Cicada Sounds

Have you ever had one of those moments where some­body tells you the right way to do some­thing, or play an instru­ment, and it’s just not hap­pen­ing for you, but then you let go and do your own thing and it flows for you easily?

I wit­nessed this in rehearsal the other night when my girl­friend, Angela, whom I recently invited to play per­cus­sion with the band, joined us on the tam­bourine for a song. I per­son­ally feel that tam­bourine is an instru­ment to learn and mas­ter in it’s own right, just like any other, and I have found it dif­fi­cult at times to hold down a rhythm.

I watched Angela play­ing around try­ing to get a feel for it, and after the song was done I showed her what lit­tle tech­nique I know for play­ing. So we tried the song again from the begin­ning. That’s when she really started get­ting into the song and danc­ing a lit­tle bit. Jok­ingly she started hit­ting her booty on the tam­bourine, hold­ing her arm still as her hips swayed to meet it, but she was keep­ing the rhythm! She said her booty knows the beat, not her “white” hands. We all laughed that maybe this would be her style of play­ing!

It just goes to show, rhythm is some­thing that come from within and has to be felt. The move­ment has to come from that place, not someone’s pre­scribed way or tech­nique. It can’t sim­ply be thought through. When Angela went inside and felt the song and started mov­ing, she instantly con­nected with her rhythm. As many tam­bourines and per­cus­sion­ists there are in the world, there are prob­a­bly just as many unique rhythms and styles. I real­ized it’s not some­thing you can be shown, you just have to feel the inner rhythm and the tech­nique will come with time and prac­tice.

As a musi­cian, this holds true for me. When I’m pre­sented with a new song; a new rhythm, I first have to close my eyes and go within, to feel it. Upon con­nect­ing inwardly I can then come out and play with it. I also find that after years of play­ing with the same peo­ple, it’s eas­ier to come into align­ment with each other and find our col­lec­tive rhythm quickly. The key is to be able to hold a dual focus. To lis­ten to what’s going on around you and hold that inner rhythm at the same time. Over think­ing it can get you stalled, tak­ing no action. Fear of fail­ure or mak­ing mis­takes can take you out of the moment and stop you in your tracks. How­ever, when you take action, regard­less of the out­come, you learn and move for­ward. By lis­ten­ing to the rhythms inside and all around you, trust­ing your gut and intu­ition, you will nat­u­rally be able to find your place; find your rhythm. Take chances, act, live and enjoy it!

Beloved w/Piccolo Bass

A most wel­come addi­tion to our instru­men­ta­tion has appeared. Recently Ken and I were talk­ing about the space within our music for a gui­tarist, which we had inter­viewed for with­out suc­cess. He had been track­ing the Onori pic­colo bass on E-bay and decided to go for it. Using the Logic Pro clean elec­tric gui­tar effects trio, we imme­di­ately heard the sound we were look­ing for.

Ken’s clean rhyth­mic gypsy jazz play­ing per­fectly com­pli­mented the new song Beloved. With Ken’s bass play­ing trans­lated to the higher octaves, and my often used left handed bass piano chords and mod­u­la­tions, the song took on a whole new sound; a light­ness and sweet­ness to our ears! The ben­e­fit of branch­ing out and try­ing dif­fer­ent roles with cur­rent musi­cians within the band, is that we know exactly the sound we’re look­ing for.

In search­ing for the right musi­cian before we found it was often a tough call. Either the musician’s play­ing was per­fect, but the lifestyle didn’t fit with ours, or that con­nec­tion wasn’t quite there, and the sound didn’t mesh. I am so happy for this gift of the pic­colo bass, that Ken gave him­self and the band. I do so look for­ward to explor­ing the new dimen­sions in sound this bass will take us!