Meh… a little. All this Monktail footage from 03 and thereabouts just appeared up on YouTube (I had forgotten that Melissa was there the whole time filming stuff, I so seldom saw any of it!) and I miss my friends, and I miss singing.
It wasn’t all sunshine and roses, obviously. I was scared shitless the whole time. I don’t remember it that way at all of course, but I was watching part 2 of the Earshot gig and there’s a moment where you can see it in my eyes: everything gets all quiet, and there’s all sorts of room sonically for me to just take off on a soaring melody, and the camera’s on me, and apparently the focus too (I wonder if I felt it then?), and you can tell I want to, and that something is restraining me. You can tell that I know of a good place to go, I can almost hear it still, but it’s so damn melodic that I don’t want to suggest to a whole stage full of free people that I have a place to lead them. And so I shut my mouth and look away.
I don’t know how many times that happened in that group; I’m not complaining, because together as a large group we went places I never would have imagined and I loved being part of a messy whole. We were trying to keep away from a “groove”, ever fearful of becoming a jam band.
In private, slowed-down composition, the melody lines are my strengths and the development/chordal structure are sometimes weaknesses. Even when everything’s working, it’s generally because I braided enough melody together to make a tapestry of counterpoint. So in live improvisation/performance, that’s the kind of improvisation I instinctively want to do, but that clashes with my personality. (which is so secondary. Perhaps what I miss is the regular practice of stomping on that set of personal weaknesses in the process of making music, the regular triumph of true inside me over weak mortal shell. I digress.) The singer stands in front, dresses up, somehow the voice is the communication tool. I also always want to sing multiple lines, go too many places simultaneously, don’t trust myself to physically follow the correct external line when the full orchestra plays twisty melodic stuff on and on in my head. Why did I give up on piano? (because that’s even worse, having to translate to appendages and to machine and beyond. I wanted immediate.)
I wanted to be a melodic instrument. Internally I hated performing. I always wanted to be part of the rhythm section. For a while, I had that with Monktail; at least Mark and Stevie wanted to let me. John and Izaak were often pushing me forward. They meant well. It was good exercise for me. Usually, it was a healthy process of push and pull for everyone – very interesting group dynamic and an overall infinitely valuable experience for all of us. Singing, for me, was joy in the physical act of making music with my body, and performance, for me, is standing in front of a bunch of people and asserting something, asking for attention. Now I need attention as much as the next girl, so there’s the potential for pleasure in that. But not while I’m creating. And I know too well that the truths of the universe as we believe them do not exist on a quantum level. Everything we know is based on atomic fallacy, everything I know is based on emotional or electrical misfiring, everything we believe has an equally considerable opposite. So what can I possibly assert?
But I sat on melody lines over and over and over out of fear. Not fear of the other players - they were always warm and supportive. (With one very obvious exception, which wasn’t always a bad thing.) Fear of being heard, of being naked, of not knowing what to do with the melody from a mountain instead of from the forest (where whistling is casual and natural, no echoes, no open skies…..) It’s a source of deep shame to have censored myself like this.
Obviously, the thing that has to go is the insecurity.
There have been moments, of course; when hiding behind the decks so that the voice seems disembodied, when aided by inhibition-limiting amounts of alcohol, when bathed in the warm supportiveness of the Cathedral Band environment, or when playing with Blue or Stuart who all but pull it out of me.
I’m not sure what I was talking about anymore.
But what I do miss is having that outlet - having that communion with other improvisers for one thing, pushing to communicate for another. At least trying to reach out in that way. You can’t just cut off a scream, but you can let it out slowly and musically. Scream? Stream? Dam? Damn. Run with the metaphor.
Ch. commented
on May 11, 2007 9:24 am
Yeah.
I miss playing, too. I was never more than an enthusiastic amateur with no formal education in music and a too-eclectic backlog of influences that I lacked the chops to execute or the patience to play the same way twice, but the emotional-psychological value of taking place in that process was invaluable.
