I've finally begun to understand music. It's amazing. What I have been missing for seven decades is an ear for music, which kinda astounds me, since I love music and listen to it virtually all the time.
I am finally acquiring an ear as I finally get over the mania of a lifetime. Not you, my dear. The other one.
In all honesty, I still have a long way to go to understand music as well as I desire. It will certainly take another lifetime, at least.
All of it is beginning to fall in place. The tuning device, guitar, and piano all played their part in tuning my ear. The piano provides a fairly accurate note, the guitar lets you learn to tune in to a note, and the tuning device that I hook on the end of my guitar refines the ear further (hmmm, gotta try it on the piano). All have helped my ear now that I have time to pay attention.
Kinda the same with the rest of the necessary musical learnings. I had to, then, hear notes. Then chords. Then songs and creating music and songs.
Since I've picked away at the guitar all my life, it's the best vehicle for this exploration. Now, I'm up to picking out the chords in a song (often with a chord chart (that is not always right)), which are much more of a pain because they don't all fit anywhere you like in the song so well.
Let me explain my approach to, well, damn near everything. I just don't trust a single thing that I am told. At best, it's a short cut. That may be okay for some learnings but something remains missing. I won't do that with anything dear to me. I learned that lesson early and it was reinforced almost every day of my life. There is only one exception and that is you, my dear. Somehow, I don't know how to explain it, but you ring like a chime through me. It began, of course, with listening to you, which shook me to the ground. You probably know which song it was. Then, the expressiveness ... well, I've talked about the rest ad nauseam elsewhere. You just make perfect sense to me.
Back to music. I don't much care for the educational setup of prehumanity. It is great for training Pavlov's Dog but not a human.
I like the scores and scale of notes. Something worth learning. Kinda necessary with a piano.
It bugs me that most sites that provide guitar chords (unlike a score) seldom mention the scale in which the music has been written.
I do like the guitar chord summary sites a lot. But, I don't want the song written out for me when I am fooling around with listening to the song while trying to play along. I just want the chord summary. Anything more would cross the boundary into rote.
Chords are new to my exploration. It is a more complex sound than a single note. So, I have had to learn to listen to the sound of the chords I play and the sound of the chords being played in the song and make them match. I have a new song for my epitaph but it falls far short of the mark. I might have to add some lyrics. "Gypsy soul" by Van Morrison.
I break down the songs into those I desperately want to play on guitar and those that are just knockout, drop-dead good music that I would love to learn. Then I have a playlist that started with about 5,000 (all) of the songs currently in residence. I delete the songs that just absolutely annoy me in that playlist.
With the most special list of songs (only like two or three, right now), I acquire the chords from a site. I play along with the song, picking out the notes and trying to make the sound of the chords match the music being played. In both cases, it is very random but it works. I have figuring out the five key notes that fit easily when playing lead guitar down to a few seconds, even for new songs. I'm just starting to feel like I've reached a similar plateau for chords. I am starting to hear where they belong.
It's weird and I have yet to come up with an explanation but, for every song, there are five notes that just work. They fit. In many cases, they fit so well that you can play any of those five notes at any point in the song and it sounds right. I know there are (only typically?) seven notes to a scale (no, I haven't gone and looked if there are other variations with more or less notes. I'm pretty sure there are)..
Do you see? Do you see what I bypass by not just learning by rote? By not being 'told' the way it works, I am free to explore the boundaries that most are taught to just accept (had the same trouble with physics, now that I think about it; I'd love to get into that but no one would be interested).
Oh! A little more on music that I don't want to forget to mention. What I have never even considered in the slightest was writing a song. I'm awful good at putting pen to paper (electronic version of) for poetry, but the thought of attempting to write a song completely blew me out of the water. I couldn't even conceive the thought. How in the world??!!?
