Tap Your Foot
I'll get right into it.
Yesterday after school, a couple students came into my office, as they regularly do every Friday, to hang out while waiting for their friend in detention. But this time they brought guitars, and decided to jam right there, as if I didn't have anything important to work on. I didn't. In fact, I welcomed this impromptu jam and enjoyed as they showed me what they'd been working on. One of them played me some Clapton and a bit of Aerosmith.
A few minutes later a teacher walked by and poked his head in to watch as they played. Turns out he's been playing guitar for 35 years and is in the band Roma Carnivale, a Montreal band I've been dying to see live. 10 members playing, as he described it, Gypsy punk. He came in and offered a few pointers and I just sat their, in awe. Musicians in the making.
They spoke in a language I didn't understand, "the riff is in A but the song is in C." C-7, A-7 formation... I was lost. But then he gave Clapton a little advice, that personally I found totally profound in an unrelated manner.
He said, "if you play the wrong note in the right time, you can get by, but if you play the right note in the wrong timing, there's no music."
People are so busy living.
It just made me think about life- and how it's okay to make mistakes, but you've gotta keep going, you've got to keep up. If you mess up the timing then you're skewing with life. "It's not music."
I often obsess about timing. I sort of believe that everything happens for a reason (except when it doesn't go my way, right... haha), but my problem is that I stew in what ails me.
If life were a song and I made a mistake in my note played, I can't slow down because then everything falls apart and there's no music... It's not a song anymore, it's a train wreck. And I've definitely caused a few of those, at least in my own self.
So- if life is a song, and these days it feels like one, because I've been writing a lot of them... then it's best to lay your trust in the music, and just keep up. Like the best songs written, your favorite ones, the ones that make you dance, the ones that make you cry... everything is already laid out for you, that's why you love it. You just gotta trust and keep up with the beat.
Growing up around my grandfather, I always loved his instinctual reaction to stomp his foot when music played. You can't help it. Get a little lap-tap going, and you're in it - living.
Life has a tempo, maybe it's not always as steady as you'd like, but you gotta keep up, you gotta make music.
Peace and love, and Chuck Ragan,
Katie
Yesterday after school, a couple students came into my office, as they regularly do every Friday, to hang out while waiting for their friend in detention. But this time they brought guitars, and decided to jam right there, as if I didn't have anything important to work on. I didn't. In fact, I welcomed this impromptu jam and enjoyed as they showed me what they'd been working on. One of them played me some Clapton and a bit of Aerosmith.
A few minutes later a teacher walked by and poked his head in to watch as they played. Turns out he's been playing guitar for 35 years and is in the band Roma Carnivale, a Montreal band I've been dying to see live. 10 members playing, as he described it, Gypsy punk. He came in and offered a few pointers and I just sat their, in awe. Musicians in the making.
They spoke in a language I didn't understand, "the riff is in A but the song is in C." C-7, A-7 formation... I was lost. But then he gave Clapton a little advice, that personally I found totally profound in an unrelated manner.
He said, "if you play the wrong note in the right time, you can get by, but if you play the right note in the wrong timing, there's no music."
People are so busy living.
It just made me think about life- and how it's okay to make mistakes, but you've gotta keep going, you've got to keep up. If you mess up the timing then you're skewing with life. "It's not music."
I often obsess about timing. I sort of believe that everything happens for a reason (except when it doesn't go my way, right... haha), but my problem is that I stew in what ails me.
If life were a song and I made a mistake in my note played, I can't slow down because then everything falls apart and there's no music... It's not a song anymore, it's a train wreck. And I've definitely caused a few of those, at least in my own self.
So- if life is a song, and these days it feels like one, because I've been writing a lot of them... then it's best to lay your trust in the music, and just keep up. Like the best songs written, your favorite ones, the ones that make you dance, the ones that make you cry... everything is already laid out for you, that's why you love it. You just gotta trust and keep up with the beat.
Growing up around my grandfather, I always loved his instinctual reaction to stomp his foot when music played. You can't help it. Get a little lap-tap going, and you're in it - living.
Life has a tempo, maybe it's not always as steady as you'd like, but you gotta keep up, you gotta make music.
Peace and love, and Chuck Ragan,
Katie
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