Play ALL the Instruments!

To-day in my linguistics class, the professor asked who played an instrument.  I always like questions like these because while some people don't play anything and others may have played only one instrument in band ten years ago, I can play four with reasonable ease.  And because one of those four is mandolin, I'd like to think that I have some uncommon ability.  (I don't know whether this is actually representative of the truth, but it seems that since I got a mandolin, I've started to see them everywhere.)

But before he even got to me, someone had spouted out a list of at least five or six instruments, which beats my count.  Eventually, I got to answer his (somewhat rhetorical) question of, "How many keys does a piano have?" when he turned specific and asked who played piano.  Along with three trumpet valves (which he erroneously referred to as "keys") and six guitar strings, the point was that in the same way that there are infinite combinations of notes despite the limited ways of playing them, there are infinite combinations of a limited number of words.

But anyway, the non-linguistic point of the story is that someone else plays more instruments than I do and that I was sort of jealous of that.  But in the good sense of jealousy (if such a thing exists).  It's like when you want to outdo someone, not for the sake of beating them, but for the sake of fulfilling potential that you know you have.  That's what I experienced:  this feeling that I'm not learning how to play instruments at a fast enough rate.  (Though currently, I'm trying to become more proficient at harmonica and re-introduce trombone to my repertoire.)

I can still faintly remember a day in 6th grade band when the director said something about how in college he learned how to play every instrument to some degree.  And I was really impressed by that.  Even now, I aspire to do that.  I'm just limited by the cost of obtaining more instruments and the time necessary to learn and practise them.  (Also, the lack of space in which to put them.)

But until then - and still even then - what I have to remember is that it's not necessarily the number of instruments that you can play; it's how well you can play any instrument.  Knowing the basics of every wind instrument won't really help you unless you can meaningfully play something on them.

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Rick Huxley

I'm a bit late in writing about this, but I had two papers to write for classes this week.

On Monday, Rick Huxley died.  I didn't find out about this until Tuesday, but when I did I was sad.  I started thinking about the Dave Clark Five because that's the band he was in.  So I remembered that they were one of the first bands I was listening to when I really started getting into music.  I went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame the year they were inducted (2008), and on the return trip, I happened to find their first American LP (from 1964), which I bought for only $1.98.  Later, I found their second American LP (from 1965).

The Dave Clark Five - Glad All Over (1964)

Because of a particular clause in their contract, their records are really hard to find.  I may be mistaken, but I believe it's something to do with the rights of the records being reverted back to the band if they haven't sold after a particular amount of time.  This is why it cost me about $50 to buy The History of the Dave Clark Five about five years ago.  It was worth it though.

I remembered that "Because" was one of the first songs I learned to play on guitar (though I've forgotten it now, and I'm not entirely sure that the chords I had found were correct anyway).

But the more I got thinking about it, the more I realised that while it's sad that Rick Huxley died, I'm not going to be as sad as I would if someone in my own family were to die.  That's the weird sort of grieving you get when a public figure dies.  Certainly you're sad, but because you didn't know personally know that person, it doesn't affect you as much.  I felt the same way when Davy Jones died in February.  I was sad that he died, of course, but I didn't personally know him.  Furthermore, the Davy Jones whom I was familiar with was the 20-year-old Davy Jones from the Monkees.  Not Davy Jones in 2012.

So, it's a weird, sad thing when someone whom you admire but don't personally know dies because you're grateful for what he's done and his death reminds you of how important that is to you, but his death won't have as large an effect on your day-to-day life as it will on those who personally know him.

Rick Huxley's bio from The Dave Clark Five Return! (1965)

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Argent August and Other Musical Prescriptions

One of my minor musical projects for 2013 is to listen to the Zombies' Odessey and Oracle every Monday and the Moody Blues' Days of Future Passed every Tuesday.  It started out as just Days of Future Passed on Tuesdays because 2013 began on a Tuesday and that's the album that contains "Tuesday Afternoon," but soon after, I added Odessey and Oracle just because I like it so much.

