Learnin’ how to learn
Perhaps the title of this post should be ‘relearning how to learn’ or ‘relearning how to think straight’.
A few years ago, I realized that my thinking and learning was pretty dysfunctional and kinda stuck in a rut. I think this is mainly due to public schools and the university environment that I came up in academically.
I believe that in public schools, teachers have to devise a way to teach stuff so that everyone in the class can hopefully learn it. Then there are a few ’slow’ students who have trouble learning the information, because perhaps their talents lie more with music or art or something- for some reason or another, the style of learning where there is a teacher in front of 25 students doesn’t work for everyone.
I consider myself mentally sound, and easily able to learn stuff and retain stuff. Yet, every day before I went to school I had a stomachache and a feeling of doom. Why wasn’t I THRILLED to be going to school and learning?
The reason is that school didn’t work for me. Specifically, what didn’t work is having to learn stuff I wasn’t interested in, then remember it for a test a week later. Then, if you don’t remember the stuff, you fail. Of course I’m simplifying here!
The fact that I spent my first 21 years learning this way is already sort of crappy. But what’s worse is that I took that style of learning into my adult life as a blueprint for the world. I felt that failure was always around the corner. Every decision was crucial, and there was absolutely no room for intuition or going on a gut feeling.
Also carried over from school is the feeling of a hierarchy or order among people. For instance, maybe somebody can play bass faster and more technically than me, and I would think they are a higher or better person. Or someone would be chosen to do a gig over me, and it was like a failure in Gym class to be picked for a basketball team because I’m clumsy and awkward.
As I mature, I’m finding that my thoughts are like a river. Currents may go this way and that, and it is really bad to try to stop the flow or redirect the river in an unnatural way. What this means in practical terms is that I may hear a song while shopping in the drug store, then two years later I can play it on bass at a gig. (rather than having to learn the song note for note from sheet music, then stressing out about whether I’m going to mess it up at a show). I’ve learned that music is not like an exam in school, and as long as you put love and enthusiasm behind it, it’s gonna sound good.
Also, I was horrible at history all through school. But now, I may pick up a book on Thomas Jefferson and read it voraciously and enjoy the heck out of it. Probably because I’m choosing to read it on my own, and I’ve finally reached a point in my life where that kind of person is really interesting to me.
Another element of my new style of thinking is to always be open to the possibility that you are going to succeed. If I’m trying something new, I’m going to do it with the confidence that I’m probably going to do it right — nail it! That’s a lot different than when I used to do stuff timidly, and nervous that I might mess it up. Probably the best example of this is when I’m on stage with a jazz group, and someone suggests that we play a song that I’ve never played before. I just say ‘OK, let’s do it’. I rarely ever say that I’d rather not try the song.
I’d like to end this post with a quote from Francois Rabbath’s Nouvelle Technique De La Contrabasse:
“The Word Difficult. We learn to play an instrument because we have chosen it and because we want to derive pleasure from it. The idea of difficulty must therefore not be instilled into a student, since later he will overcome this. To play a wrong note, when learning, is not a serious mistake. The chief thing, when learning, is to be able to obtain a sound from the instrument with happiness, with pleasure. When a child learns to walk, we know he will fall down until the day he succeeds. The same goes for the musician: if we forbid him to play a wrong note, making him repeat the passage until it is correct, he becomes paralysed and will always make the same mistake. He must be allowed to play naturally, and made to understand that the most important thing is to express himself by playing the notes without stiffness. The musical instrument is presented to future musicians haled with difficulty. Everything is difficult: the holding of the bow, the holding of the instrument, music, etc.
The word ‘difficult’ is passed on from generation to generation. Its power is so radical that, from the outset, the player is oppressed by a fear that he drags behind him all his life like a ball and chain, making any natural approach to the instrument impossible for him. We can add to this reluctance on the part of most teachers to help technique to progress: a wall of concrete a hundred metres thick is automatically created; it can only be breached by striking the word ‘difficult’ from the vocabulary.
I hope that this tutor will prove to you that what you cannot do today, you will do tomorrow.
F.R.”
Hardcore Part 1
Why would a jazz musician like myself be influenced by hardcore music and culture? The older I get, the more I feel like my values are falling in line with some of the most hardcore dudes out there. When you think of ‘hardcore’, I believe most people conjure up images of loud guitars, shattered beer bottles, drunken fist-fights, and drug abuse. And also a certain look; perhaps purple mohawk, studded eyelids and motorcycle jackets or something. I don’t really know, maybe I’m just judging by my own personal bias.
