I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.
— T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
I went to play music with a friend, and when he showed up he said there had been some upset in his family: his young son having a meltdown after a disruption in his routine. I said I could identify. Life seems most comfortable for me (a Cancer, if you follow astrology) when there’s a predictable routine: free of appointments, road trips, random visits, deadlines. I like a lifestyle with creative space, to write, play music, walk, dream.
Of course there is work, too: and though jobs come in random intervals in my freelance editing business, a current job becomes part of the day’s routine. There are smaller routines that pad life’s comfort zone, too: morning meditation and yoga, making coffee the same way, the same daily beach walk, practicing rhythms and melody modes.
Yesterday on a hike my girlfriend slipped on the trail and turned her ankle, causing a nasty sprain. Now she had to miss the first day of work in five years. We slept in, watched the first sunny clear day in a month shine through the stained glass bird wings, and planned a winter trip to Guatemala.
“The faeries must have put a stone under my shoe,” she said.
I dropped off the spare key at her place of work and nearly swerved into a boy on a bike in the wrong lane, at the ferry lineup. There must have been some good faeries around there, too, taking care of the karma of the stone. But that’s another story.
The point is, Life happens. The “good” and the “bad”… It’s always the unexpected, to come knocking on the door (or sometimes knocking down the door if you don’t answer) of that limited box of expectations known as routine. In the jam, I learned the only useful expectation is to expect moments of sheer joy in collective inspired flight, or resonance in the one groove.
Music in its essence is the same as life in general: a collaboration between routine and novelty. Routine or structure (whether rhythmic or melodic/harmonic) forms the foundation of the music, supporting variation and exploration like a springboard. Some variations can be built in, too, adding more complexity to the consistent flow of the music. Then there is improvisation, which dances more freely along with its predictable partner, the structure. Even the wild flights of fancy, though, do best to keep earth in sight, or serve as figures to the ground. Musical life happens around the beat and the melodic core.
At a micro level there is another place that life’s freshness can enter a music that is grounded in structure. And that is through feeling. Music can exist and be played in two dimensions, reflecting its map that represents the timing and notes of the piece. But the map is not the territory. And playing perfectly like a digital robot will not produce living music.
Feeling is what keeps the clave vibrant and alive: regular but not metronomic to the nth degree. Feeling is what turns 4/4 into swing, that indefinable fullness of the body sense in the equation. Feeling is what inspires the heart and soul in Indian music, with its vocal and flute notes bending so artfully. My flute teacher’s Indian master advised him in his practice, above all, to “Make it beautiful.”
I suppose that is the lesson, too, of how to live with the disruption of routine. Tonight I have a band rehearsal. Tomorrow morning at eight my car has an appointment for a wheel alignment. Wednesday is fitness class. So, on it goes… summer has gone. New jobs to take on, more trip planning to do, the next health issue to arise. Visitors to entertain. Good! I remember to breathe, and get ready for the jam.
The next level of introducing the life factor has to do with self-development and self-expression. “Know thyself”— as a musician, that means playing within your limitations. Yet, as an evolving being, exploring the freedom to be who you might be tomorrow or in the next moment, you have a potential expression that only needs permission to put its foot on the stage. Even if sometimes the foot goes in the mouth instead. In this case discernment too comes with practice: know what venue allows what expectations and duties, and what venue offers safety and permission to explore.
Again, in the moment the micro evolution takes place: the impulse and capacity to carry the tempo a little more intensely, and to find a relaxation within that new territory; finding the surprise of a bended note leading the way into a different color scheme altogether. Here we grow: at this edge we meet life headlong, in the moment, and we can choose to play it safe or not; and beyond that place, we can even let go of choice and just let the music (and life) take over for a while.
Enjoy the ride. You can help make it beautiful.
As with drum students everywhere, the written notation works for some and not for others. I bring notes to rely on and support my porous memory, so at least I can model all the parts accurately for others to learn. For those students who relate to it, the notation serves both to follow along closely when learning beat by beat, and to reference visually the single or multiple bars of a pattern.
The first set was hampered by our sangban player missing from sickness, replaced on the spot by a talented transplant from the samba group. It was going to be informal anyway, layering in part by part until the dun parts meshed, then adding in traditional and original djembe solos.
