Cape Cod Acoustics

OK, I'll admit it. For decades I've tried to write songs and have crashed and burned each and every time. I'm totally aware of why this has happened time and again. My personal standards. i.e., what I expect of myself are most likely way too high. It seemed like everything I wrote came out like D-class James Taylor or Paul Simon. It was embarrassing and with one small recent exception, no one ever heard my efforts.
But that began to change just a bit a couple years ago when I read Jeff Tweedy's wonderful book "How to Write One Song." I've always loved his music and his book is self-deprecating, often funny but also encouraging. "Hey, maybe I can do this...." is what he wants your starting point to be. He offers many great ideas and writing techniques and everything he says makes perfect sense.
One small glimmer of light I should note. I have about two dozen or so pieces of music I've written and recorded with the idea that maybe, just maybe a couple of them will serve as foundations for lyrics. So, I guess my problem is not really writing songs, it's writing lyrics.
Once in a while I get students who are very interested in how songs are created and we discuss it at length based on what we've read or heard by famous songwriters. So many fascinating concepts are there if you look for them. To me, one of the most fascinating is the idea of cooperative writing. It blows my mind that musicians who don't normally play together but are friends can get together for the express purpose of writing, and from everything I've read they seem to love the process. Wow. My reaction to this is always: these people must really, really trust each other. To reveal deep inner thoughts, to not be afraid to fail, to blossom with the encouragement of another person....I'm convinced only certain people can do those things.
About a month ago Kathy and I were down in Dallas visiting our son Matt and his wife Alli. One of the areas we always love to wander around is the Bishop Arts District. There are dozens of very cool little shops, cafes, restaurants, bars (often with live music) and much more. One of the definitely funky shops we always check out is a must-do because you just never know what you might find beyond the dozens of pairs of used cowboy boots, vintage clothing, old and sometimes bizarre knick-knacks and much more. This time I noticed a big old bowl filled with random very old black and white photos. With absolutely nothing in mind or any purpose I began sifting through the hundred or so old photos. One, quite small but in good condition caught my eye. I looked at it closely, including the pencil note on the back where someone had written: "Aug 15, 1947.    When Walt & Chris married"
Who knows why, but it struck me. There was an amazing amount of small details that instantly had me intrigued. Walt and Chris are standing close together with two dogs at their feet, nose to nose, almost like the hounds were meeting for the first time. The newly married couple seem to be dressed modestly but in their Texas-best, especially Walt in his freshly pressed pants and cowboy hat. Leaning against the modest but tidy ranch house are a pair of crutches. Showing the picture to one of my students he remarked: I know what those crutches are there. Look at Chris's right leg. She had polio at some point in her life.
And lo and behold, I'm sure he's right.
They are not young people. The empty corral behind the ranch house with the plains stretching out beyond made me wonder: Was - or is - Walt a cowboy? If so, where is his horse? In a barn we don't see, perhaps. Or maybe his riding days are long gone.
Chris wears a modest dress and upon looking closely with a magnifying glass, she seems to be smiling slightly. How did they meet? Did she work in town in a bank or a livery where Walt did business?
We'll never know who took the picture. Could it have been a child from a previous marriage or perhaps a close relative of one of the newly married couple? Are there more people out of camera range? Again, we'll never know.
One of my long-term students has been attempting some original music over the last couple of years. I've offered suggestions and with each effort her results have improved and matured. She is very creative and when I suggested we dive into a song about Walt and Chris she has very psyched, as I was. For the last month we've been throwing ideas back and forth and slowly but surely the song is emerging. I remembered a piece of music I wrote and recorded a couple years ago and upon listening to it for the first time since I came up with it, I thought....yes. That's it.
We still have some polishing to do but we're in agreement about the "tone" of the lyrics, a rough approximation of the intro/verse/chorus/bridge/outro sequence and how important it is to avoid cliches. It would of course be pretty easy for it to be a basic country tune but we're trying to not totally take that route. Because, quite frankly, I feel like there is a lot more going on in that old photo than meets the eye and I just don't want to do an injustice to Walt and Chris, even though I will never meet them. We'll see what happens but I'll tell you this - it sure is fun! I may even post the finished product. When it's ready.
Peace & good music,
Gene

For a whole boatful of reasons, no one I know gets to put in the practice time they'd like. That certainly describes Yours Truly. My excuses are even more lame (no pun intended) over the last month due to being mostly house-bound as I drag around a cast that runs from just below my knee to halfway down my foot. While I've been able to continue teaching, that's pretty much the extent of my physical activity. Lesson prep and transcribing new songs for myself and some for my students at least allows me to not feel that the last month has been a total waste of time. But practice - honest challenging myself to work on things I absolutely SHOULD be practicing, um, no. That didn't happen.
 