What I’m finding out is that I’m redefining my idea of hardcore because I’ve read a lot recently about musicians and artist that I look up to. For instance, I found a book on the street by Henry Rollins called ‘See A Grown Man Cry/Now Watch Him Die’ that I can only describe as the most hardcore thing I’ve ever read in my life. It’s a collection of poems and essays and other stuff from a 2-year time from 1991-1992 as Henry was on the road almost constantly doing speaking engagements and Rollins Band tour dates. I won’t spoil the book for you, but suffice it to say that you and I are lazy pieces of poop compared to this guy.
I got to thinking about how many thoughts I’ve repressed and ideas I’ve abandoned as stupid over the years. Perhaps I’m afraid of failing. Maybe I’m afraid that exploring these ideas would take a lot of work. What would Henry Rollins say?
“My first inclination was to say you’re a pathetic fucking loser. But I’ll let you in on a little secret: Deep down inside I’m as soft as an 8-week-old kitten and as lazy as a tree sloth. In a perfect world I would sleep 14 hours a day and be a total wastoid. However, I was cursed with being born with the most intense-looking face in the history of mankind. When my parents showed people my baby pictures, they’d tremble in fear. They knew I was destined to be an Army drill sergeant or a homicidal maniac. Or a crazed punk-rock singer. Or a hyper-agitated dude who rants on stages and on your TV screen for hours on end. When you have a perma-scowl like this, you can’t just be a bum. So I forced myself to be productive. I trained my body and mind hard—27 hours a day, 428 days a year. You know when I sleep? From 1 a.m. to 1:15 a.m. You know what I did this morning? I bench-pressed 500 pounds for three hours. Then I came up with a screed about how shitty Nickelback and Harry Potter books are. Then I read a 900-page biography of Ché Guevara. Then I wrote 12 poems. Are they any good? Fuck no. But I did it. And maybe the 12 poems I’ll write tomorrow will be good. Anyway, I did all that before 5 a.m. In the past year I’ve traveled to every country on earth, and when I ran out of countries I invented a few more and traveled to them, too.” (Philadelphia Weekly, March 9, 2010)
Ok then. Let’s all get off our asses and do something.
My Day
Every day, I view my day a success if Baby Jessica didn’t get hurt and didn’t go hungry. By those criteria, my day was a success! I should end there!
But of course I won’t, because life’s little ups and downs have a way of exhausting me. I was so exhausted today, that by the time Nancy came home, I was just sitting on a stool in the kitchen, holding Jessica, listening to internet radio, and hoping that Jessica wouldn’t cry before Nancy came home to take over.
What happened today? It was a perfect storm of ups and downs seemingly designed just to wear me out.
Here’s a rundown:
5:45ish – woke up and practiced for an hour.
7:30 – Took Truffles to her day care. Felt bad about it because I wanted to pay attention to Truffles.
8:25 – Got home from my run late, made Nancy late for work and felt bad about it.
9:00 – Got Jessica down for a nap after ‘wrestle’ playing for about 20 minutes. Felt cool about that one.
10:00 – Fed Jessica, and began to worry if I was giving her enough variety, or just feeding her what she loves so mealtime would be easy. On retrospect, the meal was fine and well-balanced
11:00 – Cleaned up around the house while I let Jessica crawl around. Felt bad about not actively playing with her.
12:00 – Did more brainstorming about record label-type thing I want to do. Got excited about that. Started thinking about writing some stuff for a book that a friend and I are talking about doing. Got excited about that. Was thinking about how much I love the strings on my bass as well. Also, played ‘peek a boo’ with Jessica and made her laugh a lot.
1:00 – Went to the dry cleaner’s. Realized that I had been calling this woman by the wrong name for about a year now. I said “Hey Julie!” and she said “It’s Amy!” and she didn’t look pleased. I don’t know why, but I felt awful about calling her the wrong name.
2:00 – Tried to get Jessica to take a nap, but she was thirsty and crying. By the time I gave her a bottle, it was too late and she missed her nap. She was cranky for the rest of the day.
3:30 – Hung laundry and ignored Jessica in her jumper. Talked to Keith on the phone, and let her stay in the jumper for a while longer, while wishing I could be playing with her.
I guess that’s enough. After typing all that I can see that the things that upset me are that I felt like I was dissing people. I guess there’s just not enough time in the day to do everything I want to do, so I feel bad about stuff I can’t do! I’ll work on that.
Love it when something clicks
In my lesson this week, Nate was showing me how to look at chord voicings as several ‘voices’ that can move as you want them too. I guess before I was just seeing voicings as ‘I gotta play the 1,3,5,7 in some way shape or form’ or something like that. Anyways, for me it opened up a lot of possibilities.
