Pathways

There is the desire to sound good.
The desire to control the expression
so the notes occur on an area that is
intellectually understood in advance.

Licks, grooves, scores, charts, notes etc.
Or as Milford Graves calls it
Standard Organized Music.

A conceptual framework somehow legitimizes
and proves knowledge of rhythm and melody,
an execution of a predetermined structure,
or an improvisation projected onto a predetermined structure.

It's like "Oh he is repeating himself therefore he knows."
It's safe. It's a form of GPS. It has its pleasure and limitations.
Groove. It's OK have structure sometimes but how deep are the roots?
If the roots are not deep "music" can become imprisonment.

The foundation is built upon breath and the feeling of the intention.
Fear and vanity keep people on the surface and afraid of violating the structure.
Conversely if you are at the center of the wheel you are omnipresent and timeless.
You are time, keeping it or not keeping it is redundant.
You can't reach the center without breath and relaxation.

Control without balance is FASCISM
Letting Go without balance is NIHILISM
and both together are TAOISM or SURFING

Lose Control in the name of gaining it.
Weave these domains together.
Sure practice MASTER Studies and Stick CONTROL
but then also get out the machete and do some bushwhacking.
How are we going to become strong and fearless if we only mow the lawns
and don't forge new neural pathways.

These new pathways come about by making music
at the level of silent intuition and openhearted innocence.
By stumbling into methods and sounds that are unknown
and possibly uncomfortable and awkward.

Falling and flying and failing.

The axiom in creative writing
"no surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader"
Lovemaking requires no GPS.

Vantage Point

I have a gigging kit and a kit that stays set up permanently in my living room. For my show on Friday night I took the snare drum from my permanent setup with me. Today I got on my drums to mess around with some African Claves from Billy Martin's book but my snare drum was still in its case in the van.

I decided to use this as an opportunity to move toward sound and away from musical dependencies and habits. Expanding intimacy with drumming itself rather than with a drum set, with sound itself rather than with music, with the act of drumming rather than with what I am drumming.

I walk around the town playing on mailboxes, road signs, thrift store objects, telephone poles, benches, buckets, cups. Anything that looks like it might have a song I check to make sure. So why doesn't that extend to the drum set as much? Habit? Comparison? Expectations? Musical taste? Fear? I think the main thing is there is no preconception about a mailbox or a five gallon water jug. There is not an extensive library, in the exalted annals of music history, of mailbox and water jug recordings and techniques.

These found-percussion trysts are innocent encounters with sound. There is no, "am I doing this correctly?" because there is no "correct" way to play a mailbox or a water jug.  The obsession with technique and perfectionism, as it correlates to the learning of an instrument, is only useful if it does not tamper with the ability to innocently experiment with your instrument stripped of all historical and musical context.

That is why I didn't go and get my snare drum. I did a practice session and some soloing minus the snare. It completely changed my relationship with the toms.  It changed the way I thought about melody and drumming. The grooves were wilder and simpler. Africa came to visit or vice versa. When you change vantage points your vision and your knowledge expand.

Set up your drum set backwards.  Use only floor toms.  Remove all your cymbals. Do a solo blindfolded. Drum in the forest. Video tape yourself and play it backwards.  Duct tape your right hand to your heart and drum with your left. Do anything to break your dependency on your instrument in order to increase the chance of entrance into extra terrestrial innocence where intuition and sound converge in the melted heart.