Bang! Got it. I used to go so far as to wonder if the music or the words had to come first. I think the actual answer is both, from the learning experiences from poetry. For me, though, it became crystal clear. I, at least, have to start with the music. In some ways, that is because I do not entirely understand how it all fits together yet. Part of making a song is making music that sounds good, the notes fit. For me, the words are the easy part. I finally realized, the words will drop into slots once the music is down pat. In other words, I have to screw around with notes and chords and begin to learn how to put them together without the template of an existing song. Kinda have to see what happens. With so many brilliant examples of music surrounding me, I'm not too concerned with going off into the weeds. Maybe just a little bit off the path to do some exploring, now and then.
I prefer getting the rote after I have made my own thorough exploration through a journey of innocence; that can take decades, in some cases. I don't know if I will ever get to the point of chasing rote with poetry or music. I doubt it. There is a sentient purity about both that rote would just tarnish.
That reminds me of a friend that once told me how she didn't want to go commercial with her music. With a passion like that? Why would anyone avoid making a living out of their passion? Oh, I get it. The brute impedes. But, to live your passion? The extraneous forces can be regulated, to some extent, if you are sharp. It may be painful along the way, but the end result should be worth it. Otherwise, you end up in a hole pulling the ground in around you. It should be easier to pursue, especially for the awesome gender that has been so mistreated down through the ages, as we become human.
Of course, so far (and I don't expect it to change), intellectually, I know how to write a song. That is a far shot from actually writing a song. I really can't see it happening in this lifetime.
I am soooo worried this is going to sound crazy. I'm getting to that age where I have to monitor everything I do. That is difficult when trying to convey thoughts. Does that phrase I just cooked up even make sense as an analogy? metaphor?, as an example.
Well, I could rattle on more but, I assure you, it would ramble and digress like an out-of-control freight train.
Barely edited.
I finally have something to add here. I've been thinking about the guitar and voice. On a guitar, I just love to play along with songs and run all over the fret board.
I once heard a story about a girl that passed through where I was living. She was a musician and she could play along with any song within a short while after hearing it. That has always been my goal.
I am finally reaching that point and it is amazing. Ranging all over the fret board and soaring along with the song. Yes, I would like to record it and see if it sounds as good as I think. I'm still learning but at times I can suit the notes to the song and I feel like I'm adding something to it. Although what I play is not a set piece, I think it is quite attractive.
That is a problem I have with concerts. I was shocked the second time I saw a concert. It was the same band as in the first concert I ever saw and it was staged. It was a set piece, from the music, notes, and even the moves of the singer, hanging off of an amp exactly like in the first show.
Now, that suits the audience. Sure, but how boring must it be for the musicians?
My point is that I really like the way I play along with a song and don't worry about making it sound the exact same each time.
Now, voice. I think of the way I range on a guitar and I was wondering about singers. I can hear it occasionally in a song, the little nuances that are spur of the moment. I was just listening to Cruisin' by Gwyneth Paltrow and Huey Lewis. His voice at point, adds little pieces to the song. Sorry, not explaining it well at all.
It's hard without playing a piece. You know how a lead guitar ranges though.
I started thinking about singing; not words, just notes; along with the guitar piece I am playing to sort of get used to it just as I had to do on the guitar.
But, voice! What an instrument!
I have started up on the guitar and piano, once again. There were a lot of reasons I quit playing. All of them are tentatively resolved. What surprised me a lot, even though I've played well over ten thousand hours on the piano, I thought I'd be staring from scratch when I tried again. Not so much.
On guitar, I can still play pieces that I learned when I was in my twenties without blinking an eye. The piano, though, was, first of all, learned while in my fifties and sixties, so I didn't think it would stick as well. Which leads me to another difference about the piano. I have never looked at the keyboard. Not once.
So, it wasn't really the same kind of learning as on the guitar. Call it more intuitive, if you like, but as I get back at it, I'd call it painful. Good thing I have patience by the bucketload. This second time around, it is like a fresh start in some ways and, as I usually find when dropping something for an extended period and returning, it gives me a new perspective.
