All the Answers in the World are on My iPod

I've been listening to music my entire life, which now spans 60 years, a fact I will admit annoys me. I can't stop it or reverse time-that presents its own perverse problems-but the icy hand of death is certainly closer than it was, say, 40 years ago.

But this isn't about that. Because I've been tethered to music for all of my eternity, to be without it would be the same as being without oxygen. Fortunately, I'm not alone in this regard.

It is, though, about the magic that music grants me in the mundane tasks of existence that burden me on a daily basis. As it is Fall and as I have a fairly large treed lot, leaves and the detritus of the season are there for me to endure. Raking is its own heaven or hell depending how you look at it, but aside from the manual labor, raking, given that I will be spending close to 24 hours combined over the Fall cleaning up, will give me long periods of uninterrupted time to listen to music.

This year I decided to go back to that decade that is so much like the one we're in, with some minor exceptions, the 70's. It's not exhaustive, only 378 songs, but representative of all the stuff I listened to during that time be it from radio, records, or live from the performer's mouth or instrument. I won't bore you with who's on the list: we all have our own, assuming you have an interest in the first place, but I consider it fairly representative of the decade.

Along with it giving something to preoccupy me; yardwork, after all, isn't particular exciting on its own, the music does so many wonderful things: First, it grooves, whether rock, jazz, country, instrumental, fast, slow, sweet, or sad. And yes, even disco! Second, as is common with all things memorial, it evokes the past, certainly for me as I happened to be alive at the time. Third, being music of the recorded kind, I keep my ear tuned for what is being played, on what, and how it is produced.

In some ways this is the most fun, because none of the tunes is new to me in any way, I end up listening to sounds, phrasing, placement, arrangements; fun stuff like that. It is an endless cavalcade of ideas and inspiration.

I highly recommend it if you have any aspirations to record.

Or if you have a yard full of leaves calling your name.

©2019 David William Pearce

More Popular than Jesus?

A few further thoughts on 50 Years Ago Today...

Apparently, the Beatles are still well known and income generators for their label. I'm shocked! Well, not really. Despite the fact that both John and George have died and Paul and Ringo are well into their 70s, Beatles music remains popular even among kids. This continues to strike me as odd. Shouldn't they be obsessed with their music, the music of right now?

We were.

But then, having thought about it, a few other thoughts came into my head about what exactly I was listening to when I was young. Like today's kids-they probably hate that term as much as we did-most of what I heard was on the radio. If something really got me going, I went out and bought the record. I assume today if you hear something you like while streaming, you can add it to your personal playlist. I don't know if the kids then listen obsessively to it like I did, but I assume they do because I don't think they're that much different from us.

Of course as I got older my interests expanded. I still like and listen to Jazz regularly and have a soft spot for the music from the late 40's through early 60's, and yes that includes everything from the somnambulistic languid stuff to the crazy bebop that is Jazz's version of speed metal. I also got more into Americana and Classical.

Good music is good music no matter its age.

And while streaming has its critics, as all mediums do, it does afford listeners the ability to stream whole catalogs, which was impossible back when I was young. Much as I wanted to hear the bands and musicians I read about, hearing all of them would have been very expensive and time consuming as not every record store had the albums and radio certaining didn't play entire catalogs or even albums back to back.

The bigger question is how imprinted the music is to those who stream if they're hearing lots of different bands and musicians but not hearing the songs over and over as we did in the past. It's possible the reason music from 40 or 50 years ago is so impressed into kids minds is that we, their parents, played it all the time when they were young and whether they like it or not, the do remember it.

So whether today's music is as well known as the old stuff, I guess we'll see, but I think it will be just maybe prompted differently because it was absorbed differently.

©2019 David William Pearce

Damn Little Fingers!

Totally bummed!

Occasionally, I get it in my head to learn a new tune, one that's not my own, or a part of a song that I think is just too fun. The beginning of Led Zeppelin's Achilles Last Stand is one example. It's basically going back and forth between a F#m(add) and Em9. Simple right?

Except when you can't get your fingers where they're supposed to go.

Now there are cheats which require a certain level of dexterity and speed since you're not setting your fingers in the structure of the chord and simply picking the strings in the order set out on the page. I don't have long elegant fingers and I'm no longer young and supple in my movements-that matters. It's why there are no old prodigies.

It also explains why some can effortlessly play like Stevie Ray and the rest of us can't even as we studiously try our best to master sweep strumming and picking. Just watch the videos and watch their hands and fingers as they move along the fretboard. Yes, some of it is the result of lots of practice and playing-wood-shedding if you like. But they also possess the physical talents the rest of us lack. Just like premier athletes, premier musicians have the skill and dexterity the rest of us don't. That's the way it is. Only so many people can play Rachmaninoff properly and effortlessly-at least as those of us in the audience perceive it-they too work very hard at that appearance of effortlessness.

It's also the reason why when we listen to people trying to play some of this stuff it doesn't sound quite right or like the original. All of us can play a passable version of Freebird or Stairway to Heaven, but they're not that tough unless you want to nail it and not everyone can. But again, it's not like trying to nail a Joe Satriani solo (or entire song) or the twin solos played by Joe Walsh and Don Felder on Hotel California. 

At this point you maybe asking: "What are you getting at, Dave?"

Well, you can give up-for me that means 32nd note solos that are for the most part flash and bang-or you can work through it and inevitably discover something you didn't know before, so you gain from that.

That, and a better appreciation for the talents of those who can play what you can't.

©2019 David William Pearce