Fears Erased: the mini bucket list

 

I stumbled upon this photo a few months ago, and it's been lurking around in the back of my mind, just waiting for the right time to meet the blog.  
 

According to this site, the photo was originally taken by Gabe Kirchheimer, to document a site specific art installation at the Burning Man Festival in 2006.

 

 

  

Gabe Kirchheimer

 

There's something so powerful to me about the idea of exposing your fears by revealing them on a public wall for a day, and then - literally, in this case - wiping the slate clean. 

So...I suppose I'm going to doing something pretty similar right here.

Here's a small scale bucket list of a couple things I'd like to work on over the next few months.  

1)  Can't have anyone over syndrome:

It's a fact that I have a herd of huge canines, an old house with lots of, um, charm,  and a mighty casual attitude toward housekeeping.  As a result the house is always a little cluttered,  and in need of a vacuum and dust.  We're not talking about an episode of Hoarders or anything, but it can get a little funky.  Somehow that morphed into a worry that if it's not perfect, then no one will want to come over, or they won't enjoy themselves.  In reality, if you're already quirky enough to be my friend, or stuck being one of my family members, then you're probably not going to be too put out by a little dog hair.  I'm planning a few very low-key get togethers, with paper plates and Solo cups, dang it. 

 

Will you come over if I promise to keep the Great Danes' noses out of your food while you're sitting on the couch?

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy."

Dale Carnegie

 

 

2) I stink at percussion. 

Or I thought I did...until I actually tried it a month or so ago.  

While at a music camp, during a late night jam session, I grabbed some kind of wooden percussion instrument  that was on stage, and started banging away.  First time ever.  I have no idea whether my playing was good or bad, and don't much care because It was a blast. It was a great way to be part of the groove onstage, without the worry of fumbling for notes or key signatures.  

 

 

So I just signed up for a 5 week djembe class with this group.  

A djembe is a West African hand drum, which can produce a wide variety of tones and sounds.  More info here.  My hope is that learning some more about the rhythm side of music through percussion will end of being good for my learning curve on the bass. 

 

Try a thing you haven’t done three times. Once, to get over the fear of doing it. Twice, to learn how to do it. And a third time to figure out whether you like it or not. Virgil Thomson

3) What's the biggest fear of most Americans?  Yep, public speaking.  
So I'm going to do a slightly different  take on public speaking; I'm going to get my novice self up on a stage a local blues jam and just jump on into the deep end!  
How?  I'm picking one standard blues song to conquer enough to feel comfortable with.  I've got some tentative time frames in mind; we'll see how this idea shakes out.

When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.

Henry David Thoreau

What would you do to challenge yourself a little bit? 
To stand down some small scale  but lingering worries or anxieties?

 
To live in the world of creation—to get into it and stay in it—to frequent it and haunt it—to think intensely and fruitfully—to woo combinations and inspirations into being by a depth and continuity of attention and meditation—this is the only thing. – Henry James, Notebook entry.
 

Voodoo and Psychos

As Halloween winds down, I thought I'd share two more rockabilly songs by a one of my favorite contemporary artists, Imelda May and Mayhem.  One of the things I love about her music is that Imelda and the gang draw from jazz and blues to color their brand of rockabilly.  

I hope you enjoy them....
For additional information, you can also visit her Facebook page here.
 

 It's Your Voodoo Working

Psycho

Until I'm Dust

 In honor of Halloween and the return of the Walking Dead, 

how about a sweet little love song...

with an edge?  

From the boisterous and lovely Kim Lenz and the Jaguars.

For more information on Kim Lenz see here, and her official Facebook page here.

I'm a zombie zombie zombie for your love.
I'm a zombie zombie zombie for your love.

I've lost all sense of reason,
I've no will of my own.
Have you I must.
You know I'm just 
a zombie for your love. 

I crave your flesh
You know I'm just 
a zombie for your love.

Until I'm dust
You know I'm just
a zombie for your love.


When I grow up (ahahaha), I want to play Rockabilly. 
There's always been something about the twangy guitars, the upbeat Texas swing tempo, and - good god - the slap bass that holds an awful lot of appeal.

Arguably, the most commonly known modern rockabilly group of the last 30 years is the Stray Cats, but actually there's a huge rockabilly subculture, and host of current bands pursuing the tradition. 

There's a rockabilly hall of fame.
There are rockabilly blogs: here and here.
There are online rockabilly guitar lessons.  (Yummy Gretsch guitar as a bonus!)
And here's a UK take on the ethos and culture.
This is just a tiny sampling of all the rockabilly culture. Go out and find - or better yet - create more in your own corner of the world.

Spooked

With Halloween right around the corner, I've been thinking about scary stuff.  Or, more specifically, about the things that scare us.  

Some fears are completely rational, and paying attention to them can make a difference in our very ability to survive: primal, and oftentimes hardwired fears like fear of dark places, and fear of threats to our physical body. 



Because let's face it, there are plenty of real life things to be afraid of. 