This morning I was messing around during my 5-6am practice with different chord voicings, and I felt so free with it that it seemed like I could play anything and it would work on some level, even chord voicings that seem wacky.
I’m happy about this, because playing chords has always seemed so mysterious and difficult, and now it’s beginning to click. Another cool thing we talked about is working some small solo lines in here and there among the comping that I do. Nate told me to view the soloing as an extension of the comping, not really as a whole separate entity. I’ve found that this is absolutely true, as a few well-placed ’solo’ notes as part of a comping line can sound great as a solo, as well as make the comping sound a lot more interesting.
Other stuff. Baby Jessica ate a good lunch today of yams, broccoli, carrots, and spaghetti. Now we’re lying down for an afternoon nap and she’s fading fast.
Also, I made the switch over to steel strings on my upright bass last week, and I guess I’m really enjoying them. The strings I’m using now are Spirocore Mediums a/k/a Mittels a/k/a Orchestras a/k/a Sprocore Reds. It took a bit of research to figure out that all of them are talking about the same thing.
I had been having breakage and unraveling problems with the Velvet Animas I’ve had for the past year. So I wanted an extremely durable, and pretty heavy and stiff string. The main thing is that I didn’t always want to be afraid that a string was about to break or unravel during a recording.
Anyways, the spirocores are great, but it has taken me a couple weeks to get ‘em booming on my instrument. My hands just had to get used to them I reckon. They sound really good now, but I really miss the midrange punch of the Animas. Maybe I’ll use these for a year or two, and then switch back. Animas are pretty doggone expensive to be so fragile, though.
It’s going, I guess.
Hanging out here in Chapel Hill with my Mom, the baby, and Truffles. Nancy is at the beach with some of her friends from high school, so I’m just walking Truffles, holding the baby, and hanging out with Mom.
I played a jazz gig last night with Kevin Van Sant on guitar and Dave Finucane on tenor sax. It was fun. Since my upright bass is in New York, I used my Musicman Stingray bass. It’s kind of tough to get a good jazz tone out of it. The action was pretty high because of the change in the season, so I decided not to adjust it. After about a set, I suddenly remembered something about this bass: when playing fingerstyle, I roll a bit of treble off, and boost both the midrange and bass knobs a little bit. I’ve owned three different Stingray basses, and I’ve had to do that same thing every time.
Today I went to Kevin Van Sant’s house for a little jam session. He has an awesome Hammond RT-3 organ that I just love to play. I gotta hand it to Kevin – he’s always happy to have me over to jam on his Hammond, even when I was just starting to play. I’ve been playing for a little over a year now, and the going is still rough. However, this time at least I didn’t screw up bad enough to make a train wreck; at least I kept the form and held the tempos steady.
While I’m on the subject of Kevin, I was thinking about when I first started playing bass about 19 years ago, and Kevin was one of the few people who consistently wanted to get together and jam with me, no matter how horrible I sounded. We learned literally hundreds of songs together. Now that I’m a beginner on a totally new instrument, it’s not surprising at all that he’s nurturing and encouraging me patiently, giving me a chance to learn by screwing up over and over. Today he told me ‘A lot of keyboard players come over and have a hard time adjusting to the Hammond. You’re coming over here and playing it, and you’re not even a keyboard player, it’s a totally new instrument to you’. I couldn’t help but feel proud of myself.
I’ve been really lucky because there are a few people that I play with, who have played with me through all of the different phases of my musical development, because for some reason they like me. One person that pops into mind is J. Walter Hawkes. I’ve been a member of Walter’s band for probably 10 years now, ever since I was a young lad fresh from NC who could barely play a note. Make no mistake; Walter had a choice of many different bass players to play with, and he chose crappy old me. Now that I feel like I’m able to take care of business a lot better on the bass, it makes a lot more sense for me to play with him. But that’s an incredible friend who would give me so much support and so much time to develop as a player.
