So You Find Yourself in a Jam

06/05/2024

Team Blue,

If you're anything like me, you like music. You like the thing that it does - structure time through rhythm, coordinate and self-reference its own past, present and future through lyric, make hum the very air through the mathematically and, somehow, aesthetically pleasing patterns of vibration.

The original vibes, as it were.

And if you're anything like me, you can't help but participate. In your head, if nothing else, reproducing and coordinating with and responding to the melody. In your body, if nothing more, as the rhythm finds its place within you and vibrates out, resulting in a tap of the toe or the alternating quickness of hands on the steering wheel.

For most of us, participating in music is a private act. We sing while we are alone in our cars, tap our foot under our breath while waiting in line at the store. We re-create music in our own heads in a way that somehow makes sense to us, the vibrations and pulses of any music lucky enough to find its way into our ears.

I guess what I'm saying is, you're an old hand at this.

You've played music before. Maybe not with an instrument, but those are so far down the evolutionary rabbit hole as to be derivative of music rather than its cause. No, there is no need to instrumentalize music. When humans first encountered music - some might say discovered, some might say created - it was not because they found, out in the wild (such as it all was in those days), a stringed lute, a harmonically carved flute, or a skin stretched taught and resonant across a wooden frame, tightened to a tuned pitch. No, they found none of these things. They instead found their own body, with its throat and mouth and lungs well acquainted with our pressurized atmosphere and capable of making an entire continuum of distinct vibrations. They found their hands and their feet, able to strike with temporal precision, a slap upon the chest, a stomp upon the dry dusty ground.

That was the first music - our first music, at least. Music of exactly this sort is everywhere to be found in the world around us. Consider the acrobatic lyric or rhythmic roll of the bird, the distant howl or meek chirp of the mammal. Consider the breaching of the fish, or the universal drone of the insect.

If you're anything like me, you've sat with the dawn chorus and joined in, made a rhythm upon your thighs, singing a known or unknown song with all the rest of life - "I am here, and this is now."

But suddenly, you find yourself in a jam.

You are wherever you happen to be, and music is happening. Perhaps recorded and replayed from a bygone time, or perhaps being created right this very now by human beings in your presence. You can't help but participate, you re-create the music in your head, react and respond to melodies, vibrate pre-consciously in your body. Your toe begins to tap.

But wait! I don't know how to play music!

As we have already established, phooey. You've been participating in music your whole life. Privately, sure; spontaneously, mostly; untutoredly, likely. You've been finding yourself in a jam your whole life, and always participated. Couldn't help but.

What stops you now?

I won't presume to answer the deeper version of that question, but on a simpler level, on a more - ahem - instrumental level, the answer may be twofold.

First, you're flying blind, with an intuitive rather than explicit knowledge of the count and the notes. You can't tell your A from your B from your C, though you've sung them. You can't tell your One from your Two from your Three, though you've hit them. You could use a little familiarity with that most human tool, the conceptual framework.

Second, you may just need some experience. Not experience participating in music, per se - again, as we have already established, you know what you're doing and you've done it before. Experience participating in group music making, live, living, in the room, we are here, and this is now.

Well, do I have an opportunity for you!

On two consecutive Sundays, join us in the barn for a Rhythm and Vocal Workshop.

Day One, Sunday, June 16 from 1-4pm, we will begin to learn the conceptual framework. We will learn the notes and how to find them. We will learn the beats and how to count them. We'll pick up some basic building blocks and practice working with them, developing them as chops. We'll even play some musical games to practice our coordination. We'll go home with music stuck in our heads, vibrating in our bodies, more consciously aware of what we are doing the next time we tap our toe to our favorite song.

Day Two, Sunday, June 23 from 1-4pm, we will gain experience - participatory musicmaking experience. We'll get together in the barn for a mutual recital, collectively demonstrating the things we learned in Day One, spontaneously making music as a group. We'll practice listening - the most important element of group musicmaking - and demonstrate to ourselves that the basic building blocks can be applied anywhere. As I am fond of saying, it's amazing how easy it is to make good music. All you have to do is participate.

Your hosts for these events are myself, occasional rhythmist, and Camela Widad, noted vocalist.

Come for one, come for both, and be prepared to have your life enhanced by a memorable experience.

RSVP here. All ages welcome if ready to be engaged. 

Count me in,

Twin Crix