Then there are the other kind of fears.
The irrational, or at least less-than-rational ones.
Sometimes they are conditioned or learned behavior - from others or from our own past experiences. Sometimes they are coping mechanisms that are born out of our  inability to control situations that arise.  (There's a great overview of rational and irrational fears, and their physical manifestations here.)

Some of these thoughts about fears came to mind today, after texting back and forth with one of my new buddies from Bass and Nature Camp.  When I decided to go to camp last spring, I was a newbie with only about  6 months of bass experience under my belt.  I'd been intrigued by the general idea of combining music instruction with nature study, and I thought I knew a reasonable amount about Victor Wooten, although I couldn't claim to be a long-time fan.  The best thing I did beforehand was to read his book, The Music Lesson. (You can read here about the fantastic time I had at camp.)

Thank heavens for naivete!  
Once I got home from camp, I dug a little deeper and learned more about Victor and the many instructors and special guests at camp. Once I realized the wealth of literally world class talent and the depth of  experience of the people there, it amazed and freaked me out all over again. 

But.
What if my fears - of being a beginner, which essentially means being unskilled and, to a degree, unaware - what if that overrode my desire to go?  

What if I'd missed out on the whole, life-changing experience because I didn't want to look silly or feel embarrassed? Fear of failure can be enormously powerful.  What it that had held me back?

Honestly, at only six months of experience, I did make mistakes. 
Quite a bunch.  
There was a lot that I didn't know - and still don't.  

All the same, the rewards from the experience far outweigh the embarrassment of the goof ups - in the classes, or, yikes, on stage. (Yep, this beginner bass player got rattled and, among other things, lost 'The One' in my final performance. That's something that bass players are definitely not supposed to do. Just ask Bootsy Colllins about it.) 

You could say that I failed, but I feel like I succeeded.

So with the spookfest of Halloween looming ahead, I've decided to give myself a small fear challenge. For the next few months, I'm going to chip away at a couple of things that scare me a little, or make me feel anxious or awkward, and...see what happens.

Tune back in this week to see what makes the fear challenge bucket list.

Verity

"You are the music while the music lasts. "
T. S. Eliot

I'm having fun shifting the emphasis in this statement:

You are the music while the music lasts.
You are the music while the music lasts.
You are the music while the music lasts.

If you and music are interchangeable, then what is your song?

And what will you do to make sure that your song lasts?

Now, Wait, WHO'S the Boss?

More of the joys of being a student....

Despite the fact that the typical electric bass 'only' has four strings, it poses several challenges to my coordination.  Just like many other string instruments, it requires that your right and left hands do very different but related tasks.  On bass, the most common technique has the right hand plucking the strings, and the proper form is to alternate between index and middle fingers when you pluck.. 


You might be amused to discover just how difficult that can be when you're still a novice.  It's a very common struggle for novice bass players to master; most of the time you're so wrapped up in whether the left hand fingers are landing in the correct positions on the strings that you don't give much conscious thought to the right hand.

So a few months back, during a particularly rocky and uncoordinated  lesson with my bass teacher, Jim felt the need to straighten me out about something.  

His words of wisdom:  
"Ultimately, you're the boss of  your hands.  Your fingers have to do what you tell them to!"

Lucky for me, I took that statement the way it was intended - humorous and...true.
I can't say that my fingers are listening to me (yet), but every now and then, when I remember to check my form while playing, those words come back to me and completely crack me up!
The humor helps take the edge off the frustration sometimes.

Serenades, revisited

I've been reminded lately that it's not always easy and certainly not always comfortable to be a student.
And there's nothing quite like pursuing a new skill to keep you humble.  

A week or so ago I posted about King Curtis' song 'Soul Serenade', and my attempts to tackle the sheet music for it.  Well....

I brought the music to my teacher last week, and I found out a couple new things:

Carol Kaye

 - As it turns out, that particular treasure map was for a very specific version of the song, one with a lot of fills and flourishes, and not the version I had in mind.  My teacher transcribed the 'my' version.
- It's in a different key.
- I get to learn some new neighborhoods on the fretboard, as in, there's a bunch of new-to-me notes.
- It's a  pretty simple bass line that will give me the chance to practice slower pacing between some notes.    Slower, consistent rhythm is a challenge for me.
- As someone with child-sized hands, there's a couple stretches on fretboard that will give my pinky a workout.  
- Sometimes, when I get frustrated, I wonder why in the world I'm doing all this....

In the plus column, I'm learning how to play one of my current favorite songs, which is just plain fun.

I wish I was progressing faster, but you know what?  
Every little step forward that I make feels great, and it sure feels like I've earned it.

And as it turns out, adults who decide to take up music have some advantages, according to this 2008 NPR article, 'Never Too Late to Learn an Instrument'.
"They can see and hear things in the music that completely escape children." 
One adult student "... spends hours analyzing the music before he sits down to play it. He wants to understand the chords and rhythm and structure of the piece, to figure out what the composer is trying to say." 
  
Kim Gordon


Here's another encouraging article about picking up an instrument later in life, from Kennedy Violins Blog. 

Now, please excuse me while I go practice some more.... 
I've got some inspiring women bass players to live up to.