I played music in a bar the other night, something that on some levels i am against, and most of those levels have to do with respecting your music. It's a long knotty one that can be dealt with in another blog, or perhaps has been dealt with in another blog over a long period. To each their own, but the big problem comes with ridiculous views on what various people look to get out of it. I am at peace with my participation in the game, and truth be told i had a good time, played pretty well and enjoyed all that was played by all involved, but i got more out of it than that.
You see i got into a good alpha predator discussion with the good doctor down the street and we talked about how goats have large tufts of fur on their neck and the evolutionary idea behind this is that a wolf, or wolf like predator might just come up with a mouth full of fur instead of a bite to the neck. I found this a spectacular and relevant insight to my current internal debate over whether or not to shave off my king hell sideburns for an upcoming tropical vacation that will have me snorkeling in shark infested reefs. Clearly beyond any reasonable doubt a body in the ocean with massive pro sideburns has a clear survival advantage in the event of a shark attack using the goat model. Not only will i be looking good but i will be applying evolutionary tested defense mechanisms... can you hashtag #doublewinning yes, i think you can.
And the day before i had another great side burn victory... you see i was @ the local Trader Joe's with two of my daughters who have the unfortunate attitude that big sideburns look really bad. As i got to the checkout i was greeted by a young and eager beardman, who immediately complimented my sideburns and inquired about their evolution. He then turned to my daughters and pointed out how pro i was looking... they kind of recoiled but hung in there looking for treats. Now i had bought some beer and wine and the man asked to see some ID, as i believe they are cracking down... clearly i am old enough, but you know they probably had a store meeting telling them to ID everybody... i understand, and told the young beard man it's kind of flattering, to which he replied the sideburns are kind of a give away, to which i replied the 1969 should do it as well and handed him my ID. Now my drivers license has me in a massive handlebar moustache, which floored the young man and he said "well you are just total pro all the way", and then for sport i started flinging him all my other ID's that happen to catch me sporting all forms of aggressive facial hair growth... he was blown away and started bowing to me which caused all kinds of confusion for my daughters who later described him as a not smart guy with one of them bushy beards that was combed parted in the moustache region and you couldn't see his lips only him gums. It didn't matter we got ice cream and i scored a fairly large victory.
This morning i went into a grade one class and engaged the kids musically for a half an hour... it went really well, but it will go better next time. We wrote a song about their teacher and what they like to do in class, and we did some call and response songs, some action songs and we did some mouth trumpet solos. My big mistake was asking kids to shout out ideas for song parts... i mean it's a good idea, but when you ask 34 kids to call out ideas you get more ideas that you can deal with and they don't stop coming. For example, if you are doing a song and you need the name of an animal to cue the direction of then next verse the smart play is to pick somebody who's hand is in the air and let that kid and that kid only give the answer, rather than the way i set it up which was a ill timed free for all. It's OK, you have to like the enthusiasm, as the leader you need to keep your hand on the valve that controls the flow of ideas. I think we made great progress and i look forward to going back in two weeks to further work on our song titled "Mr. O", and play some other interactive numbers.
Another thing that came out of the bar gig was that i played the song "Cesar Chavez" a song i wrote about the man who has the street named after him and a teacher was in the audience who worked with Mexican children and she was wondering if i would like to come into the class and play that song. Of course i would be glad to and suggested perhaps we could work to translate the song into Spanish as a language exercise for all. That idea seemed to go over pretty good and entered into the concept of right brained learning, which a certain school is looking at furthering. This is all good stuff, as a maker of music, who tries to make music that is important, there is no better feeling than having the music hit home and make a difference to somebody, but of course following the music industry model the game is about gaining and maintaining popularity with things that really make no sense when you look at them with an unbiased eye. In the future i shall try to engage children through music for the purpose of fun, confidence building and learning without concern for financial gain for myself. Now truth be told the last time i came out of retirement i did it with the idea that i would not try to make money with music as i felt that cheapened the experience for myself. I never minded working hard so i always went to work, took care of my kids myself, had good wife to share fair duties and did music because i know it is important for my sanity and a chance to express my views.
I feel i have written many relevant and good songs about political injustice, protest apathy, environmental destruction, hockey, self awareness... yada yada, and on the grand scale i really don't think that any of the songs have had their voice heard to the point where they ever came close to having an impact on the society i care about creating due to the fact that i wasn't a good promoter to get the songs into the ears of those whom they could positively influence, as songs can do.
