Musical Explorations

Howdy, yall. I thought I'd write a post about music and projects I've been working on.

I'm in a band right now. However, the band has just barely formed with me as the guitar player, and they have only two songs. The band is called Modern Tongues. It's an alternative pop-rock band with a female vocalist. I met the drummer at my work. They're all pretty young kids, like 18-20, but I think this is a good band for me to work with because it seems like there's no rush, the singer knows how to do music production, and the drummer can pick me up and bring me to practices. 

The only downsides I can think of are twofold. For starters, they practice about an hour away from my area. That's pretty far. The other is that although the singer is talented with her vocals, it isn't clear that her songwriting is especially creative and/or noteworthy. But that's okay because that's where the guitar, bass, and drums come in to add their color to the tracks.

I like the fact that I'm basically something of a hired [but without pay] gun in a sense. There are no gigs as of yet so the whole thing is in its embryonic state. It's fun and it's a good experience for me to work in a band again after six years of retail, two years straight of open mics, and a failed death metal band. Boy, am I glad this isn't death metal. 

So yeah, things are moving along in the musical realm. 

In addition, I've been keeping my weekly jazz duo band going. We've been playing together for a whole year straight. We have really improved as a duo, especially my jazz improvisational skills. I've been watching this YouTube channel called Things I Learned From Barry Harris, this guitarist goes into jazz music theory and all these different ways on how to improvise, much of it not taught at Berklee. I've been using what I've learned from that and found that my improvisational skills over jazz changes have improved. I'm starting to get into Coltrane-Esque sheets of sound sort of thing.

I'm still taking my sweet time on learning Sequenza. Technically I can play the whole thing but I can't play it up to speed and I can't play it perfectly. But I'm still working on it. I need to work more on my piano playing, which always needs more work.    

I have a friend that I've been singing simple classic rock songs with as well. Acoustic guitars.

There's a lot of brewing. Hopefully, something comes out of the band this year. Shows, recordings, that's all I really want. I've spent too many years of my adulthood not playing in a band. It's hard to believe ten years ago that was one of my main things. 

Keep on groovin'.

Working for Something

Just read a short blog post that inspired me to write another vlog style motivational post. What are you working for? Most of us have jobs so that we can spend our free time doing the things we want. Leisure and all that jazz. However, because we only have one life we have to make use of our free time wisely. 

For example, I stopped playing video games hardcore and now I have a lot more free time for reading books-news-articles, listening to music,  playing guitar, and hanging out with my friends. I stopped hanging out with my friends more than three times a week because I realized that we need more space and time between us. Absence makes the heart fonder.

At the end of my workday [1 AM shift, been on this schedule for 6 years now], all I really have time or energy for is to read books, write, and possibly play guitar [I need to play more, but that's another post]. I wouldn't even have the energy to stay up all night to play video games because I'm already staying up half the night ending my work shift, and then reading until I crash and fall asleep. 

What am I working towards? Generally speaking, I'm working towards enjoying leisure reading as well as increasing my education through great books, weather they are science fiction, classics, philosophy, history, historical fiction, and poetry. I'm also working towards becoming a better writer. Lastly, I'm working towards increasing my musical chops, learning Sequenza by Berio, as well as learning more jazz standards. It's a lot. 

There are other goals I have that seem more difficult. Like finding a girlfriend. However, the goals I have now are things that I love and would be happy to keep working on 5-10 years from now. Most of my free time needs to be spent in gainful activity. I have an addictive personality and I'm wired most of the time. Once I start something, I really get into it, mastering every bit and piece of it, until I can call myself some kind of master, even if not a 'true' master of said art. I've been doing this with the guitar, with reading novels and trying to with writing. 

I've got to keep pushing myself. You've only got one life to live. If you work hard to get just a little slice of heaven, then you need to make sure every visit is worth it when you get to the Gate. 