Just in the nick of time and totally by accident a classical guitarist/teacher who sends me various dispatches from his world touched on the value of "ear practice." He highly recommends listening hard to pieces he may or may not know from a music student's perspective. What instruments are present? Do the player or players stretch the rhythm a bit at certain points to accentuate dramatic passages? Or are they strictly on the beat because the piece has always been played that way? Does the song remind you of other songs by the same artist or others and if so, why? He also stresses that those questions and many more can and should be asked about any type of music, not just classical guitar stuff.   
 
I'm frequently asked by students if there is any beneficial way to strengthen their hands and at the same time enhance flexibility without actually playing their guitar. Over the years many devices have come (and gone) on the market to help guitarists do just that. About the best thing I've found is a simple foam rubber-type ball. This type of ball has just enough "give" to make it feel good to squeeze and although I can't scientifically prove using one improves your guitar playing but it seems logical that it must, to some degree. I keep one in my car and one in the room where I watch TV so I can mindlessly squeeze and release it. Many years ago, I knew players who swore by those triangular hand exercisers that are designed for athletes who need to maintain a good grip on things like baseball bats, tennis racquets and golf clubs. I bought one a long time ago but found it too tight and downright painful with frequent use so I abandoned it.
 
In recent years I've been forcing myself to improve my posture, both when sitting and standing. Good posture is a vital part of playing and singing well. It fosters productive and unincumbered breathing, which helps encourage relaxation. This is something I wish I'd done many decades ago. Like most guitarists, throughout my playing life I've unconsciously hunched over the body and neck of my guitar to see where my fingers are on the fretboad. A much better strategy is to hold the body of the guitar absolutely flat against my belly and chest. Yes, you still will have to look over the neck to some degree but relying on your ear and muscle memory of the various hand and finger angles rather than totally depending on their placement relative to the frets via your eyesight is a hugely valuable skill to master. So these days I make a serious effort to sit up straight, keep my head back and drop my shoulders when sitting in a chair or driving my car. Trying to unlearn hunching over the guitar is not easy but I'm beginning to see some positive results.
 
The most important component in all music is rhythm. If it's not there it doesn't matter how many fancy licks you can play, without a steady beat that's all they are - random samples of notes without purpose. All popular music (in order to be popular) has lots of repetition in terms of chord sequences, individual chord changes and mostly identical verses in terms of length and chords with a chorus that comes around again and again. There may be a bridge, which is a short section that is different than the verse and chorus. This is no accident. The more the songwriter can make you remember a song in the shortest amount of time, the more likely it is that you'll be able to recognize it and decide if you like it - or not. When a song comes on the radio while you're driving, try to count the beats before a noticeable change comes along. Then, when the next verse begins try to predict when that change will occur again. If you do this a lot, when you dive into a new song you want to learn it's likely you'll find it easier to make your chord changes at places that just sound "right." And they probably are!
 
Closing my eyes and imagining the guitar neck in my hand with my fingers moving between invisible chords and single note phrases is definitely not a waste of time, even if it looks a bit silly when I'm doing it. Sometimes I hum the melody to the song as I'm doing this, which helps my hands move to their approximate positions (assuming of course that I have the chords of the song memorized).
 
If you tend to like organization in your life, think about what worked and what didn't the last few times you sat down to play. Write stuff down if you're afraid you might forget. Think about jumping right into a song or an exercise that is a bit challenging rather than just sitting down and noodling through some chords or riffs - the same ones you've been playing for years. Taking an immediate chance with a challenging piece of music is especially valuable if you are like me and I suspect the majority of players who just automatically begin by playing a sequence or even just a few of the same old chords. Yes, I know, that's stress free and don't we all want to sound good, if even for just ourselves? Problem is, doing that every time you sit down to play can easily put your creative urges on the back burner. Not only that, when you do decide to try something more challenging and creative you have trouble abandoning that back burner....because it's safe there! To break the habit of the same old, same old riffs and chords when you begin playing it helps a LOT to have a game plan, which is another thing to think about and construct while you're sitting in a car or at the breakfast table or on a bench in a park somewhere.   
 
What this all comes down to is the simple fact that you CAN be developing habits that will improve your playing even if there isn't a guitar in sight. Sure, there is no absolute guarantee this practice without your guitar thing will yield quick results and it just might produce very little that creates a straight line to better playing. But I can guarantee it's a lot more satisfying than paying attention to politics or trying to justify paying seven dollars for a cup of coffee at Starbucks!
 
