man, sometimes “actually playing in time” and “actually getting a good sound, not a sloppy (dirty in the drumline sense) sound is hard…
doing so on your thighs with your hands seems easy enough, but god damn, suddenly on actual drums, you suck.
#practice, hahaha who would think.
Category Archives: Rhythmic Insanity
as you reach out and try to collaborate
as you reach out and try to collaborate, with anyone for any purpose,
know this, particularly if you are more unique than other individuals:
you might not and probably will not get along well with almost EVERYONE. I mean seriously, would you marry ANYONE? I doubt it.
I’ve had some lousy therapists, I have a good one “who happens to work well with me” now. (happens, not because they are good or bad, nor me, (that’s important!) but just because of CHEMISTRY, so to speak…
for gods SAKE people (or, whomever’s)
DO NOT blame YOURSELF on CHEMISTRY!!!!
it’d be very nice to have a platform from which to launch and do my ideas
it’d be very nice to have a platform from which to launch and do my ideas. namely a manager and agent, but ones who help realize MY stuff, not others’s. unless it’s the same:)
anybody got one? such a thing, I mean, got such a thing?
(I really seriously need help with this folks, I’m wasting, some day it will be too late.)
this is the life
man, god DAMN there’s nothing better than doing awesome things over and over and over!
proverbial EDGING (look it up)
hearing or playing “already extremely repetitive music” over and over for hours.
be as good as fucking coolly or hotly that long. or driving and hearing music…. or any shit… dancin, exercising…. fuck yeah this is life.
so, relationships….
might seem strange to say this…. but a lot of people seem to have relationships.
my therapist today said that plenty of these people (and relationships) are not in fact happy ones, indeed.
it has occurred to me, the unhappy ones and “just because this is what everyone does and so I guess I should do it too” ones not withstanding-
so I guess these people must ENJOY doing this then, huh…
so I’d better start
NOT using other people as ways to make MYSELF feel better about myself (instead of just loving myself just because, first,) and
um,
doing whatever it is that people do together that they seem to enjoy, WHICH-
being Adhd, and already having a lotta things that are super fun to do, and already doing plenty of them, …
sometimes I have a hard time imagining (aside from Sex of course)
things to do with a partner that would compare with the stuff I already do, ya know, drumming, listening to music, and other stimulating things.
I mean, yeah, people be together, yeah…. just….
sometimes it’s tough for me to imagine feeling good or relaxed, or stimulated, or interested at all, when something involves spending “as much” time with another person as a relationship seems like it’d involve.
I am a loner, after all.
we shall see, I guess.
(I tagged all this music stuff in this because said music stuff is a lotta the stuff I enjoy, and don’t need to be in a relationship to love deeply, for it to make me truly happy…. sharing it with another might be okay, but seriously, it’s already great without em…. I don’t need style crampage…) but yeah, some affection might be nice.
with this many people to make cool music with
wow, I’ve really got A LOT of cool friends to make music with at pretty much any moment.
I’ve got
1. these people
2. them two dudes
3. this dude
4. that dude.
5. this dude.
6. them big groupa dudes
7. them new people down there
8. some new people up here too.
9. several other combinations of the above people
10. oh, THEM new people UP UP there too too.
guess life really is actually great.
– friends in the dark, who never have experienced this: please seek it out, and if possible, come to calarts, that’s the best way.
-I know it sounds crazy. trust me. you’re gonna die some day. don’t die without this.
-oh, and also THOSE people and
-THAT REALLY REALLY HUGE group of people as well.
The opening material of a piece of music
1. a piece my friend wrote, begins and ends with a certain Riff.
2. it’s sorta an Arch-Form (sorta, a little) in that way.
3. I can’t believe I somehow have become, even a little, the kind of person who feels that the introductory RIFF of a piece of music, a THEME, should be more than just a THING you play at the beginning and end, and should have MORE THAN A PASSING “STRUCTURAL?” importance/relation to, the rest of the piece.
