Sometimes I feel like I’m looking for a reason to feel sorry
for myself. Like no matter how good things are, I’m looking for something I can
complain about. I was talking today to the music director about how he’s been
high strung recently. I told him that stressors are all relative. It’s natural
to want to complain about stuff, and our brains naturally look for things that
we want to be improved upon. It's an evolutionary drive we have built into us; don't get content, keep hunting and gathering. If we don’t have big problems, we look for little
ones. If we don’t have little problems, we look for things that annoy us and so
on. I am trying to remember that I have it pretty nice out here, and that I
have a tendency to be discontent about things no matter what. I mean, I’m being
paid to play music and be on vacation…
Things here have really improved work wise. I’ve already
started to memorize some of the charts we play, the production shows are pretty
much under my belt, and the karaoke is kinda a joke. The guests are starting to
be really receptive to what we’re doing. Every set we play now has at least a
few people dancing; the Motown sets at night are especially rewarding because
everyone is up and enjoying it. I’ve been talking to P about maybe getting a
short jazz set going once a week. I would really like some room to improvise
and actually make some music instead of reading notes off of paper. I don’t
know how receptive the rest of the musicians will be, but it’s definitely worth
a shot.
The whole band has congratulated me at this point, saying
that my improvement has been impressive. It was a scary two weeks with the band
complaining about me and not feeling good about the things I was playing. For the
past two years, I’ve really ignored the drum set and branched out to other
instruments. I lost a lot of my chops in that time, and it feels good to be
getting them back. The things I hear in my head are transferring to my limbs
more and more, and even if I don’t have much room to improvise, when I do the
ideas I have are more nuanced and tasteful then they have ever been.
Honestly though, even with all the improvement, leaving is
still on my mind. Seeing my friends in Mexico was really a wake-up call. A and
I talked about how we were getting bored with being vagabonds; how we’re sick
of uprooting ourselves every few months and starting from scratch. Being here,
while it is an easy and laid back lifestyle, is ultimately empty and does
nothing for my future except give me a story to tell my grandchildren. I'm ready
to work towards something. Being here
is a good for incubating ideas, I have a lot of time to think or just let my
brain subconsciously work out problems. Hopefully, when this is all done, I'll have a better idea of what's next.
I’ve been watching a lot of the boondocks these days. Breaking
Bad got super intense for me. I was watching three or four episodes a day and
now I need to spend a bit of time away from it. Also, I have about 100 games,
but none of them are really holding my interest right now. I’ve been re-reading
This is Your Brain on Music, I can’t
recommend that book enough, if you like music, it’s a must read.
Not much to report really. Being comfortable with work has
made things boring and uneventful. See ya.
No comments:
Post a Comment