The thing is that I treat music just like I treat rhoetry. To get to the state required to really play along with a song and make it meaningful and soulful, I just about have to get completely out of my mind (not go completely out of my mind).
I just figured out another facet of that ability to stare right while gazing left by kicking my mind into suspension while playing along with a song.
That suspension of thought is exactly what I do with rhoetry, as well. It is like a meditation state on steroids. Maybe even more so with playing music than rhoetry. That is a high order of thought required while simultaneously letting your mind roam. Maybe also because it uses muscle memory. There's still a lot that I do not entirely understand about that suspended state that creates beautiful music and rhoetry with insights. Wow, composing lyrics.
Just realized Mel Torme pretty much treats his voice like I was saying about playing lead on a guitar.
Unbelievable! It actually worked. I am shocked. It's been a good day. I've come to terms with my own ghost and, also, found that all of that working on the piano while never looking at the keyboard actually worked! I was always so frustrated while learning songs on the piano when I had to jump more than a few keys. Gymnopadie and Fur Elise were killers for different reasons. I always hoped that I would be able to envision the keyboard in my mind so well that I could move as if I were looking at the keys.
I put away the piano for ... quite awhile ... (a year or two or more?). So, I just kicked into trying to toy with music a little, once again. I was expecting another defeat. It's not. I just started fiddling on the keyboard to a Bob James song with D, G, and A. That's some big jumps. And I could do it. With either hand!
Anyways, off on new adventures in the world of music.
Voice as an instrument
I just keep blowing myself away. Using the voice as an instrument to express emotion without words is what hasn't been done to my knowledge. Mel Torme's not a bad start but, no, I know it could be done so much better. By a female vocalist first. Women do it all the time. The words and the emotional content, though, are usually in opposing directions. Most of the words are fluffy from most female vocalists. Few can put the anguish in the music itself. It takes a real intimacy with the emotions to put them in the music, not just words.
Maybe.
I don't know. It would probably be a bust on the charts.
There may be some cultures somewhere in the world that don't try to stick words in the way. I wouldn't know.
What I am suggesting is very Taoist. Lao Tse wasn't big on words. He thought they got in the way.
I'm just staggered the more I think about it. A woman and a man both singing their emotions would be good therapy for a lot of people today. In the future, when it is a man that sings with the woman, not just a stunted animal, but a man that is open to his emotions as thoroughly as the best of women. That would be something.
This voice-as-an-instrument can sweep away the dust of our past as if it never happened in a lot of different ways.
There's just so much to explore in music! I feel like a kid in a candy store.
That is what I have been exploring on the guitar. I am trying to play along with the song in a way that is XX. I'm not to the point that I can express myself emotionally on the guitar but I think that has to be the goal.
Yeah, I should probably start trying to filter on here. This stuff, I'm afraid, is a bit out there for most. I'm not saying it makes sense but it is worth exploring beyond the constraints XX by rote.
This is quite a trip. I picked up just enough about music to start some threads going.
I'll tell you, the most difficult piece is that I had no ear to begin with. I would have thought all of those years of listening would have done the trick. But, it didn't because I was not participating. I had other things on my mind.
I'm just starting to pick up so much. It would really seem trivial to most. All I can say is that I'm learning it thoroughly.
I just don't know how much further I can go on my own. I would guess quite a ways.
I am loving, more and more, the idea of a duet of voices. I'm not sure words are required. Expressing oneself without words could be awesome.
I think I'm getting closer to recording something. I kinda gotta. It sounds too good in my ear while I'm playing.
If it's not too bad, I may post it on here, this post. I hope I don't disappoint myself. Oh, I'm no guitarist (or pianist or vocal artist), but I think it sounds passable when I'm firing on all cylinders. It will at least show what I have been pursuing. I don't know how else to describe it, then music has a set of rules that, when you play within, it sounds good to the ear. I've listened to me playing it wrong and know just how bad it can be.
