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| Hey, a gif is almost a gift... |
One of my readers has posed an interesting question, above.
I guess the question can be bullshitted, er, I mean answered, in a couple ways.
For example, the backbone of the blues is the same three chord combination (I-IV-I-V-IV-I-V for you music theorists) which appears in 787,019 songs, and counting.
If I were to write "40 Ounce Magnum Blues," to give a plausible example, and use that chord progression, and then tell someone "Listen to this song that I've just written," that person could technically say "You didn't write that song, that's Statesboro Blues, by the Allman Brothers...
As far as the drum beats, there are basic bass-drum, snare and high hat beats that are the backbone of a lot of songs, and I think the same rules apply.
As far as the drum beats, there are basic bass-drum, snare and high hat beats that are the backbone of a lot of songs, and I think the same rules apply.
A live drummer would be tailoring that beat around the individual song, punching certain beats harder, laying back when there is someone else getting "busy" with his part, or taking a solo, and the resultant beat would really only fit that song, and would grate against another piece of music by accenting beats that aren't there, or laying back for no apparent reason at all.
That being said, I think that if I modify the stock beat that can be downloaded royalty-free, to fit my own composition, then it could qualify as being an art form. All I would have to do would be to use the 5 gallon bucket, hit with a stick, to spice the rhythm up a bit, and to selectively delete a snare hit, here and there, or to digitally slide it over to the off beat or the upbeat so that even the guy who recorded the pattern and made it available for free downloading wouldn't recognize it.
Of course, one of my old friends, Stefan Arsenault, back in Massachusetts once told me "If you can make a drum machine sound like a good drummer, then you would be a good drummer..."
Stefan went on to have a much more (at the time of this writing) successful career in music than I. ...but could he pull in 80 bucks in three hours, playing his upright bass on Bourbon Street?..
A Miserable Night
#1
I busked in front of the Chevron, where people seemed to either be mocking me by throwing a penny in my case, or to look at me and the spot where I was sitting as being a black hole, where money goes in but nothing comes out, and to avert their gaze.
Every other driver that pulled up left his hip hop cranked to full volume on his stereo, as if to show off his sound system, or to remind people that license plates are really only affixed by two screws and have a lot of wiggle room.
I made about 3 bucks, which I promptly drank, as a prelude to going back to the boarded up building and plugging in my laptop/studio to record what I was hoping was going to be something excellent.
#2
I recorded something that I thought was pretty good, but in the morning deleted it. Woke Up Depressed
#3
I woke up depressed, thinking of a lot of things in the past that might have been; and not being able to talk myself into thinking of enough things in the future that could be...
The American Dream
I feel like my back is against the wall. I will be busking tonight, in front of the same store where, after knocking off last night, I told the cashier "I hate these people. They don't care if I eat today one bit.."
I'll be busking for whatever I can get to make the night a little more special, as I sit by the boarded up building with my studio plugged in, preparing for the contingency of having to walk the five miles to Third Street to play this weekend, if I have to. I'm already going without cigarettes and beer, what's a little more hardship...I might pick up some butts along the way, or find change on the sidewalk!
The people don't necessarily know that I have a food stamp card and the three dollars in change in my case, they might have assumed, is all I have to live off of.
Meanwhile, most of them were flaunting pimped out cars, gold teeth and jewelry (which they pronounce "Jury") and buying little cigars to roll blunts with; coming out of the store counting their change, to make sure the cashier broke their hundred dollar bill correctly, carrying bags full of stuff to their loudly thumping cars; walking past me without apparently even seeing me.
Before I left for the building, there was already a heavyset black man perching on the milk crate which I had vacated. As I espied him, someone was handing him some change.
It is not, in fact, these people's responsibility whether you eat or not.
ReplyDeleteYou have become institutionalized. You might as well check with other bums for where the "feedings" are.
I was down and out for a bit, and I spare-changed. I realized it was inevitable that a beggar would become alienated from the public, and begin to see them as "things to get money from" rather than as fellow people.
Looking back now, I see spare-changing as immature. OK to do in extremis, which I felt I was in at the time. But if I found myself in the same situation now, I'd go on odd jobs, use my drawing skill to do free caricatures and get by on tips, etc.
I'd not use a guitar and whine for my munneh
The folks in this location have "their" kind of music you know. I bet you'd have done OK if you'd done some old-school stuff like Rapper's Delight or White Line Fever. It's kinda like .... go to a bluegrass festival and play rock, and see how far you get...
ReplyDelete