words to muse by
.
it's hard to type right now... something about a climbing gym.
so this isn't a hillside post. well it is in the sense that it's premised on something that happened there but it isn't ABOUT hillside. In fact it's about sharing.
There I was in the drum circle and sorta sitting on my drum and listening to these drummers not listening to each other. It's hard to join in to that because noone is listening so no matter what you do you're fucking something up.
Now my old drum teacher was there (and drunk) and it was really kind of sad actually. He was running around and hitting his drum as loud as he could and making all this noise and generally fucking it up. At one point he even ran over and started talking about how he could 'drum the circle' ... as though he could tell them what to do. Then a little later one of the leaders of a brazilian marching band shows up with his drum and all hell breaks loose.
This is not the good kind of hell. My former teacher runs over with his drum to the brazilian guy and starts trying to outdrum him. So the brazilian guy tries to out drum him and then it just keeps on and on.
The next night I'm drumming again and there's only a few of us and this guy I know tells me that if i just play along with him we can 'overpower' the circle and make them play our rhythm.
Now I am here to tell you that does NOT work.
It doesn't work if there's five drums and it doesn't work if there's fifty. In fact, all the best music I've ever heard (that wasn't by a solo artist) involved a lot of listening. In fact that seems more and more to be the secret to almost everything.
Listen. Such a simple word.
from dictionary.com
listen:
v 1: hear with intention; "Listen to the sound of this cello" 2: listen and pay attention; "Listen to your father"; "We must hear the expert before we make a decision" [syn: hear, take heed] 3: pay close attention to; give heed to; "Heed the advice of the old men" [syn: heed, mind]
Hear with Intention. So if you're drumming you should hear what's happening around you so that you can fit into it... and if you're any kind of musician at all you better be listening. But then there's people who get so lost listening to themselves that they can't hear anything else.
Funny how suddenly a story about a drum circle becomes a life metaphor... because it is.
I was going to say a lot more but that feels like the end.
it's hard to type right now... something about a climbing gym.
so this isn't a hillside post. well it is in the sense that it's premised on something that happened there but it isn't ABOUT hillside. In fact it's about sharing.
There I was in the drum circle and sorta sitting on my drum and listening to these drummers not listening to each other. It's hard to join in to that because noone is listening so no matter what you do you're fucking something up.
Now my old drum teacher was there (and drunk) and it was really kind of sad actually. He was running around and hitting his drum as loud as he could and making all this noise and generally fucking it up. At one point he even ran over and started talking about how he could 'drum the circle' ... as though he could tell them what to do. Then a little later one of the leaders of a brazilian marching band shows up with his drum and all hell breaks loose.
This is not the good kind of hell. My former teacher runs over with his drum to the brazilian guy and starts trying to outdrum him. So the brazilian guy tries to out drum him and then it just keeps on and on.
The next night I'm drumming again and there's only a few of us and this guy I know tells me that if i just play along with him we can 'overpower' the circle and make them play our rhythm.
Now I am here to tell you that does NOT work.
It doesn't work if there's five drums and it doesn't work if there's fifty. In fact, all the best music I've ever heard (that wasn't by a solo artist) involved a lot of listening. In fact that seems more and more to be the secret to almost everything.
Listen. Such a simple word.
from dictionary.com
listen:
v 1: hear with intention; "Listen to the sound of this cello" 2: listen and pay attention; "Listen to your father"; "We must hear the expert before we make a decision" [syn: hear, take heed] 3: pay close attention to; give heed to; "Heed the advice of the old men" [syn: heed, mind]
Hear with Intention. So if you're drumming you should hear what's happening around you so that you can fit into it... and if you're any kind of musician at all you better be listening. But then there's people who get so lost listening to themselves that they can't hear anything else.
Funny how suddenly a story about a drum circle becomes a life metaphor... because it is.
I was going to say a lot more but that feels like the end.
posted by sassinak | 11:10 PM
5 Comments:
word dude word.
there was about 20 sublime minutes where i found the connecting beat and played that... but then it died.
i remember now why hillside isn't about drums for me anymore :)
ah you liked othercat's description of them huh?
they were pretty cool actually... their sound sorta blew that day... i couldn't hear the singer which pissed me off cause i could have actually understood the words....
never been to the hillside festival but I imagine a bunch of drummers getting hammered and beating on their drums, out of sync, would give me headache.
Me being technologically illiterate, angela, your computer is confusing. I minimized the page and it took another 10 minutes to find it until I clicked on the apple.
Very cool design! Useful information. Go on!
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