I guess, though I never thought it out that much, my focus on the piano was no looking. For the guitar, it was a matter of figuring out what frets and fingerings were in a song and how to play along.
I think I talked about how I heard about a girl that had passed through town that could play along with any song.
I guess it's the opposite of the piano players at this bar in New Orleans (the one with the original hurricane drink) that could play anything according to a score.
It was one of those experiences that always baffled me. I met a couple of my friends in New Orleans. We went to this bar and one of the guys I was with asked for Southern Man by Neil Young. It wasn't that I was southern to some extent that bothered me. It was just someone being so rude that blew me away.
He knew I was southern also. I just didn't get it.
I'm finding those various basic fingerings of five or six notes all over the fretboard with ease. So, I can finally go beyond mechanics of it. It's just beginning to be more than that. It is becoming something that suits the song on occasion. I don't know how to better explain it. There is something very essential there. Something that is also in vocals.
I don't think it's melody, unless each instrument is doing a different melody line. Never got that far into the book.
It's all putting itself together perfectly. I just really hope I'm right about prodigies. I guess my own term for it is the immortal one. The one that hangs out and guides our hand from lifetime to lifetime. Oh, man, I could go down this road a very long ways, but I don't think I shall. Online, anyways. I may write offline but I've already got so many files working.
Anyways, I'm not sure what the next step needs to be. I guess I have to master the notes next. I've conquered the fretboard and keyboard (to some extent). Now, I can move on.
Do you see why I'm so fascinated with voice? It's right there with you always. It's like it's this awesome instrument that almost no one explores. Such an elegant exercise compared to the fret board and keyboard. I guess I get a cappella now. Who needs any instruments? I wonder if they do 'chords' in voice with a cappella?
Gosh, how I wish I could explore this all with the one person that I know knows what I'm talking about. It's a strength. After mastering the craft is the time to listen to what others have to say, and study the rote when you can fit it into the essentials like playing your instrument, whether it be voice or other.
I'm just becoming more and more skeptical about rote. I keep going back to the Tao. He didn't trust words. Let's just say I'm skeptical about words, and definitely rote, until they work themselves out when humans speak them.
I'll give a perfect example. Exercising the body should not be rote. Even something like Tai Chi is rote. It didn't work for me. I had damage that had to be addressed and any routine cannot concentrate on the specifics of a human's requirements.
I'm sure there's some rote regarding music that is essential. I just haven't gotten that far yet. I'm not accepting any rote unless it fits a need. That may be awkward. I'd much rather address it in a human environment. An environment in which the human is interacting with other humans. It'll be easier. I'll save it for a life or two.
The more I think about it, the voice. What an instrument! You can't leave it behind. And, yet, so few voice even in the simplest terms, much less learning to really express themselves.
It's funny, now I think about it. I was a loud child. Never singing or anything. Just loud. Then, I went silent for fifty years. wow. I think it's time to get loud, again. I'm not sure what that means. I like my anonymity a lot. Probably just on here, then. Getting loud to myself just doesn't quite cut it.
I guess I don't really want to post this until I've listened to my best playing. A lot of it is still just playing the notes in tune.
I guess I've always figured I would have the time, sooner or later, to explore music. I have that time, now.
I had some trouble with my joints a few years ago which is why I quit playing. That's better so, yeah, it's time to play.
The more I think about it, the more I am convinced I could not lead a 'normal' life from here on out. The normal accepted life wouldn't be nearly enough.
I can't get over it. The task that dragged on me so significantly consumed me. I'm glad it's done.
There is so much awesome in this world. If humans could just get their act together, there would be no stress.
Anyways, I used to have to schedule things out days in advance. Everything had to be set far in advance. It's just weird. I lost one girlfriend (that should have never been) because of it. She was spur of the moment, no schedule required or followed, and knew where to cut.
