The audacious absurdity of spectral analysis.
Also known as over thinking it.
Time to write, time to speak, time to create, time to take the odd moment.
Drums make sense in my brain.
They drive my soul. Playing them brings me joy. I love them. It’s not the thing, it’s the action.
They provide an endless amount of progression and learning. Endless means for mistakes. Beautiful serenity in endless creativity, pattern, song, and rhythm.
I’ve never thought of Photography like that. I like that. It’s a good approach.
Starting and stopping.
Timing is the passage of it. The clicking of the shutter. The image is the moment of thought. A beat.
The striking of a hammer, a feather lifted by the air, a stone weathered by the water, and a thought becomes aware.
Wait. Is that love?
I am a photographer, yes. I am also a drummer. I’m also a writer, a cook, a gamer, and a nerd. I’m also a film and television Set Dresser. I shamelessly danced to pop music this afternoon. I was peeling stickers, by myself. I love being alone, but I needed something to do. It’s part of the job. I’m not good with silence sometimes. Yet, I’m learning. Learning to dance while holding scissors. Hard work is good work.
I do know how to make noise, often foolishly. I’m convicted, I’m forgiven. Try again. Practice more. I love this way too.
What I’ve been practicing lately is understanding myself. No, this isn’t a journal entry. I’m very conscious that what I say here is public.
In the past I’ve been accused of being a lot of things. I understand now that really none of that matters. My identity isn’t found in what you think about me, what I do, or who you think I am. My best thinking brought me here. That means, if this is public, we need to clear some things up. Because clearly, I haven’t been clear with all of you. Things have been misunderstood.
Insanity is doing and thinking the same thing again and again and expecting a different outcome.
That’s why I stopped drinking. I’m very bad at it. I preferred to be isolated when I did. I tried to hide it. I stopped.
Yet, it’s no coincidence that for roughly the same time that I’ve spent learning to drum, I also spent drowning myself. Pain management is pain management. Depends on the person, depends on the pain.
I needed to change how I managed the pain of learning that I felt and shared. I needed serenity.
Serenity is found when we ask our God to grant it to us. That means accepting the things we can’t change (That we are flawed).
Then, to ask for the courage to change the things that we can change.
That’s tough sometimes.
The reason it’s tough is because real wisdom is understanding the difference between what you can change and what you can’t.
It’s not our right to change people. That right wasn’t given to us. We are just the spokespeople for something.
What that is, is what we are. It’s what we personally believe identity is found in. It’s the character we function in. That means we communicate. How and what we communicate is often the problem. I’m aware of that.
I’m trying to learn wisdom and honesty. Seldom are they learned apart. That means, if the current song has been on repeat, and you don’t enjoy it anymore, change the song. Play differently. Be the change that you want to see, be the hammer, be the feather, be the stone, be the water.
Try to manipulate the pattern, understand it. Never relent in your graceful learning and listening. Give grace to yourself for the mistakes you made along the way, because that’s how we learn, and then try to do it better. That’s called being human.
Be the musician, not the mimic. Understand when to give it a rest. Learn when to act.
I’ve been doing that for 26yrs. Still learning. I drum primarily on listening. I’ve been living for 44yrs. I live primarily by living, badly.
I listened to, and learned rhythm in church. Drumming with my palms, on the backs of cushion chairs. I have no formal music education but have recently discovered that I might have inadvertently learnt a very difficult type of poly rhythmic pattern making. I didn’t know what that ment 3 weeks ago.
My brain, once again doing interesting things, especially with enhanced learning and self control. Now that I’m aware of this, I’ve started treating my kit-learning differently. I drum when I feel like it. I write like that. Drum like that.
Drum solo. Then.
When you drum, drum with drummers. Drum with music. Create structured patterns for melody to flow.
Musicians tend to hear musicians.
Songs after all, are universal. So is the creator of them.
This was recorded yesterday, after a long shift at work. I sat down, picked up my sticks and hit record. One take.
I’m tired, I can tell. Mistakes, improvisation, and problem solving, that’s how I learned in the first place. It’s 14 min of song, learning, and improvisation.
It’s played on my kit you see here. I’m so thankful that my family put up with my “education”. I still need patience sometimes. I’m human. Please forgive me. Let’s just call that humanity.
