[Harp-L] Out of the Mouth of Babes (was loud bands)




On Aug 31, 2007, at 4:25 PM, Jim Alciere wrote:


Don't be afraid to take it down, have the whole band just lay low,
play real soft, real basic, then when you charge back in, it's
exciting it's fun. Changes are what makes music music.

My seven year old son is a budding performer. He's been after me all year to bring him to a jam session to sing. I told him that he'd have to practice every night for a few weeks before I'd consider taking him. In the meanwhile his birthday came around and my wife bought him the American Idol PlayStation game. This thing is something else. It's not just glorified karoake. It has voice and pitch recognition. The program gives real-time feedback on lyrics and pitch. On the first night I helped him learn the words for "Stand By Me" and did what dads do observe from the fringes. After a couple of weeks of playing the game and idle Idol prattling, I finally went and listened to him. Lo and behold, he knew the song, was on pitch, and demanded that I take him to the next jam session-- which I did.


We went up to the bandstand, I got the big guys organized and the little guy belted out a pretty credible rendition of "Stand By Me." On the drive home he talked about volume without any prompting from me. I just asked, "How do you think it went?" He replied, "The key of the song was too loud. It ruined the softness of the song." So I said, were they out of tune or too loud? He said, "Too loud."

When a seven year old with no formal musical training can look at a bunch of seasoned pros and, based solely on intuition, make that kind of judgement what it tells me is that those guys weren't paying attention to the song, what it meant, how it needed to be expressed. I think we do this in general, whether it's in a jam session or with our regular bands. As individuals I think we just stop listening to each other and we worry more about "our" individual sounds than the song and its message. What is a song anyway but a moment of emotional energy converted into sonic waves for the shared enjoyment of the musicians and the audience. When we do our jobs right there's no separation between instruments, voices, the band, the audience, it is a shared moment. When we do it wrong, it's too loud, the solos are too long, and the audience treats us like background noise.

:-p What a load of hooey. I can't believe I just wrote that. The point is little kids don't have preconceived notions about how things should be, they have the beginner's mind. The bright ones pay attention and behave accordingly. We could learn a lot by observing the children in our lives and we could accomplish more if we acted like them more.

Bob




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