The Fine Line Between Playing and Listening

When I am in the audience of a good show, my musical batteries are immediately recharged and in fact I am champing at the bit on the ride home.
The best way for me to unwind after watching a good show is to play.

When I play for an audience, my musical batteries are recharged and I am on a three day high.

The line is fine between listening and playing. You cannot play well if you do not listen to what is going on around you. The bass player that comes in a half beat behind or the drummer who insists on upping the volume. The sweet Call & Answer when two like minds execute with precision.

You have to hear to have a reply.
And as in language, when talking with someone - if you spend the time they are talking thinking of your reply, then you are not hearing what the other person is saying.

Listening is an art in which it usually takes a moment for a reply to formulate. The reply may then take the next thirty two bars but you have to have heard what preceded to be able to properly answer.

Harrison's is a local road house. George invites you and twenty other musicians to play for an evening. And if we're lucky each invitee brings a friend.
After the first time or two, you generally know all the players. Have an idea what to expect.

And then a night like tonight blooms.

It was Black Magic Woman that started it, but the percussion section really took off. The drummer had some instant help from a conga player.  Then people at the tables were drumming to the beat. All of a sudden it took off.

The interaction was sublime. Everyone was actively listening to the others.
The bass player heard the drummer and the chords met each measure with precision. The zone opened and I stepped through.

By the time we hit the last three chords that everyone was anticipating it was leap in the air and windmill time for me.
(The fuck I am doing?)

Listening...

Peer Review in a College Course Setting

From the onset I have to say that I understand Gary Burton does not have the time to critique four hundred submissions - and certainly not in the two week period between assignment due dates.
But what incentive do I have to pay for an education upon which my grade is 70% peer review?

Advice, yes, feedback, most definitely. My grade?
What credentials do my "peers" have?
In a word, oh, Hell no.

If I sought out peer review as a way to move my education I might also take a course whose grading system was peer review.
But I didn't. I sought out Gary Burton. I want his feedback.
This is why Berklee puts three TAs at Mr. Burton's disposal.

The obvious difference being someone attending his class in Massachusetts is paying a thousand times as much as I would pay for online matriculation and credit.

The material is worth my time. My hunt for knowledge is worth the time and effort.
The degree offered online, sadly in my opinion, is not worth a tinker's dam.

Post Script - before anyone supposes I did not do well and am grousing, this is not the case. I am just not satisfied with the paradigm the online schools have adopted.
I do not have a suggestion yet (actually I have too many - less subjective work, more tests, quizzes and easily measurable work - when subjective work is used limit the number of pieces to be used in grading), but I am thinking about it...I hope they are as well.

Sound And Memory

A funny observation, funny in the strange sort of way - sounds have very little to do with memory.
I can play a song from thirty, forty, fifty years ago. And while they usually will cause the recall of a specific event - the morning I blasted my new record, Hey Mr. Bassman at 6 am., they are not soul blanketing feelings.
My father came running out to find me dancing up a storm. He laughed and then explained that disturbing a parents sleep was a venial sin. Please wait until 8 am.

What does strike my soul like a hammer to a bell is a smell.
Smells seems to open floodgates of memories.

I smell a wood fire and I am transported to Watkins Glenn with my father. We are pacing back and forth trying to stay warm.There are fires, but none in my tent. I was walking in my neighborhood, smelled a fire and found myself frozen to the sidewalk.

Or Cape Cod and the Dunes at Truro.

Or when Bert & I burned our Grand Funk records. The smell of burning plastic causes the memory to literally hit me in the head.

The scent of a flower and I see high school all over again. I feel eighteen.

If I smell the sea I hear Coney Island or Far Rockaway. My lungs ache inside of five minutes. It is a memory.

I wish a song or an album held more than one event.
Knights In White Satin is always the same sad recollection.

Here It Comes...Fireworks & Airshows

One of my genius neighbors has begun a nightly countdown to July 4th.
Otay.

Never mind it is illegal, what it does to the neighborhood animals as well as the nearby yards...it is the height of imposing your tastes upon the rest of us.

On the plus side, a gig each week leading up to July 4th at Harrison's and then the Fourth, itself.

And besides the ample work from George, another friend has a gig at the local jazz club this week.
Feast or famine.
When all is said and done it'll be famine either way.

There is also one more Farmers Market in San Dimas, so I'll expect a call from Jerry my local keyboard playing compadre.

Back to my explosive friends. I do understand the fun in watching things go B*O*O*M*, but as with all things - there is a time & place for everything.
June 8th is early.