Imperfect Looping

In the name of true perfectionism I am obsessed with imperfection. Especially since music, and drumming in particular, is so easily seduced by the charm of neat, knowable math.

I came across a Moby video loop on Vine.  Vine is an awesome website/mobile app where you create and involuntarily edit video in real time from your smartphone and end up with a 7 second video loop that plays forever.  Moby said about his loop, "Not sure if this works... more weird sound than visual,"

Immediately I had the desire to drum to it as Moby's singing head was looping ad infinitum and there was no discernible place that the loop was supposed to start over. So I recorded an arbitrary slice of the infinite loop and improvised a solo over it.

My favorite moment and I'm so grateful that I caught this (literally) is when, I lean over to pitch bend the floor tom and due to the short length of my headphones, I yank the condenser mic off the mantle it is sitting on. In the middle of drumming I catch the mic with my left hand, and keep soloing with my right hand.  I hope I can pull that off live someday.

Imperfection and Perfection together like phases of the moon.

LIGHTNING GROK BLOSSOM

Thoughts I had tonight while contemplating,
"What makes a drummers different from each other
and different from computers?"

OK there are infinite number of patterns possible.
So even if you were to play your entire life for 24 hours a day
you would be lacking thoroughness almost one hundred percent.
In other words James Tate's "The Oblivion Ha-Ha."

This is one possible antidote to ego-driven virtuosity.
Speed and complexity can be sad and kinda pitiful
if the delivery is too earnest
or if light speed is forgotten for a bit.

This is where dimensionality comes in.
Conquering seems to happen by staying where you are
rather than strong-arming  knowledge
into an attainable intellectual realm like what zoos do to animals,
that infinite lust; water-bottle-wielding mirage chasers.

Knowledge needs to be grokked
at the level of silent intuitive action
while letting go of ownership.
Dropping through and into infinite knowledge
cross referenced through the rainbow-origin
of all emotional states and spiritual illuminations,
(Milford Graves talks about playing different emotions
on different limbs: feeling-polymeters)
That center of the wheel omniscience.
Time Itself blah blah blah.

But in addition to knowledge
there is context, timing of delivery,
stand up comedy rhythms.
Harold Bloom, to paraphrase,
said the common denominator of all bad poetry
is that it is too sincere.
This is a naivete of context.

Aka your spilled milk is funny
if there is a meteor about to land on you.

Aka Brubeck's "Take Five" would be thrilled
to cross dress as a waltz for a night.

Aka the intelligence to quote "Stars Wars"
in "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."

OK so there is vocabulary
and then there is poetry and fucking magic.

Awareness, sensibility, and fearless intuition
make infinity applicable instead of useless.

These are what allow your whole voice to blossom
toward the tangible. Lightning and thunder etc.


Below is the video where Professor Graves
talk about different emotions on different limbs.