So far, I've been able to keep up with it (excepting one Monday when I was terribly ill).

For February Album Writing Month, I've excluded all string instruments and written all of my songs with at least some keyboard element.  In order to indoctrinate myself to that particular paradigm, I've listened to Rod Argent's Classically Speaking everyday for the past three weeks or so.

Because I've been listening to these albums so much, I've been able to pick out things that I hadn't heard before.  For instance, I hadn't realised how prominent the sound of the mellotron is for Days of Future Passed or Odessey and Oracle.  And I like having that; it's like I'm rediscovering music that I've known for years.

Last night, I realised that I have five Argent albums (Argent, Ring of Hands, All Together Now, In Deep, and Nexus) and that it would be interesting to listen to one of those for each day of the week.  I later expanded this to include the live album from 1974 and the greatest hits album I have, which includes different versions of the songs, such as the edited singles.  That makes seven albums - one for each day of the week.  So I decided to make this a project I'll do in August - listen to one Argent album everyday.

But then the more I got thinking about this, the more I realised that other groups could fit into this paradigm too (though they aren't as alliterative).  I have five Colin Blunstone albums (One Year, Ennismore, Journey, The Ghost of You and Me, and On the Air Tonight) - there's an album for every weekday of July.  And for June, I could have two albums by the Zombies.  One set of the original albums (Begin Here, Odessey and Oracle, New World, As Far As I Can See, and Breathe Out, Breathe In) and one set that includes the four discs of Zombie Heaven and Into the Afterlife, which includes some more Zombies songs and transitional tracks from the Zombies to Colin Blunstone and Argent.

I'll have to do some more planning to figure out specifically what albums I have to listen to on what days, but I think this is a good idea and it's certainly a thing I'm going to try to do.  Not only will it allow me to become more familiar with the artists that I enjoy, but it was also further cement them into my brain so that - with any luck - the songs I write will more closely resemble the songs that influenced them.

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Four Years

Four years ago to-day, I had a headache.  I don't remember why (if I ever knew at all), but despite that headache or perhaps even because of it, I finally sat down to figure out how to play the guitar that I'd owned for three months.

I listened to the Peter, Paul, and Mary version of Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'" with the chords and their corresponding pictures set out in front of me, and I learned to play it on the $100 guitar I'd gotten at the grocery store.

The main motivating reason that I wanted a guitar in the first place was because of a song by the Byrds - "So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star."

So you want to be a rock and roll star
Then listen now to what I say
Just get an electric guitar
And take some time and learn how to play 

They just made it sound so easy.  It wasn't until months later that I would learn that it was actually a satirical song aimed - in part - at the Monkees, whose television show I had recently discovered and was watching and enjoying.

During those four years, I've learned a lot about music.  I got an acoustic guitar, then a mandolin, a bass guitar, a second electric guitar, and - just a month ago - an electric twelve-string.  It seems I write something like this every year or so, but I always see it as a process.  There isn't really an end to anything; it's just a continual process of getting better and learning more.  Recently, I've taken greater steps toward that.  Currently, I'm in the midst of February Album Writing month, and in order to challenge the monopoly that stringed instruments have held on my composing virtually since its inception, I'm constricting myself to non-stringed instruments.  Electric piano has formed the basis so far, largely due to Rod Argent's influence.

But because I've been thinking a lot about music lately, I thought I would create a blog that's more suited towards long text posts than my tumblr is.  Here, I can actually flesh out ideas I have without feeling guilty that I'm taking up too much space on anyone's dashboard.  (I can also avoid the insane fanatics that creep on the tumblr tags.)

Academically, I'm an English major, and I've taken that method of thinking and applied it to song lyrics.  I've come up with some interesting ideas, yet there doesn't seem to be any place to discuss song lyrics to any great depth, or at least not the songs lyrics that I listen to.  So that's why I started this - to talk about the music I enjoy and the thoughts I have about it.

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