I'll give you an example... I wrote the song When the money's gone last year a song i have been thinking about writing for many years:
Beside a tailing pond, a businessman sings the same old song
The words of a well written lie, the future Prime Minister did deny
You see i got into a good alpha predator discussion with the good doctor down the street and we talked about how goats have large tufts of fur on their neck and the evolutionary idea behind this is that a wolf, or wolf like predator might just come up with a mouth full of fur instead of a bite to the neck. I found this a spectacular and relevant insight to my current internal debate over whether or not to shave off my king hell sideburns for an upcoming tropical vacation that will have me snorkeling in shark infested reefs. Clearly beyond any reasonable doubt a body in the ocean with massive pro sideburns has a clear survival advantage in the event of a shark attack using the goat model. Not only will i be looking good but i will be applying evolutionary tested defense mechanisms... can you hashtag #doublewinning yes, i think you can.
And the day before i had another great side burn victory... you see i was @ the local Trader Joe's with two of my daughters who have the unfortunate attitude that big sideburns look really bad. As i got to the checkout i was greeted by a young and eager beardman, who immediately complimented my sideburns and inquired about their evolution. He then turned to my daughters and pointed out how pro i was looking... they kind of recoiled but hung in there looking for treats. Now i had bought some beer and wine and the man asked to see some ID, as i believe they are cracking down... clearly i am old enough, but you know they probably had a store meeting telling them to ID everybody... i understand, and told the young beard man it's kind of flattering, to which he replied the sideburns are kind of a give away, to which i replied the 1969 should do it as well and handed him my ID. Now my drivers license has me in a massive handlebar moustache, which floored the young man and he said "well you are just total pro all the way", and then for sport i started flinging him all my other ID's that happen to catch me sporting all forms of aggressive facial hair growth... he was blown away and started bowing to me which caused all kinds of confusion for my daughters who later described him as a not smart guy with one of them bushy beards that was combed parted in the moustache region and you couldn't see his lips only him gums. It didn't matter we got ice cream and i scored a fairly large victory.
This morning i went into a grade one class and engaged the kids musically for a half an hour... it went really well, but it will go better next time. We wrote a song about their teacher and what they like to do in class, and we did some call and response songs, some action songs and we did some mouth trumpet solos. My big mistake was asking kids to shout out ideas for song parts... i mean it's a good idea, but when you ask 34 kids to call out ideas you get more ideas that you can deal with and they don't stop coming. For example, if you are doing a song and you need the name of an animal to cue the direction of then next verse the smart play is to pick somebody who's hand is in the air and let that kid and that kid only give the answer, rather than the way i set it up which was a ill timed free for all. It's OK, you have to like the enthusiasm, as the leader you need to keep your hand on the valve that controls the flow of ideas. I think we made great progress and i look forward to going back in two weeks to further work on our song titled "Mr. O", and play some other interactive numbers.
Another thing that came out of the bar gig was that i played the song "Cesar Chavez" a song i wrote about the man who has the street named after him and a teacher was in the audience who worked with Mexican children and she was wondering if i would like to come into the class and play that song. Of course i would be glad to and suggested perhaps we could work to translate the song into Spanish as a language exercise for all. That idea seemed to go over pretty good and entered into the concept of right brained learning, which a certain school is looking at furthering. This is all good stuff, as a maker of music, who tries to make music that is important, there is no better feeling than having the music hit home and make a difference to somebody, but of course following the music industry model the game is about gaining and maintaining popularity with things that really make no sense when you look at them with an unbiased eye. In the future i shall try to engage children through music for the purpose of fun, confidence building and learning without concern for financial gain for myself. Now truth be told the last time i came out of retirement i did it with the idea that i would not try to make money with music as i felt that cheapened the experience for myself. I never minded working hard so i always went to work, took care of my kids myself, had good wife to share fair duties and did music because i know it is important for my sanity and a chance to express my views.
I feel i have written many relevant and good songs about political injustice, protest apathy, environmental destruction, hockey, self awareness... yada yada, and on the grand scale i really don't think that any of the songs have had their voice heard to the point where they ever came close to having an impact on the society i care about creating due to the fact that i wasn't a good promoter to get the songs into the ears of those whom they could positively influence, as songs can do.
I'll give you an example... I wrote the song When the money's gone last year a song i have been thinking about writing for many years:
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