April Gigs
Here’s where I’ll be at in April 2010:
Fri 4/2 10:30pm – 2:30am w/The Big 72 (formerly The Traditional Jazz Collective) @ Garage (99 7th Ave S)
Sun 4/4 1pm – 4pm w/Paul Carlon @ SD26 (19 E 26 St., NYC)
Tues 4/6 8:00pm – 11:00pm w/Michael Arenella @ Apotheke Bar (9 Doyers St., New York, NY 10013)
Sat 4/9 5:30pm – 8pm w/Kevin Van Sant @ Washington Duke Inn (Durham, NC)
Tues 4/13 8:00pm – 11:00pm w/Michael Arenella @ Apotheke Bar (9 Doyers St., New York, NY 10013)
Fri 4/16 10:30pm – 2:30am w/The Big 72 (formerly The Traditional Jazz Collective) @ Garage (99 7th Ave S)
Sun 4/18 1pm – 4pm w/Paul Carlon and Nate Shaw @ SD26 (19 E 26 St., NYC)
Tues 4/20 8:00pm – 11:00pm w/Michael Arenella @ Apotheke Bar (9 Doyers St., New York, NY 10013)
Sat 4/24 8:30pm – 11:pm w/Gelber and Manning @ Flute Bar (205 West 54th Street, New York City)
Sun 4/25 1pm – 4pm w/Paul Carlon and Nate Shaw @ SD26 (19 E 26 St., NYC)
Tues 4/27 8:00pm – 11:00pm w/Michael Arenella @ Apotheke Bar (9 Doyers St., New York, NY 10013)
Tarheels – Exercise – A day at home
UNC lost in the final game of the NIT tonight. It was a hard game to watch. We looked terrible, then we looked great! Then we looked terrible again. I’m just glad that Carolina got a little tournament action. Nancy went to the semi-final and final game. It was also cool to know that UNC was playing here in NYC.
I stayed at home today with baby and doggie from about 9am to 10:30pm. That’s a pretty long day to take care of everything, non-stop. I did pretty well, though – nobody starved to death, Truffles got to walk outside regularly. Jessica got fed and got a nap. We walked all the way around the park, and I got her bathed, fed, and asleep at a decent hour. I guess that qualifies me as a pretty good dad, even though there was a nagging feeling that if I was paying attention to baby, I was ignoring doggie too much, and vice versa. What can you do about that, though? It was a pretty good day.
Oh yeah, I had a pretty awesome lunch today too — collard greens and tater-tots! Then a mid-afternoon snack of homemade beans and franks that Nancy made last night featuring tofu hot dogs.
I had promised myself that I would start exercising on today on April 1, and I made good on that promise. In the morning after practicing for an hour and walking Truffles for about a half hour, I went for a 15-minute run. I know that sounds wimpy, but it kinda kicked my butt and I felt creaky and sore while running.
Also I had read somewhere about a local newscaster guy (forgot his name) who did 1000 push-ups a week. That seemed like a ton of pushups, and I got inspired. For the last few days, I have been debating how many pushups I want to do, because I don’t want to set a goal that’s to hard to reach. I finally decided that 80 per day would be alright.
So, this morning while the tater tots and greens were cookin’ I did 20 pushups. That went fine. Then, after lunch, I did 15 more, and it was pretty hard. I reasoned to myself that if each hour I dropped down and did 10 push-ups, the remaining 55 would be a piece of cake.
Well let me tell you, at 9pm I just did the last 10 push-ups and I’m pretty sore. Anyways, I feel great because I set a goal and did what I promised… hopefully I can keep it up.
I can look at today and be satisfied. Practiced music for hour and a half, went running and did push-ups, walked the park for 2 hours, made a cool meal, watched Carolina game, played a game of chess online and almost didn’t lose, got the baby asleep in her crib, and posted to the blog. Rock that.
Cute Animal Stories!
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/specials/article5274376.ece
Listening to yourself
Tonight I went to the Douglass St. Musicians Collective to see Tony Romano and Michel Gentile play a set. Those guys are fantastic together. Half of the music they played was completely improvised on the spot, and it was unbelievable. Can’t wait for the next one.
When I got home, I started to listen to my practice tape for the day. Each day when I practice organ, I record it on a digital tape recorder so I can listen later and take notes.
It’s really thrilling to listen to the tape, because you never know what you are going to here. Often, my playing sounds completely different than I remembered. Today, I played a ‘brazilian warm-up’ exercise that i’ve been working on for the last couple of weeks: half notes in the bass line, and right hand comping. In the right hand, I’m treating the upper and lower manuals kind of like a high – pitched and low-pitched drum. Then every once in a while, I’ll toss in a few measures of soloing.
The point of doing this warm-up exercise is to push the limits of my ability. In Nate’s words, “You want to sound terrible playing it” because you are pushing yourself beyond what you can play.
Lo and behold, when listening back to it, it’s not too bad! The coolest part of it is that all of the elements of a jazz group are present: the bass, the chordal instrument, the percussion (with the upper/lower manual drum ideas), and the soloist – all being played on a single instrument. I’m surprised that I can do it at all.
Of course, each time you learn one thing on the organ, it just opens a window of possibility through which you can see a million other things you need to learn. (Unlike bass, where you just thump quarter notes all day and try not to fall asleep 
How A Bowl Should Be Licked
In case you didn’t get this forward in your email reader:
