engagement

[maribou]

For a concatenation of reasons, at last night's rehearsal I found myself sight-reading first alto sax parts on tunes I'd only ever once played even second alto sax parts on (and playing them by myself because I was the only alto sax in the room). And the thing about first parts, as any musician knows, is that they are chock full of little solos. And during one such solo, one that was tricky enough that I only understood it about half way through, the 'observer' part of my brain and the 'actor' part of my brain were on different enough tracks that I was feeling two sets of emotions at once. To translate emotional impulse into speech: actor went something like 'buh, hm, whee, ok, now l really should be having more fun and raunching this up, ah yes, there, just there, oh baby, mm' and observer passed through, 'meep, gah, augh, aaaaaaa... wait, this is coming out okay, huh, how'd that happen, not bad'. I think I must just have been flipping back and forth between the two sets so quickly that it seemed duetted, right? But then there was a part of my brain that was watching both these tracks and peering in fascination at the way yet another part was taking care of the grunt work like counting, embouchure, etc, and yet another part still was having a complete adrenaline breakdown and kicking as hard as it could at the 'flight' triggers and being frustrated that nobody was listening to it.......

I love making music for so many reasons - but I'd forgotten that one of them is how hard it pulls at my brain. I talk a lot about harmony, about being part of a whole and transcending my insides and like that (okay, maybe I don't talk about it much to you lot, but that's because I have talked about it, in my head and out loud, So Many Times that I am convinced the world must be heartily sick of such chatter by now) - I forget sometimes what a colossal ego I have dancing around in here, and how much I love complications. I sing a lumper's song, all synthesis and warm fuzzies, and I mean it when I sing it, really I do, but in my secret heart there also lives a splitter of splitters, a plotter and a cutter and a specifier and a judge like you wouldn't believe.

So, yes, I've been playing in a band all fall, and yes, it makes me happy because I can be part of a whole, and because it exposes me to delightful fellow musicians of all adult ages, and because music is sure awful pretty now, ain't it, and any contribution I can make to a whole which warms people's hearts and makes the agèd dance in the aisles is a contribution worth making.

But I also love it because it's hard and it's scary and it makes my heart rush faster and sometimes I feel awkward and embarrassed and sometimes I feel the same exhilaration I used to feel back in the days when I jumped off walls a lot, the exhilaration that comes when you do something stupid and beyond your grasp, but you manage to stick it anyway, just there, and walk away with a smirk on your face that says you know the people watching you are surprised that you just did that, and with such aplomb. Only nowadays, I think the audience I'm most trying to impress is the chorus in my own head.

Comments

[entelein.livejournal.com]

Dude.