Practice, Rehearse, Repeat

The snow is falling, visible in the cone of light from the streetlight. I am passing underneath, in a long coat, hat and scarf, carrying my clarinet in its rectangular case. I am walking from, not to, a music rehearsal. I am warm, thanks to my clothing, but in my soul also. I have just experienced a shared musical experience, a closeness in which I felt at ease, involving many individuals making an increasingly unified sound as we follow the score and the conductor.

We are all in grade school, and the instruments have not been in our hands for long. We are simultaneously working on breath control, counting, and reading the language of music on the printed page. Our conductor has tremendous patience, but he too was here once.

I am alone and content as I walk up my street, maybe humming a bit of one of our pieces. I’ve left behind the room with the brilliant wooden floors and the warm heat, knowing I’ll be back, as the ritual of individual practice and group rehearsal continues.

I’ve carried this scene in my head for years. I don’t know if it happened exactly like this, but it is real—as real as anything. It makes more sense to me now, and it is a window into my personality. I’m an introvert who enjoys social situations. Just as important, however, is the down time, the alone time—socializing takes my energy, and the recharge is essential.

Music is solitary and social. It is communication on another level, going beyond spoken language. It’s solace, comfort, challenge, frustration, reward, affirmation—and may it always be so. Music teaches me many things: how to count and be aware of rhythm, in everything from my steps to my heart; dynamics—when to be loud, when to be quiet; when to play, and when to rest.  Music forges friendships that sustain.

The frequent scene now is a furnished basement. There are four adults, and the occasional grade-school spectator. There is no conductor, just our small ensemble, all around the same age, playing music broadly described as “rock.” I place my hands now on the bird’s-eye maple neck of an electric guitar. The music is in my mind, not on a page, so I may close my eyes. The boy under the streetlight is there, too.

A Simple Dance

So much was said, when

my hand was on your back,

where you placed it, warmth

beneath soft cotton, where

I pushed and released, felt you

move beneath my palm,

with the band's beat,

toward me, away, back,

in time, like breath,

unified rhythm, this simple

music as our bodies conversed

on the sloping floor, yours calling

mine back from some strange journey,

to this new, unified rhythm,

your smile saying, simply,

keep going.

LP

There's a bit of silence

as I pause to turn

over the record, that

great one with the song

about crazy lovers starting

side two—this record I've

had since I was a kid--

and with the clicks and pops

before the music starts

I'm realizing how short

a long-playing album

has become.

Titles

Teacher, judge, critic, arbiter of pass/fail.

Therapist, counselor, seeker of unknown grail.

Good son, angry kid, loyal friend, outcast.

Late bloomer, number-wearer, second, never last.

Friendly shoulder, prickly loner—confused.

Sound shaper, channeler, painting shades of blue.

Handyman, homeowner: measure once, swear twice.

Hold-out, repeater, stumbler, ignorer of advice.

Long rambler, stream-of-consciousness swimmer.

Light seeker, push on as the day gets dimmer.

High Peaks Blues

Gonna carry my rock up the mountain,

carry my rock up the mountain,

feel it every step of the way.

Feel my troubles weighing me down,

weighing me down,

for the last time today.

Gonna leave that rock at the

top of the mountain, top of the mountain,

up high with all the rest.

Gonna leave that rock at the

top of the mountain, top of the mountain,

up high and I'll feel blessed.

Leave my troubles when I drop that stone,

drop that stone, drop that stone,

haul it up and let it go.

Now a rock is a rock, and a man is a man--

A rock is a rock and a man is a man--

Simple words, and I know it for sure.

Leave my troubles when I drop that stone,

drop that stone, drop that stone,

won't feel that weight anymore.

When I come back down, gonna

be a new man, be a new man.

Look up at that high gray peak,

can't see my troubles,

from where I am,

from where I am.

Goodbye to my cassette tapes

I threw out my cassette tapes tonight.

It's been a long time coming. I had been carting them around in my old car, which had a cassette deck, and the tapes were fabulous little nostalgia packets. The car is no more, having been supplanted by Sweet Potato, a car with an iPod-ready glove compartment.

That's clearly a sign.

I have 4,000 songs on my iPod, which is way more than I ever had on all of the cassettes I've owned. I have one semi-functional cassette player, in the stereo cabinet next to my computer. I can't remember the last time I used it. Most of my music comes out of my computer these days.

Okay, so, then, why is this such a big deal with the tapes? Nostalgia, maybe. But the tapes are real. I can remember staying up past my bedtime in 1982 to record The Who's (first) farewell concert, broadcast live from Toronto. I recorded it all, on one gray and one black TDK cassette, and I scrawled labels on them.

