanted him playing unadorned strums was not to downgrade his showmanship, but so that he would not get tired by the end of the second set. If he does his homework, this is worth pursuing. What’s more, he has an inside track with the close to 200 trailer courts in the district, most of which have community dance and party facilities.
I assigned him some homework and asked if he could download some tunes for me. If he does that and hits the ground running by next rehearsal, I’ll give it the old college try. He’s kind of weak on the vocals, but I don’t mind. It makes me look better. If he wants to shine, he knows what he’s got to do. By the way, my bass playing astonished him, always a good sign. People listen better when they are astonished.
“Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."
--Irving Fisher, Economics Prof., Yale University, 1929.
Despite the name of this blog, I’m not much into trailer court living. True, I lived in one for a few years, (because I got lucky and found a safe, comfy one) but let’s draw some distinctions. Top of the list, I was living there because I needed to save money to buy this place in cash. Fair enough? It better be, because it worked. That, sunshine, is a totally different notion than living in a trailer because of financial or mental shortcomings.
Well, he’s been out of the loop for a while. But he instantly related to most of what I said, like how I have no intention or time to start just another hack band. It must be different, if not fundamentally different, than just sitting down and rote memorizing a list of tunes. This is important, no underestimating here. Instead of the usual guitar reaction that you don’t know what you are talking about, he more than a few times said he had thought about that, but never met anyone who’d done it. I believe him.
What happened is instead of the standard sounding out who plays what, I gave him the half-hour try this and try that. Now take a closer look at what you just played, focus on this, emphasize that, play what you know is right. See me play the bass drum and you play the snare, see how it meshes, notice how the parts fit together. When you “hear” the third instrument, aha, that’s the sound we are shooting for in every tune we play. Next, some pointers on what to avoid even though most guitarists would not agree. There is a reason most guitarists don’t play in bands.
Unlike the last nine guitar players, this new guy was very amenable to new concepts. I mean that in the sense that if you explained the motive or goal, he’d try it instead of argue with you. Just give me ten seconds and put it to the test. That was not only a great eye-opener for the guy, he often could drop his old habits and play it in a duet mode right away. Another plus is that when he did make mistakes, it was in places I know to be tricky, which is the right spot to make a mistake around me.
Well, after a brief time on musical theory, we quickly moved on to playing Johnny Cash like Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard like Merle Haggard. Maybe that pack of guitar ninnies should try this sometime. He also grasped very rapidly the concept of meeting in the middle, where we share the dance beat. With this background now freshly covered, we went on to play nine songs to almost stage-ready condition in the next 90 minutes. That’s seriously amazing progress. If this guy does his homework, we’ll be out there in no time.
One tune stood out above the rest. It was, simply put, a lucky example that fit the theory we had just gone over. One of the CCR rain songs, “Have You Ever Seen the Rain”. He was flabbergasted how we aced it, the more so because everybody expects the other guy to make that mistake whereby the first walkdown is a Flatt run, while it is the second one that follows the pentatonic. I had just finished showing him how to listen differently to music you intend to perform than your other music. He knew there was a method to it, but had never been coached. He comprehended it right away, so even after years of playing that pentatonic wrong, he instantly changed it once he knew why it had to be a Flatt run.
Got that, Glen, Mike, Eddie, Russ, etc? He changed, he actually changed INSTANTLY to doing it right, and did so with that “Aha!” look of recognition that I’ve never seen on any of your mugs. Don't cry, but he recognized what a lowly bassist said was right and acted on it. There, there . . .
ADDENDUM
The book on restricted fragment length polymorphism (DNA fingerprinting) is called “Actual Innocence”. Now, I rarely cite these books or ISBNs because frankly, these days anyone who can’t find it on their own maybe should be watching television instead of reading the same books I do. In case they get jury duty, it is imperative to contemporary justice that condemning people involves knowing who won the Super Bowl.
[Author's note: turns out there are a pack of judges named David Levy. How about I bet you five bucks the worst sumbitch of the lot is the one born in Miami? Nor can I locate the correct Debra Reiser, but there is one in Maryland who was named "Lawyer of the Year". What are the odds?]
One of the things she did was discredit all seven people including a priest who had seen the accused at a bible meeting on the other side of town during the crime. She used the old tactic of continually widening the scope of questioning until the witness could no longer possibly answer. Questions like what was the weather that day, what color socks they had been wearing, and did they use dimes or nickels to pay the toll that morning.
And if you have any faith in expert witnesses, you must read this book. Corrupt doctors, untrained lab managers, the lot. Lying in court top to bottom over side bets on who could “needle” the most convicts. States enacting laws that prevent any prosecution for legal wrong-doing. And the use of torture to get confessions was only outlawed 80 years ago. This included dangling the accused by the ankles from tall buildings. My favorite is courts that lower the sentence on iffy verdicts if the convict signs a document that he will never sue any of the people involved or revokes his right to appeal.
Exonerated prisoners by the thousands, not hundreds, but thousands. Countless incidents where truth is bent to fit what the prosecution wants it to be. Suppression of evidence is now a cottage industry in many states, where the crime labs are operated mainly by prosecutorial agencies. Victims are coached on what answers to give and shown which suspects are the ones the police are after. You had better read this book. And this. (The man was tortured.)
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