OTHERWISE it’s just a cool riff you played, merely as a “hey, everyone listen up” thingy.
more often than not, however, something ELSE happens, in “pop” type music at least (and in some other music as well.)
more often, it’s just USED as an intro, and basically a BACKGROUND/SUBSIDIARY thing to something ELSE… AND- SAID something else is…
not only “not all that related” to the thing, but FAR LESS INTERESTING THAN it.
I find this in Hip Hop some. and man… EVEN in JAZZ, which I love, YES I appreciate that obviously “the head” is being repeated over and over and is the harmonic (as well as other things) BASIS for the tune, for the solos, yes yes of course… but I just think it can also be MORE than that…
take the case of STOLEN MOMENTS by Oliver Nelson. believe it or not, I wish always that there was um, “more development” of the nifty voicing (voicings, but apparently, “voicings” plural isn’t a word:)
in the beginning.
maybe it’s just me…. maybe I’m SUPER WHITE. yeah, likely.
when I First learned African music, yes, AT CalArts, from Alfred and Kobla (and Chris T. Armstrong, the first thing I did in my private lessons was NOT to learn a bunch of the different drum patterns from one piece, but four different pieces with four different bell patterns (uh, rhythmic underpinnings, that is.)
not that that was advisable, to this day I don’t “always” now “all” the supporting rhythms for some of the easier BASIC pieces, which kinda “isn’t ok”, but I digress.
it took me, um, “some time” (try 10 or more years) before I developed the patience to get into the SUBTLETIES of the pieces, so…. what do I know… who knows, who knows indeed.
I guess all I’m saying is I’d like it more if the opening material of a piece isn’t just used an excuse to make some “kinda generic” music on a theme (not saying that about Stolen Moments, just trying to get the point across, sorry if I offend someone with that analogy) I mean, dude, it happens in classical music some TOO. “this here is a concerto, which is a lot like other concerto’s, but on THIS theme, but otherwise has a very similar form, etc….)
fucks sake, do somethin different, and APPRECIATE THE OPENING MATERIAL FOR IT”S OWN SAKE, IT”S OWN SOUND, NOT JUST AS A BACKGROUND/FRAME FOR music which, even if great, is like many other such pieces.
phew, tough to say.
p.s. this may have something to do with STRUCTURE, TIMBRE, HARMONY, RHYTHM… and perhaps NOT with Melody?:)
here’s HERE’s an example: there’s a version of that same tune, STOLEN MOMENTS by OLIVER NELSON, played and arranged by BILL CUNLIFFE…. the intro in that version alters some of the chords… I’d like (and maybe it DOES do this, haven’t heard it all yet)
to hear the harmonic relations of what they altered to chords to like… DETERMINE the modulations later in the piece… like… at the end of the head in this version…
it (it’s in c minor)
goes to EbM7, GbM7, and EM with a G natural in the melody the whoe time (making the EM kinda like a E7 #9, except there’s no 7th:))
I’d like to hear the tune MODULATE to those keys, or even modulate in the DIRECTIONS those keys ARE from C, even upside down….
even it such a thing wasn’t obvious….
SO WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME, other than being WHITE???:)(by white, I mean Classically trained, and not a jazz musician:)
Harmony, Wagner, and African Drumming, of course
… I think it’s pretty cool that I teach things as disparate as
Music theory, about Harmony, and Wagner, and
African Music and some Dance
do something yourself
yeah…. ‘steada depending on others to provide YOUR opportunities for stimulation (and money,) not to mention livelihood, that is, adhd-high-stimulation,
do it your fuckin self.
why have I so often just opted to find something that’s awesome enough, and just BE part of it, rather than MAKING one myself….
given, I haven’t done this when there IS no “thing” in a given area, I HAVE gone and made my own in said cases.
perhaps I should ALWAYS do this.
self-helping inDEed
drumset…
I’m increasingly interested in playing drumset (in my way) on cool music only,
that is,
things Brazilian, African, and a little Jazzy too.