Now, 27 years (!) later, they don't sound so good. I'm not a scientist, but I know that cassettes house long, thin pieces of plastic, coated with magnetic metal bits. I know that these things deteriorate over time. Cassettes lose the high frequencies first. Sometimes the cases warp, and the pitch of the music ebbs and flows. All this means they're not the best listening now. The tapes are gone. We'll see how CDs and iPods hold up.

I had two cases of tapes that I threw out without even looking. I knew that if I looked, they'd be spared, only to sit for a few more years before this ritual would be repeated. There were some loose ones, so I had to look. I started a list of albums I need to get to replace the tapes: The Queen Is Dead, Californication, Pump, Rastaman Vibration, Rumor and Sigh.

I'd already set aside some other tapes: my college radio show with my old friend Chip (who promptly disappeared after graduation), and a couple of mix tapes from an ex-girlfriend. These are totems, talismans, tickets to parts of my past. Sure, I could copy them, digitize them, warts and all, and put them onto my iPod, right next to that song by Moxy Fruvous that I downloaded last night. But it wouldn't be the same. These are not just the songs, but THE tapes. They've moved with me--aged with me, too.

(I keep my old record albums for a similar reason. But that's for another blog post.)

The blue box below where I'm typing just flashed: "Save Now." This blog is saved. As are some of my tapes.

Having a birthday that ends in "oh" this year has a lingering effect. I've collected lots of things in this life. I'm looking back and ahead right now. I guess life is like this tape ritual, sorting out, setting aside, throwing out. I have a small house and a crowded mind. Some space is a good thing. I'm blogging now, choosing words, maybe reaching for some of these worldly analogies and metaphors from the clutter around me. But, saving and letting go seems like a good m.o. for now.

Off to bed, and my ritual of music before sleep. It's much easier with that iPod.

Up All Night

Since the band's lineup changed drastically, we decided it was time for a new recording. The backstory: We're a "cover band," meaning we play mostly mainstream songs that veer across genres, hoping to please most people most of the time. It's the soundtrack to drinking, fried food and hookups. I'm not saying this disparagingly--it's a blast to play in front of people. I've figured out that I seek attention, and this is a positive way to do it. I might even make a few bucks. My bandmates are my friends. I'm not really a rock star. I schlep my own gear. But I always look forward to gig nights. I REALLY look forward to recording. It's when we find out exactly how we sound.

So. Friday. We make our way through the late-night fog to Tony's studio, just outside Saratoga. He's got a basement full of gear, which means we just walk in and start. I love the intricacies of recording: a small forest of mic stands surrounding the drums, cables running everywhere. The mics capture physical vibration and alchemize it into electric pulses that somehow come back out as sound. (Don't ask me too much about physics. I'm an English major.)

We start playing. The rhythm section (drums, bass, guitar) cuts their tracks first, and I'm singing the horn parts in my head, trying to conjure some kind of mojo while standing next to the furnace. The sounds are happening and we get some good takes, except for Julie's "scratch" vocal--aptly named, as she's working her way through another cold. No worries--we'll do the "keeper" vocals some other time.

We stop for a break, listen to the playback, and then listen to Tony's tales from the road. I learn that I'm only like two or three degrees away from Sir Paul Himself. Then there's riffs on music theory, other studios in the area, great guitar players, and all the hardcore kids and singer/songwriter types who've passed through here.

Time for the horns. I'm in the catbird seat in the control room, behind the board, relaxing on the couch, and enjoying the sound of the bass drum, which Tony has sculpted into a most righteous thump. Mark, Amy and John are laughing between takes--and even between mistakes. This has to be the most laid-back recording session I've ever done. The horns are nailing their parts quickly, and the tracks are building nicely.

The tuner on the board lights up, blinking out random notes, an A here, an F# there. Tuning... how close is close enough? I've learned that it's never perfect. My B and E strings need to be a bit flat in order to sound better further up. Getting a sax in tune with two brass instruments is tough, too. The horns soar from unison into stratospheric harmonies, and I realize that it's those little wobbles, that slight shift in pitch that the tuner says is flat or sharp, that makes the music leap out of the speakers into an impressionistic splash of notes hanging between, above, below and behind the speakers. It's like stepping into a scene. That little wobble, the music leaping out as you leap in.

There's an infinity in the space just shy of perfect, the repeating decimal, the swing in the earth's orbit, the shimmy in her step, the drummer who's on time to practice but lagging just behind a chugging beat that makes me drop a shoulder and sway in time before I know it.

It's all deceptively simple, these instruments, these chords, these hands. But, there it is. We hear the playback. We shuffle around, groggy after nearly a full night. I step outside to a lightening sky, tired, but already thinking about what's next.