| No post in 3 months? |
[Nov. 16th, 2009|03:46 am] |
And that was a fake one. 4 months since I've put any thought into it. Here's a glimpse into my life:
Just had Rocky Horror Weekend which was one hell of a show. For those of you who didn't know, I directed Rocky Horror Picture Show this year. It was the first of any kind of directing experience, and I haven't done much theater outside of Rocky. What I lacked in directing skills, I made up for in knowing the movie like the back of my hand from seeing it SO MANY FUCKING TIMES. More than that, it was very much an exercise in Staying On Top Of My Shit, and I always welcome a challenge. Stressful times were had, but the show came together very nicely- many said it was the best show they've seen (although I think I hear that every year... maybe we're just getting better). For me the most important part was that the cast was excited and enthusiastic enough to want to make the show awesome. A lot of things just happened naturally because of this. This was a pivotal year because a lot of the people who have been running the show are graduating/leaving, but the cast this year was roughly half freshmen who got really into it, so the Rocky Horror torch will be passed!
So... that's been sucking a good deal of my free time and creative energies over the past two months, particularly in this past week! I have played very little music recently. Now that Rocky is over, I'm ready to dive right in and redirect all that creative energy to its rightful place in my soul. I just want to create, sing, feel. I started singing what I play when I play drums. I'll imitate the sounds of the drums with onomatopoeias, some sort of scat-beatbox cacophony that speaks my soul. Baboom toom da da da baboom deeeee ta! It's blurring the line between singing, speaking and playing drums. It's telling a story. It's something I've put thought into the implications but never just went ahead and did it.
I'm starting to bring those sort of things to life. Focusing on my weaknesses. Developing a repertoire. I have three heroes at the moment; three legends of early jazz drumming. They say if you're going to play this music right you have to fall in love with it first- don't do it from that academic perspective. Well I'm well past that part and I feel something real. Tony Williams (mid-late Miles Davis drummer) praises these three drummers as epitomizing the three aspects of the perfect drummer: creativity (Philly Joe Jones), feeling (Art Blakey), and technique (Max Roach).
I thought about what that means to me and then I realized how I came to be the drummer I am today. If I can say anything consistent about Funk Apteryx's approach to music it has been to seek out creativity and originally at the cost of quality and reproducibility.
As for feeling, I've spent 2 years in an African drumming ensemble which has by far had the most impact on my music intellectually and metaphysically (it has also been the catalyst between many revelations about how society/philosophy/life/music/art/love/language/just about anything works but that deserves its own post if I ever get around to it). But the teacher is the most brilliant man just trying to make it in the music world armed only with his ideas, he did something I will never be able to thank him enough for. He taught me how to FEEL music. I can't explain it any other way.
As for technique, this is where I am by far the weakest. The physical ability to perform what I FEEL and what I want to CREATE. Kind of important, eh? I've had some amazing teachers over the years for this, including the guy who first told me how to hold the sticks, another person I will never truly be able to thank. I'm taking lessons now from a hardcore technique guy. Ain't nothing that can stop me now.
So there you have it. A glimpse of what's going on in my head/in my hands. A glimpse of what's to come. The music part of my soul is getting restless, it's a needy child. It's jumping up and down screaming to be let out. I'm gonna do something with it. I'm gonna baboom boom chaaaaaa, if you know what I mean, because the secret to life is that if you can sing in rhythm you can rule the world.
Ain't nothing that can stop me now. |
|
|
| this just in! |
[Aug. 19th, 2009|10:55 am] |
|
Researchers also found a complex chemical interaction in the cooking of bacon produces the winning combination of taste and smell which is almost irresistible. |
|
|
| Update? |
[Jul. 7th, 2009|08:02 pm] |
Dreamer by night, blue rocker by day. I'm fanning the musical flames with everything I can get my hands on, and I don't see it stopping any time soon. I'm diving head first into a strange world I can't even begin to say I understand. My biggest fear is boredom, but there are too many things that I can't do for that kick in. I've learned how to get life from rhythm, how to make it live and breath, I can't seem to put it any other way. Anyway, I now know that I am a living thing and I don't want to wait to die.
Listen. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Feb. 17th, 2009|03:10 am] |
Drivin. at a party?
