Back at it

It's been a while.  About 3 years.  I thought I'd try to say interesting things.

Finding the Beat

Life is rhythm.  At this point in my life, I've been a musician for longer than I haven't been.  Most of that time was devoted to learning lots of styles of guitar playing: rock, blues, jazz, classical, country and so forth.  Recently, however, I bought a drum set.

It didn't take long before it was obvious that the drums were unique in that they are the only instrument I've ever played where being awful was kind of fun.  You could sort of chalk it up to exercise or releasing stress.  But of course, it's never fun to stay bad at anything.  If I can't get good at something,  I usually move on to the next thing.  Life's to short to spend too much time sucking.

So I got better and now I would say I'm not terrible, nor bad, but OK.  I can keep rhythm, a few easy fills and get through a song.  But here's what became interesting to me playing the drums: finding the beat.  Music becomes intensely more metric when a backbeat is added.  The drums don't "fill" in the sound, they reconfigure the sound.  Changing the drumbeat - how much someone is wailing on a snare drum - how far removed from the pocket they are - changes the sound of everything.

Often when I play, I put on music - sometimes singer/songwriter stuff that doesn't have a drum part.  My job then becomes to locate and establish a beat.  So how do you do this? Do you count?  Well, maybe at first, but what happens is that your body can sort of tell what works over what song.  What I mean is if I sit down and listen, I just start to do what fits.  Now, it's not the only thing that would fit. Of course not, but playing was not based around a theoretical understanding of music - of subdivisions or smaller beat patterns with insane sounding names (paradiddles? Really?)

Instead one must learn to find the beat.  

This works not only for music, but it's true for life in general.  We all move to our own unique rhythms.  Sometimes we try to take on the rhythms of others.  Sometimes it works - "I really like to hang out with X because they bring out another side of my personality."  This is nice when two people have complimentary rhythms.  Somehow the two people become more than the sum of their parts - their rhythms marble together, sometimes we give ourselves over to their rhythm. Other times, it's just clear that our rhythm will not work with another's.  I don't like to walk with people who walk fast. It changes my rhythm and I have to take in the world at a speed I do not enjoy.  I'm a stroller.  I like to go slowly.

So it goes.