Even though I hardly played or listened at all, I think it may have been a breakthrough week. After spending last summer at music camps I realized I'd have to go off and spend time by myself to find the right way, and this past year I've been working at various core competencies (musette, ragtime, choro, country, some klezmer and tango, and then the whole percussion angle). This week I have the best understanding yet of how these will fit together.

That Mary Lou Williams quote about the projection of feeling was the most important, the core driver. It's easy to get distracted by the superficial stuff. The ability of Fats Waller to be a real, vibrant human is what lets him evoke similar feelings in others. I have had a strength in listening to the other musicians more than most of my peers seem to do, and I need to expand on that to listen to the listeners too, and feed them more of what they're seeking.

For the repertoire, European classical themes do tie together most of the various recorded cultures. Field recordings may not reveal this, but for music which became popular in a culture, the musicians had certainly heard this. These themes are also common to people here in the Bay Area. (Further, they're also Public Domain. ;-) The arrangements and inflections and colors and beats can be informed by having listened to local master musicians of the early 20th century... Pixinguinha did know Bach, gypsies did play czardas, Gus Viseur did hear Mozart, barrelroom players did play marches and waltzes... today's classical musicians suffer from having been schooled, but the actual potential music is much richer than that.

For technique, I'm the instrument, not the box. I've got hands, feet and voice. What matters is not whether my technique is the one written up in someone else's book, but how well my total sound production achieves my goals. I'm still not sure how to use the feet... I've got some acoustic techniques although there are more to explore (Quebecois foot-percussion, eg), and I suspect that electronic controllers in a compact kit is the most sensible way... but I know the feet are necessary. And with voice I have a lot of work to do in whistling, beatbox, regaining my skills in instrument emulation, and then blending with the accordion and singing complementary parts. Knowing the challenge is the hardest part of achieving it, though, and my gut feeling is that I can succeed here.

I didn't play much last night, capping off a week of fairly regular but minimal and listless playing due to illness. But this morning I had a very interesting session, browsing through a new "Real Book of 200 Favorite Classics" from Witmark in England. (The layout is very workable, legible, although I've seen some transpositions (Chopin Mazurkas, eg, reasonable), and as with all fakebooks I'm going to have to examine their harmony suggestions.) To get a sense of where I was I ran "Indifference" and it was much different than how I have played it before, a lot more intensity and extemporaneity, space and control, a lot fresher and more immediate than before... less of "a rendition". I closed out later with "Hold To God's Unchanging Hand" in D, modal explorations, bass used to sketch out the spaces, believe I could sell it even to an atheist. ;-)

Anyway, today I'll be walking around town, particularly the Barbary Coast, and won't be practicing any particular repertoire, but it's neat to feel things come together like this... good five-year marker for playing, and one-year marker from tripping around.

Hmm, one other thing. Yesterday Tiffany Beltis took the time to tell me she got something out of my writing (thank you), and while walking home through downtown I was driven nuts by how oblivious people were on the sidewalks and streets. I got home and vented into some text that could be the basis of a song. I don't know if I'll work it up, but it's an interesting way of looking at it... writing songs, using my existing text skills, saying just the stuff that I've gotta say dadgummit, and if other people happen to respond to it then that's nice but I won't tailor the content of my speech to their expectations of what "a song" should be. Just be me, and let the chips fall as they may.
posted by macromed5 at 8:35 AM

I'm writing this late at night... I'd rather be asleep, but the idiot downstairs was practicing his putting, then he realized he lost something and stomped around in a hissy fit. I can either persuade him to be a real human or wait until he goes to sleep, and have chosen the latter.

(I'm also cranky, having been laid up for two days with a flu infection. Managed to get minimal practice in during that time, but it had no oomph, no learning... just dedication.)

Saturday at the market was good... a 90-minute set, and a 60+ set... but I realized that it wasn't like when I play for myself, I wasn't surprising myself, I was trying to get the notes right without retakes.

There may be a way to resolve this... an interview with Mary Lou Williams kept hammering that after bop people became technicians and there was a lack of the _feeling_ that was prevalent up through bop... she recommended heavy doses of Fats Waller as an antidote. She mentioned how The Lion told her to start with one note to set the mood and reach people.

I think I need to keep seeking note-perfect work out there. But maybe I can surprise myself by trying to evoke a feeling in people. That will mean watching people though, so maybe I should get those sunglasses after all. Gospel music says something with each cadence... there's no throwaway or rote... maybe that's where my own surprise will be when playing in front of others.

I've also been going back to light classics... waltzes, familiar themes. The Real Little Classical Fake Book is good, but it's small and perfect bound, hard to use. The Busker's Book apparently shifts keys, and I suspect it omits sections. An old book of mine of 100 Waltzes and Marches is surprisingly good. Carl Fischer's Piano omnibus has the tunes, but it's bulky and not laid out appropriately. I'll try to hit a bookstore this week and look for the Real Classical Fakebook, although for portability I may end up creating my own (which involves either software or, less flexibly, photocopying). One idea I'm toying with is finding a bunch of acoustic roots musician who can read and have an interest in doing the material of a society quartet in the Barbary Coast era... not classical musicians, but people who can create interplaying parts from a lead sheet or piano score, with some guts and gristle to the part's playing, and who can slip out into grittier music (jigs, stomps, fado, blues, Tin Pan Alley) when required. When I look back at the LOC.GOV "Memory Project" site it's remarkable how many different influences were already in the Bay Area by the heyday of the Barbary Coast. But the Comstock Lode money demanded certain sounds, a knowledge of Europe. Who were the people who did this work? They weren't all classically-trained imports; some were real San Franciscans who could play more than one genre. I think this type of blend would still have an effect on people today.

I'm making progress towards adding vocal percussion to recordings or playing, but it's still slow, intermittent, not yet systematic. More and more it makes sense, I just have to figure out how to do it well enough to get past that first reaction of being a freak.... ;-)

I think that idiot downstairs turned in, almost time for the morons across the street to announce they've come home and need to be let in the house.... ;-) (Really, anybody with an IQ above 80 can figure this stuff out, so I don't think this is hyperbole... if they're not physiologically morons, then they're just doing a good functional impersonation of such.)
posted by macromed5 at 11:44 PM