So, I have not looked at a forecast in months now. Who really cares? I look out on the sky and, if it's nice, I might go downtown. I used to have to plot out every step of the process.
Basically, I had no foundation. I had to build my own and glad I did. Another reason I'm rooting for the immortal one.
Looking at the forecast, scheduling in fine detail a trip that lasts about two hours tops was like making sure everything was pinned down. I didn't want anything distracting me.
I am so over that now. I take it as it comes because I can always opt out if it is not up to my standard as gracefully as possible. Humans will have a line drawn they do not cross. I've always known that. It was just blurred by the miscomprehension of the human race that I had to suss out.
Wow. Going on like this on line! It's nice. It's the best I've got right now and it's nice to be talking about the other side, where it may not be all beds of roses, it's a far sight better than the gibberish I had to interpret for fifty years to get to the truth.
I'm really tempted to post this un-proofed. If it weren't for the XXs.
It's like I hid the kid away until now. I left him in tact to a great extent.
Dupe
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Voice as an instrument
I just keep blowing myself away. Using the voice as an instrument to express emotion without words is what hasn't been done to my knowledge. Mel Torme's not a bad start but, no, I know it could be done so much better. There's not much emotion there. Of course. By a female vocalist, though. Or a man that can emote. They haven't evolved yet, unless I can pull it off. Good way to while away the time. Women do it all the time. They emote because they have nothing holding them back. Men don't. Men can't. Yet. I plan on changing that. Even if it takes one more lifetime.
Of course, she came on as I'm writing that and there is no mistake. She treats the voice as an instrument and she is the master. Good grief!
Her emotions match the words perfectly. Most of the music is fluffy from most female vocalists, though the words aren't. Kinda like Mel Torme, come to think of it.. There are a very few though that can take it places without words. Again, new under the sun.
Emotions without words? I don't know. It would probably be a bust on the charts. I will be exploring it, though. Nicer pastime than exploring the mess we made.
There may be some cultures somewhere in the world that don't try to stick words in the way. I wouldn't know.
What I am suggesting is very Taoist. Lao Tse wasn't big on words. He thought they got in the way.
I'm just staggered the more I think about it. A woman and a man both singing their emotions would be good therapy for a lot of people today. In the future, when it is a man that sings with the woman, not just a stunted animal, but a man that is open to his emotions as thoroughly as the best of women. That would be something.
This voice-as-an-instrument can sweep away the dust of our past as if it never happened in a lot of different ways.
There's just so much to explore in music! I feel like a kid in a candy store.
That is what I have been exploring on the guitar. I am trying to play along with the song in a way that is, errr, copacetic manner. I'm not to the point that I can express myself emotionally on the guitar but I think that has to be the goal.
Yeah, I should probably start trying to filter on here. This stuff, I'm afraid, is a bit out there for most. I'm not saying it makes sense but it is worth exploring beyond the constraints of rote.
***
Another creative effort pays off, though I don't know how much time I will spend on it. Art. I did a few paintings a long time ago (decade or half) and a few almost acceptable sketches. So, I've had this easel sitting there with a couple of lines of hair drawn on a canvas.
As I stood there looking at it, I just had to add a few lines today. As I began to fiddle, I finally got it. You (or I, anyways) have to see, in my mind, what I want to place on the canvas as if it were already there. If I do that (I'm not saying it's easy; I'm saying it's human), then I know the sketch will come out perfectly. I'd go on but my hear would drop out, so I won't. I don't believe I'll chase that creativity front. It would hurt too much.
I have a much longer version of this on my computer. I think I've put enough on here.
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This creativity binge is amazing. Walls are coming down by the ton. I just wish I had someone with whom to share it.
There's not much joy in exploring it alone. I think, in fact that is a breakthrough all on its own. I think we have been mistaken about what makes a pair.
The current thinking seems to go that it is the differences between a couple that make it work. While I agree, I don't think that goes to interests.
