I used to love to play. Now I love to record. Sometimes I stop and think how ridiculous this is, how utterly nutty, how dumb to just play on a recording machine. But I guess I just gave up finding people I enjoy playing with...and for decades now it's mostly been just sitting alone...playing one instrument at a time and quietly humming...never actually singing my heart out...just keepin' it all quiet, to myself.
So, well...it's just a ridiculous thing. I'd like a jam, but the more years and decades (yes even centuries...lol) that pass by, the pickier I get about who is fun to play with...and it's just nobody by this point. Thus the recording machine...sing yer heart out...play all th instruments...just however I can do it.
Then I get these days where I really wanna play and can't think of a doggone thing to play...I've played everything I know on youtube...I could try new stuff...or I could replay the old stuff, which I've done a few times already. But, the only way I feel like playing is on the recording studio...and I can't think of anything to play there. So I sit here wanting to play, and I'm just not playing at all...well I was practicing really hard stuff at night for a while but I finally got sleepy...lol...now I go to sleep at night again. That's it...what do you do when you'd love to just go down to the ol' store, grab a coke, sit down and sing with whoever's there and play along too? Not the prescription jams around here...where you have to follow all that stuff like they do...no...just people who sit down and feel like playing together...what does a groundhog do?
I think what you're doing is a special thing! I record everything. It's a snap shot in time that will outlast much longer than all of us ever will. I won't share everything but I get it! It's fun!
That's how I taught myself bass. Couldn't find anyone to play it so I learned and added bass to my recordings. It's also fun to share for me.
When my eldest son was a teenager, I used to make him accompany me on guitar, when the opportunity arose, which in truth wasn't that often. Since then, once in every several years - or decades, now - the opportunity arises again .... Recently, he was visiting, and we were able to sit down for half an hour or so to play some tunes - at his request(!). Now, he took up the bass early on, and hasn't played guitar much since those teenage years, and as far as I know, has never played with other fiddlers - but when we started playing, I realized that I'd forgotten how it feels to play with someone who really gets the music, even if they are not in other respects great players. And I realized how much I miss that. But I've given up trying to find anyone else who is willing and able to accompany, and can't be bothered getting into all the tech involved in recording. I was content with recording when you just put a cassette in the machine and pushed the 'record' button ... !
Keep it up Peggy! I'm telling you, it's worth doing and saving. I'm still searching for my "sound." Don't know if I'll ever find it. I know it's not the instrument, but I still get caught up chasing. "Wonder what it would sound like on a mandolin?" Wonder what it would sound like on . . . insert instrument name here? I have a jam or two, but I want to play more and different stuff than any particular jam. IOW, there's jam tunes and ten times more music. Then I get a yen to come up with my own stuff. I get it. More often it seem more of a curse than a blessing. It sort of drives one crazy. I had a very close friend that got frontal lobe dementia. He was a picker. Between Doc Watson, and Tony Rice. It is tragic. But when he was "with us," he said, he knew just enough to drive himself crazy. Although I'm far from his caliber, I know what he meant. I've met many local musicians similar. They chose the "responsible" route. Living lives of what on the face, looks average. I wish I knew a solution. Oh well, back to the basement.
I just love playing with people. The jams around me are picking up (both old time and Irish). That's how I get my practicing in, for the most part.
Thanks, guys…sometimes helpful just to know I’m not the only one…as a matter of fact, seems like I’m in good company.
Hmmm. I think I understand where Peggy is coming from, but then there's just no getting around the fact playing music with other folks just can't be replaced with electronic gadgets. Two words come to mind - "talking" and "conversation". Talking is something you can do by yourself and it's sorta' like playing into a Presonus machine. The ideas expressed come from you alone and can tend to go around in circles. Conversation is what happens when you talk to someone else, like what goes on in a jam hopefully involving the exchange of ideas which then influences the direction the conversation goes. Ok, maybe this doesn't happen at every jam but when it does that's when the magic happens.
All this said, I sure hope Peggy doesn't stop making her recordings. I love playing along with most of em' including those great jam tracks she so kindly provides. But, I'm also hoping she finds that local Saturday night jam down at the neighborhood general store many of us are also looking for.
hmm Peggy, I think that you find recording/playing all the parts artistically and creatively satisfying, because you can mold the music the way you want. And it sure does sound great! :-)
But playing with other people is socially satisfying and energizing, and maybe you miss that...
In an ideal world, we would have it all! We'd play with people who hear/envision the music the same way as us, want to play it in our style, like all the same songs, and are good musicians who add to the music just the way we want...that is, we would all play in Bands, with people we personally picked!
But I think for typical folks, you just have to give up some of your musical/artistic satisfaction to play with the average community group...I've played sitting next to people who are out of tune (urgh) and I've put in time learning tunes that I don't particularly like...but to me, it is still a joy in life to go out there and make some music together.
I think everybody has their personal "balance point" i.e. how much they're willing to conform / compromise for the sake of the group (mine is probably pretty low because I grew up playing in orchestras and never got any say in what to play, the conductor picked all the music.:-)
But I agree with RichJ...sometimes the "conversation" is like pure magic and better than your own "talking", for sure!
Edited by - NCnotes on 11/15/2022 18:20:35
I just think that wherever you find yourself in life, the music finds you, and makes it better. It doesn't fix anything, but whether there are other people near to play with or not, it just makes what you've got, better. If you didn't have the music, had never learned to need it, I guess I think sometimes about how much poorer we'd all be.
I guess there's a growing prevalence of nihilism. (nothing exists, nothing matters, etc., etc.) The wonderful thing is that Music flies in the face, and stands as a substantial argument against nihilism. Matters not if you're simply listening, or playing, or composing, one is wading in the same river. It's meaningful! Physiologically good for you! Mentally good for you. Yes, I sometimes have to remind myself or the affirmation tends to ward off the not-so depressing, more futility of the act. Most of the time it's brought on buy them that don't value it as we do. Yep, back to the basement!
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