Get out to leave.
I have something...
Something big & awkward.
Anyway, I wait for everyone
else. I wait on something
I drove around & pulled in
by the house.
Building a collage- screaming
Book to build any prop.
War? Some sort. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Feb. 5th, 2009|01:44 pm] |
I'm caffeinated.
Life is good. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Jan. 10th, 2009|04:00 am] |
Tick tock. Tick tock.
Fit me into your one second, two second clock.
Orange nose.
Only if it's clear.
Perfect orange.
We don't allow those others here. |
|
|
| Cosmic dream |
[Jan. 7th, 2009|12:32 pm] |
I was playing some hybrid of monopoly and trivial pursuit. I was trying to answer a question and was really struggling with it. Then Graeme Bailey showed up as a ghost and said,
"Some day you will realize that you already have all knowledge, and our time spent here is just to understand that fact. In the meantime, your body is just something to hold your brain and poop."
I woke up pretty confused. |
|
|
| Dreaming |
[Jan. 2nd, 2009|12:42 pm] |
So about a month ago I started keeping a dream journal. If anyone who is reading this does not do this, DO IT. Just put a notebook and a pen within arm's reach of where you sleep. Don't put it any further or it won't work (trust me).
At first it was frustrating because I saw no results. But in the past few weeks my mind has really opened up. I'm having on average 3 vivid dreams a night, and sometimes 5. I usually wake up not remembering a thing, and then I remember one tiny detail and it all hits me.
And now I decided I'm going to write dreams as poems. Just trying to exercise that creative spirit. I'm not saying they are any good. But here it goes. This was last night.
Beach comb that place I always used to go,
Where I always dream to be free,
Except when the whale chases after me,
Fish tailed wrecking ball tearing down cottage wall,
Because something is after me.
Giant finned paddle come crashing against wave,
produce splash like rain,
Escape the downpour in vain, he'll come again,
So I go to the place he doesn't know,
Where distances are too hard to measure, so they
erect tiny signs with complicated numbers,
that help you if you think you're not confused,
Later, laughing at forms I have to write,
To be hip and up to date with a tiny memory machine,
that goes BOOM BOOM CLACK CLACK like I've tried,
So many times before,
Only a lover's lover holds me back,
He thinks it's funny, well HA HA FUCK YOU,
I'm out, I'm going to invite more people to this place,
Gonna show them the world behind this face. |
|
|
| pap |
[Dec. 28th, 2008|02:58 pm] |
"All musicians are subconsciously mathematicians." - Thelonious Monk
That's where you're WRONG, Mr. Monk. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Dec. 27th, 2008|01:26 am] |
|
I'd speak my mind if I knew I had one. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Dec. 20th, 2008|08:12 pm] |
Well,
I guess I'm educated or some shit like that. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Nov. 11th, 2008|08:19 am] |
Even if you already believe that gays have the right to marry, you should watch this clip. Everybody in America should watch this clip.
|
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Nov. 9th, 2008|04:56 am] |
Life goes on, or so fools say,
I realized that experience is nothing other than how stuff appears to you,
You can never know things for what they really are,
And that's something really depressing,
Until I remember that's how we are,
Reality is just a construction that attempts to make sense of the world we're exposed to,
Sometimes it's convincing.
Sometime it's not enough.
Sometimes it just doesn't happen that way.
I think dreams are glimpses of what is possible- what we are capable of.
I think it's sad how so few people realize how beautiful that is. |
|
|
| <3 New York Times |
[Oct. 19th, 2008|11:55 am] |
Side-by-side comparison.
Obama's rally:
v.
Palin's rally:
That fucking librul media is at it again. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Oct. 13th, 2008|12:11 pm] |
"There is an all-too-human tendency to use symbolic words with a self-deluding glibness that mistakenly equates our ability to utter them with the feeling that we fully know what we are talking about."
Pap. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Oct. 8th, 2008|04:56 pm] |
Drums are empty, wannabe-onomatopoeias.
Shuh-klack klack. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Sep. 9th, 2008|09:48 am] |
|
"Wir sehen das Innere der Dinge gar nicht ein." |
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
| |
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
killerbobbarker's journal