Peace & good music,
Gene

Lately I've noticed quite a bit of shade thrown at my generation, now generally known as the Boomers, those born in the "baby boom" after World War II. That designation is generally applied to those of us born between 1946 and 1964, covering a slightly wider range than those labeled at Gen X'ers, Millennials and those even younger. There seems to be a growing belief that we had it easy. On the surface, I can certainly understand what they are saying. For many it was a time of seemingly no limits to what we could achieve and opportunities were everywhere if put in the effort to achieve them. Television shows like "Father Knows Best," "Ozzie and Harriet," "The Jackie Gleason Show," "The Andy Griffith Show" and many others purported to reflect our own families, if not in total reality but in ways that usually had elements with which we could relate. It was a time when it was possible for our parents to have jobs that were secure with the potential for advancement and maybe even work for the same company until retirement. Father was the breadwinner and it was possible to earn a living wage for his family; no need for Mom to go out and work, and her "job" was to maintain a happy, safe and nurturing home. 

But now appears a growing number of Millennials and Gen X people look at the state of our world and our country and their own lives and say: You Boomers are in charge and have been for a while. Why the hell did you let things get to where they are now? How did all your altruism that you were so proud of morph into complacency? Is it simply a case of something like - "I've got mine and I worked hard for it. That's what you need to do! Get your eyes off your f'n phone and do something constructive!"

OK, all that is a grossly inadequate and simplistic way to explain our present reality from a Boomer's point of view and that of some younger people. Beyond that, to a person of color who grew up in the 1950s and 60s all the above could very well have zero relevance. In a very roundabout way this leads me to where I should be in this blog - talking about music.

A local musician I know posted a very interesting question on social media: Should a performer's political persuasion factor into whether or not he or she gets a gig? And the follow-up question: Should a bar or restaurant owner's political beliefs factor into whether or not a performer will even want to play at their establishment? As you might imagine, there were some very strong opinions expressed on BOTH questions. Without getting into the politics that caused those questions to be asked in the first place, I have been trying to figure out what I would do if there was no way to avoid them.

I consider myself to be part of a subset of the Boomers. In my formative teenage years many of my peers began questioning the validity of the values our parents hoped to instill in us. Injustice, lies from those in charge and the "America - Love It or Leave It!" doctrine seemed to be engulfing us. A foreign war in a place most of us had never heard of was claiming lives at an ever-increasing rate. That war was being fought in large part by young Americans whose socioeconomic reality didn't offer a way to avoid it, thanks to the draft. Some went willingly, in the beginning anyway.

At the same time, as has always been the case the arts were one of the first places where questions were raised as the harsh light of the reality began to shine. Famous rock and folk musicians began writing, recording and performing songs that addressed the inequality and injustice. Many of those songs were soon learned and covered by local musicians performing in small and large venues. I would venture that the majority of my peers who took up the guitar in the 1960s learned to play Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" as one of their very first songs. 

This was not the case everywhere. In parts of America where country music was overwhelmingly popular, just the opposite was happening. Almost without exception the voices in country music viewed any questioning of national policy as unpatriotic at the very least and their music reflected that view. More importantly, their fans agreed with their message.

Both sides made passionate and increasingly angry music to make their points and their music was learned and played by both recreational musicians and those who played in local establishments. The reactions of listeners were equally passionate, both for and against what they heard.

What I'm saying is this: What musicians face these days is not new. But things have changed. Regardless of one's political persuasion there is one thing on which I think we can all agree: Our country and our Constitutional democracy are being tested as never before. The rest of the world is watching with either fear or hope that what happens here will have a direct effect on them, too.

Musicians are just like everyone else. They have deeply-held beliefs but they also have the power to express those beliefs that most non-musicians do not have. Should they use that power in a way that leaves little doubt which side of the divide they inhabit?

In my view, no. I know some will vehemently disagree. But in the end, you will most likely find yourself in one of two places, either despised by those who do not share your views or "preaching to the converted." Both places are a waste of your time and effort. The idea that being preached at via a song will force the listener to have some kind of epiphany and change their point of view in any substantive manner speaks more to the performer's ego than anything else.

Artists have always felt the need to express themselves though their chosen medium and sometimes to comment to a greater or lesser degree on what they see around them. I hope this is always the case. It's up to the viewer or listener to decide whether or not they want to pay attention and accept or deny the validity of the artist's vision. 

Music, in its purest sense, transcends just about any experience we mere mortals can have. Allowing yourself to fully embrace that transcendence makes decisions about what's right and what's wrong much easier to make. Those decisions are deeply personal and need no justification, just a clear and open mind. 

​Peace & good music,
Gene