And despite the fact that we were playing ‘rock songs’ I was definitely improvising as much as possible, willing myself to forget how I played something the last time - in the recordings that I made you can hear when I’m not because my playing falls apart almost completely. It would also fall apart when I got too ambitious but, generally, if I was in an improvising mode the flights of fancy tended to hold together a bit better. In general, the only rule that was immutable (for the guitarist) was that the root be in there somewhere - he definitely didn’t like when I’d change the root of a chord or get too exotic (and it’s funny that, as weak a player as I was, I had read more than I practiced playing so I knew just enough to screw around with substitutions and the like for a bit of effect…) Aside from that, it was informal and the atmosphere was supportive. Or transportive.
I listen to some recordings I made of those informal sessions occasionally and wax nostalgic. I got better and I got worse. The best moments were ones I had initially thought I had flubbed. The worst were ones I initially thought I had flubbed. The only thing that was generally lacking was space - when we had a drummer he was a very, very busy one and he had a tendency to rush it; I would lock in with him and my playing would suffer tremendously, become stiff, robotic. And I’m fairly clumsy at rhythmic playing - I gravitate towards melody and, in the context of songs, of playing counterpoint to the voice; I’d like to say that’s due to my love of Scott LaFaro’s playing but it’s more likely all the Joy Division and New Order I digested.
And it’s one of those rare, magical things for which I don’t crave some kind of inhibition-wrecking substance… The fears and insecurities are secondary to just doing and being. A latent exhibitionism manifested in the performance of music. One strong continuity with the rest of my life is that I seem to need others to bring out the good or productive in me - that I’m almost completely unable to create alone - something I want to work on… I think your fear of mistakes, of losing the thread is natural but it shouldn’t be paralyzing, that’s all part of collective improvisation, that the rest can follow where someone leads or they can gently (or sternly) pull them back - that’s the beauty of it.
What stops you from diving back in? For me it’s that the people I was playing with moved on, lost interest, had other issues - all things that can derail something that is informal to begin with. And I’m too introverted to start a search for others. You were part of a more formal and committed organization, something that’s still going. And you know so many musicians… Is the relevance still there for you? Is something else feeding the soul now?
Push. Pull. Scream. Stream. Find. Seek. Lead. Do. Be.
Ch. commented
on May 9, 2007 1:05 pm
You feeling nostalgic?
Tamara commented
on May 10, 2007 4:56 pm
Meh… a little. All this Monktail footage from 03 and thereabouts just appeared up on YouTube (I had forgotten that Melissa was there the whole time filming stuff, I so seldom saw any of it!) and I miss my friends, and I miss singing.
It wasn’t all sunshine and roses, obviously. I was scared shitless the whole time. I don’t remember it that way at all of course, but I was watching part 2 of the Earshot gig and there’s a moment where you can see it in my eyes: everything gets all quiet, and there’s all sorts of room sonically for me to just take off on a soaring melody, and the camera’s on me, and apparently the focus too (I wonder if I felt it then?), and you can tell I want to, and that something is restraining me. You can tell that I know of a good place to go, I can almost hear it still, but it’s so damn melodic that I don’t want to suggest to a whole stage full of free people that I have a place to lead them. And so I shut my mouth and look away.
I don’t know how many times that happened in that group; I’m not complaining, because together as a large group we went places I never would have imagined and I loved being part of a messy whole. We were trying to keep away from a “groove”, ever fearful of becoming a jam band.
In private, slowed-down composition, the melody lines are my strengths and the development/chordal structure are sometimes weaknesses. Even when everything’s working, it’s generally because I braided enough melody together to make a tapestry of counterpoint. So in live improvisation/performance, that’s the kind of improvisation I instinctively want to do, but that clashes with my personality. (which is so secondary. Perhaps what I miss is the regular practice of stomping on that set of personal weaknesses in the process of making music, the regular triumph of true inside me over weak mortal shell. I digress.) The singer stands in front, dresses up, somehow the voice is the communication tool. I also always want to sing multiple lines, go too many places simultaneously, don’t trust myself to physically follow the correct external line when the full orchestra plays twisty melodic stuff on and on in my head. Why did I give up on piano? (because that’s even worse, having to translate to appendages and to machine and beyond. I wanted immediate.)