Berio's Sequenzas

Berio's Sequenzas is a music book edited by Janet Halfyard but written by many different musicians. Luciano Berio was an Italian composer from of the modernist school [Cage, Boulez, Stockhausen] and he wrote these pieces titled Sequenza for different instruments. These are a series of works for different instruments that are written for the virtouoso in mind. The book has three parts: 1) Performance Issues, 2) The Compositional Process, and 3) Analytical Approaches. All the parts correspond with each other if you read it that way. 

This sort of book is very important because modernism has in a sense, died and left the building. Replaced by postmodernism, which is nothing in comparison. Now its not unheard of jazz musicians to play rap music for a living. Or for classical musicians' serious 'gigs' to be nothing but pop music gigs. However, back in the 1950s modernism was king. Once you take a look back at the past you realize how important all of this music really was: historically, culturally, musically, and emotionally. 

The section that had the most profound effect on me was the sections regarding Berio's compositional process. "For Berio and the compositional process there was always a question of what does time do?, What is duration and sound? When we experience it, what is the "now" for music." [Amazon review by composer Frank Abbinanti]

There's charts on pitch structure, dynamics, and timbral analysis, as well as performative insights. Written by the musicians who performed the pieces. There's also a lot of information regarding Berio's compositional process as well as his ideas regarding performance aesthetic. All of this had a profound effect on me while reading and upon completion. 

In a way me being a rock and roll jazz guitar player makes me a stranger in a strange land when it comes to this sort of hardcore classical [avant garde, modern] musical analysis. I've been working on Sequenza for Guitar since October but I still have a lot of work before I can actually play the piece in front of anybody. Although I don't think I completely understood everything in the book, I do think I gained a lot of insight regarding music, mainly regarding performance aesthetic, composition, and how to analyze compositions. For that, its a very valuable tool. I think I'll go back to it in due time, and try to see if I can understand parts that I didn't get or misunderstood. 

Listening to all the Sequenzas by themselves is refreshing. Music really was quite something back then. This book is set for retail price of 50 dollars on Amazon. Luckily, my music mentor, and composer Frank Abbinanti gave me a copy back in October. I didn't read it until now. I'm late to the party but I'm glad I finally read it. In some aspects, I can't look at music the same, something has changed. 

And what's changed? Perhaps everything. 

Thankgiving Turkey Pardoning

The holidays are here! Which means hard work for us in retail. I looking forward to some holiday cheer and fun, both at work and at my leisure. I was thinking about possibly buying a Nintendo Switch for when Smash Ultimate comes out. Or perhaps a shiny new classical guitar? Or some crazy electric guitar pedals? I've been playing a lot of classical guitar lately, trying to learn Sequenza for Guitar by Berio. Its a super difficult piece but its doable. I'm hoping to be able to play it fluently in a couple months, maybe master it in 6 months to a year, in time to perform it in Chicago next year. 

This Christmas I feel like gifts should be nominal. I have a small family, in fact my list of friends is bigger. All I really want is maybe some interesting books and possibly some holiday days off from work. But even if all I can get is some books that's cool too. 

I've been using a lot of my blogging time writing about staying positive in tough times. Well these are tough times for Californians. Many people lost their homes to fires, they're living in air bnb's, hotels, their cars, and some in makeshift tents I presume. Its a really tough time. And to throw salt in the wound our President can't even get the name of a burned down city right ("I visited Pleasure, he sounded like a dirty old man), it was actually called Paradise. If you follow the news then you already know that our democracy is in shambles. But politics isn't what the holidays are about. 

Its about peace and love, and all that good stuff. A lot of customers at my retail job have been a lot nicer this holiday week because they realize that this is the hardest time to work for retail workers. Once you see and acknowledge that, it makes it a lot easier to focus on your job, work hard, be tired, but not be stressed out about it. Its like all these daily feel good blog posts I've been writing. In a way it makes you more zen-like. In the end the holidays can be about things and gifts. The Marxist in me sees those things as consumerist waste. But perhaps its actually more about the way you treat others, treating them the way you would like to be treated. I learned that in Catholic grammar school and its one of the best lessons I've ever learned.