Notes_Norton

Years ago, we were playing at a bar somewhere on the road, probably in the Midwest. Our drummer had all his drums chained to his stool (oops! Throne). Behind the stage was a waterfall and a small pool. In the middle of a song, his stool inched back, he fell in the shallow water, and much of his drum kit followed him. Fortunately he wasn't hurt, and other than a few scratches and some TLC, the drum kit survived.

I've done studio work for independent studios and Motown when they were in Detroit. I enjoy studio work, but I like live performance in front of an audience much better. Since the words are the last thing I listen to in a song, and sometimes never get to them, I'm not a songwriter. I play songs written by others, sometimes the "Brill Building" folks, sometimes famous singer/songwriters, sometimes jazz folks, sometimes Tin Pan alley, sometimes people who don't speak English and I don't speak their language. So if AI writes a good, popular song, I have no reason not to learn and play it. I do feel badly for the songwriters they may put out of business, but times change, and survival means to change with it. Insights and incites by Notes ♫

I remember copying other musicians when I was young. I learned licks from the pop stars of the day, I digested sheet music and music books, and learned record solos note for note. I listened to sax players, guitar players, vocalists, in a variety of genre, and internalized all that. The more I learned, the more I combined what I learned, until it was no longer recognizable as what influenced me, but was now my own. From what I read, AI seems to be on this journey. I'm glad I'm a live, gigging musician, because I don't think AI is going to replace me very soon.

I think not many people are going to use this facility

We did an Independence Day gig at the nursing home of the VA Hospital for our area. We all had a great time, and met a lot of interesting people. The parts of the facility that I saw were spotless and well maintained. Plus the help seemed to be very friendly and respectful to the disabled vets. That was very good to see.

Don't say no no no no --- say maybe Maybe Baby — Buddy Holly & The Crickets

Heart Of The Sunrise — Yes

Jenny Jenny — Little Richard

Cream & Sugar makes the coffee better.

Another lady tried to save her and went chest first into the same propeller. It was an udder disaster.

Blue Train — John Coltrane Somewhere in this house, I have that LP.

Crikey—I cleanly missed the clever cricket joke that someone cracked. It's a catastrophe by Jiminy. (I haven't watched TV since the early 1990s, so all my TV references are old—I'm approaching my codger years.)

C Jam Blues — Duke Ellington

Neither you nor I nor anyone else has to like it, and we can list reasons why, but it's hard to argue with something that makes zillions of dollars. I don't like football, hang gliding, or hot peppers, but lots of people do. And I can think of reasons why I don't like them. Football=boring. Hang gliding=dangerous. Hot peppers=the plants developed that to keep animals from eating them, who am I to argue?

Again, I'll stick with what I learned in school and via the Berklee correspondence course. I paid for those lessons, and I'm going to use them Melody, harmony, and rhythm are all components of music, but according to what I learned, you need all three for it to be music. But like I said earlier, we probably just need to agree to disagree.

I'll stick with what I learned in school, and via the Berklee Correspondence course. What you describe is a melody, a component of music, but not music.

The Birds And The Bees — Jewel Akens

Then I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this subject.

I'm happy your guitar survived undamaged. I had a friend who put his SG against his amp to go to the kitchen for a snack during practice. When he got back, it fell, and the headstock broke and was folded against the neck.

The Wind The Scream (First Theme) — Ennio Morricone

The beatniks called it “Beat Poetry”. The Charlie Parker part was music, and they added poetry on top. The result was a hybrid. I'm not posting a criticism to Rap, it's an art form all by itself, but it's poetry, often over some music. Is a woman doing a strip tease to music, doing what you would call making music? No, she is dancing to the music. Is that mockingbird outside my window making music? No, it's beautiful but melody without rhythm or harmony. African Tribal Percussion is not music if it lacks all 3 elements. That doesn't mean it's bad, it can be delightful, and I get lost in the rhythms, but it isn't music unless it has melody, harmony, and rhythm. That's like saying "I woke up this morning, ate breakfast, and caught the bus to work" poetry. It's just prose. It's all good IMO as long as it has someone who likes it, but we have to be careful with watering down our definitions, or they eventually become meaningless. Rap is poetry that can be recited over music. Like the beatniks did, only more modern. Music: 1. The art of arranging sounds in time so as to produce a continuous, unified, and evocative composition, as through melody, harmony, rhythm, and timbre. That's what I was taught in school. Rap may be great, I might love it, but it fails the definition. This is not a criticism, just an observation. Insights and incites by Notes ♫