I wanted to be a melodic instrument. Internally I hated performing. I always wanted to be part of the rhythm section. For a while, I had that with Monktail; at least Mark and Stevie wanted to let me. John and Izaak were often pushing me forward. They meant well. It was good exercise for me. Usually, it was a healthy process of push and pull for everyone – very interesting group dynamic and an overall infinitely valuable experience for all of us. Singing, for me, was joy in the physical act of making music with my body, and performance, for me, is standing in front of a bunch of people and asserting something, asking for attention. Now I need attention as much as the next girl, so there’s the potential for pleasure in that. But not while I’m creating. And I know too well that the truths of the universe as we believe them do not exist on a quantum level. Everything we know is based on atomic fallacy, everything I know is based on emotional or electrical misfiring, everything we believe has an equally considerable opposite. So what can I possibly assert?
But I sat on melody lines over and over and over out of fear. Not fear of the other players - they were always warm and supportive. (With one very obvious exception, which wasn’t always a bad thing.) Fear of being heard, of being naked, of not knowing what to do with the melody from a mountain instead of from the forest (where whistling is casual and natural, no echoes, no open skies…..) It’s a source of deep shame to have censored myself like this.
Obviously, the thing that has to go is the insecurity.
There have been moments, of course; when hiding behind the decks so that the voice seems disembodied, when aided by inhibition-limiting amounts of alcohol, when bathed in the warm supportiveness of the Cathedral Band environment, or when playing with Blue or Stuart who all but pull it out of me.
I’m not sure what I was talking about anymore.
But what I do miss is having that outlet - having that communion with other improvisers for one thing, pushing to communicate for another. At least trying to reach out in that way. You can’t just cut off a scream, but you can let it out slowly and musically. Scream? Stream? Dam? Damn. Run with the metaphor.
Ch. commented
on May 11, 2007 9:24 am
Yeah.
I miss playing, too. I was never more than an enthusiastic amateur with no formal education in music and a too-eclectic backlog of influences that I lacked the chops to execute or the patience to play the same way twice, but the emotional-psychological value of taking place in that process was invaluable.
And despite the fact that we were playing ‘rock songs’ I was definitely improvising as much as possible, willing myself to forget how I played something the last time - in the recordings that I made you can hear when I’m not because my playing falls apart almost completely. It would also fall apart when I got too ambitious but, generally, if I was in an improvising mode the flights of fancy tended to hold together a bit better. In general, the only rule that was immutable (for the guitarist) was that the root be in there somewhere - he definitely didn’t like when I’d change the root of a chord or get too exotic (and it’s funny that, as weak a player as I was, I had read more than I practiced playing so I knew just enough to screw around with substitutions and the like for a bit of effect…) Aside from that, it was informal and the atmosphere was supportive. Or transportive.
I listen to some recordings I made of those informal sessions occasionally and wax nostalgic. I got better and I got worse. The best moments were ones I had initially thought I had flubbed. The worst were ones I initially thought I had flubbed. The only thing that was generally lacking was space - when we had a drummer he was a very, very busy one and he had a tendency to rush it; I would lock in with him and my playing would suffer tremendously, become stiff, robotic. And I’m fairly clumsy at rhythmic playing - I gravitate towards melody and, in the context of songs, of playing counterpoint to the voice; I’d like to say that’s due to my love of Scott LaFaro’s playing but it’s more likely all the Joy Division and New Order I digested.
And it’s one of those rare, magical things for which I don’t crave some kind of inhibition-wrecking substance… The fears and insecurities are secondary to just doing and being. A latent exhibitionism manifested in the performance of music. One strong continuity with the rest of my life is that I seem to need others to bring out the good or productive in me - that I’m almost completely unable to create alone - something I want to work on… I think your fear of mistakes, of losing the thread is natural but it shouldn’t be paralyzing, that’s all part of collective improvisation, that the rest can follow where someone leads or they can gently (or sternly) pull them back - that’s the beauty of it.
What stops you from diving back in? For me it’s that the people I was playing with moved on, lost interest, had other issues - all things that can derail something that is informal to begin with. And I’m too introverted to start a search for others. You were part of a more formal and committed organization, something that’s still going. And you know so many musicians… Is the relevance still there for you? Is something else feeding the soul now?
Push. Pull. Scream. Stream. Find. Seek. Lead. Do. Be.