I would want someone that shared the joys of creativity. Maybe that's not a stipulation for humans. I cannot believe there will be a single human that will not desire to explore the creativity to which we are gifted.
No, I guess it is the taste in creativity that would count. Even there, I'm not sure tastes will vary that much or it will vary in a much more nuanced manner than it does today.
Hmmm, tricky. I cannot believe I could be satisfied with a woman that remained delusioned. I can live with a serious disgruntlement with the current human condition. In fact, I would look sceptically at anyone that thought we were living the dream. I think the last of that died out this generation.
Maybe it had to in order to be reborn with our humanity in tact.
Yeah, I'm going to post this.
An instrument of conscious evolution
I think I've discovered what I dislike about music and lyrics. They conflict. While the music almost always is encouraging (upbeat, if you will), the words seldom are. Lyrics reflect our situation better than just about anything else.
It has always caused me to ache when I listen to most female vocal artists. Seldom are the words encouraging and rightly so.
The lyrics describe our struggle and those that have been innocent victims of it all. While there is an argument to say the whole human race has been a victim, the argument is much stronger that women have been collateral damage.
I think this is another reason my interest in composing music languished. There was nothing worth saying. Or, more exactly, the needs were unappealing.
So, I may see if I can compose now. I mentioned the idea of just using the voice without words. I'm not so satisfied with that idea.
The idea, though, of expressing imagery in words might work for me. I don't think there's anything to celebrate in words, yet, but, maybe, just trying to create imagery will work. Luxuriant imagery.
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Transit
There are a lot of women that say they are not interested in the sensual side of life. What do they think?? That the sensual side of men is the problem? Probably. Just another piece of crap to put up with.
We will not be human until the deadening and, thereby, over-sensualization as well, of the human race is removed.
That may be the core result of the root cause of our defeat, so far. The deadening of the human spirit, for lack of a better word. It is far different from the animal spirit. It has yet to see the light of day.
Our humanity is an awakening. That is what scares the human race. They don't believe they can pull it off.
So much is becoming clear that is staggers the mind.
I think I figured out where humanity misinterpreted Jesus Christ. He wasn't saying he had the answers. He was saying he had a lot of questions. Through the eye of a needle and throwing stones were not so much a verdict. They were an inquiry.
Those that listened to what he said took two hundred years to put it all together into something that could lead them through their pain. Never realizing that Jesus never gave an answer.
***
This really belongs in An Amazing Time as well as Rote, so I'll probably add it there, as well. The more I experience music the more I become convinced that knowing the 'theory of music' limits the depth to which one can, errr, inhale music.
I don't mean to say that learning the rote theory that someone laid down is a bad thing. What I have found, across the board, from engineering to music to exercise, is that if you learn by doing, first, you are a lot better off.
Rote may not be bad, it may just need to be handled carefully. Maybe it's a matter of clarity, which I begin to realize is going to be huge change (for the better, doesn't even begin to describe) for humanity.
I feel like it's time to move on to the next step of music rote. I'm just not sure how to go about it.
See Rote. I'm not going to continue to duplicate it. It applies both places. This is my heart. The other is our humanity. Kinda important.
For me, at least, music is like calculus in a couple of ways. I'm not getting all math-y on you.
Calculus is all about taking it to the limit. I feel the same about music. Like I'm seeking the most natural expression of life.
Also, though, I go after both in the same manner.
I was always looking for a shortcut in calculus. I was going to give an example. Basically, a shortcut, to me, keeps you from having to worry each little term. like x's and y's and a's and b's.
That is the same thing I'm looking for with music. Not a head full of facts and figures but a more 'real' (for lack of a better wordXX) touch. Something more palpable.
That is why vocals are so beautiful to explore. You don't even have to provide any other effort than that which Nature provided. There are no 'tools'. The tools are the human themselves.
And, oh, a voice used to its fullest extent.
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