You Don’t Apply for the Bass Job
I was reading something about music last night, as I couldn't sleep. No idea why. Generally, writing about music is poop emoji-- kills the vibe altogether. But the question that keeps coming back into my mind is: why, why, why make new music? Why keep going? Why the burning desire?
Is it ego? Is it stupidity? Is it refusal to dig through the huge, never-ending, infinite pot of music that's already been made?
And while I still don't have an answer for this, I think in large part, as a composer, the act of creation is the thing. Making something that was not something before is a pretty incredible feat to me.
It's like faces. How are there still so many different faces? Like when you see someone that you haven't seen before. Maybe they remind you of somebody, but you know you haven't seen a face exactly like that. And there are billions. I don't know how it's possible. I don't know the geometrics of it.
So as a composer, you can have your reasons. Like, hey, I'm gonna release this. Hey, I'm doing music for a film or TV show. Or I've got this idea that I'm exploring. There's thousands, millions of different reasons. The reasons don't seem to end.
But the ability to continually make something.
Take, for instance, my 15-minute house/chill sets, the dub techno stuff that I do every week. I'm always fascinated uploading those because I drop them into the algorithm of YouTube and they don't get flagged copyright wise--totally unique, apparently. Then I listen a few days later, and I do remember making it, but it's also super surprising because they're 15 to 20 minutes long and I don't remember what's coming next because it's improvised.
And not that much has changed on the set over the past months. I would say a surprising amount hasn't changed. It is largely--not self-generative, but I've set up conditions where these things I've set in motion will do certain things. Some of that's unpredictable. And that's also creation.
So reason number one — and maybe this is an ongoing series — is that the creation is the thing. And I enjoy it. vI don't know why someone would make music if they didn't enjoy this part. But they are out there.
I've never not wanted to be a musician, but of course young JD was interested for some of the wrong reasons. I just saw myself on stage or talking to people or framed in a situation where I was no longer the weird-looking brown kid with an afro. I was still that kid, but I also played bass.
And it took me so many years to figure out that you didn't just go apply for the bass job and get it. You had to work. And at almost 55, I'm still working on that- daily.
Which again, if you can't find something enjoyable about the discovery of practice, I don't know how you do it.
I'm in a Grateful Dead cover band. It's not one of my main bands, but it's been this huge gift because I have so much to learn. Every time I think I've knocked something down, busted through the wall, I find a whole other house behind it and I've gotta go figure out what that's all about.
God bless it all.