Living In Rhythm

One of my favourite things to say and, without sounding like the cliché I am not, live by, is this: Art inspires art. This goes for hearing a song and wanting to write good songs, or reading a book and wanting to write good books, or looking at a Monet and wanting to paint good paintings. Or seeing a painting and wanting to write a song. Et cetera and so on.

I have not been happy with the way I'm writing lately. Not necessarily the quality, but the speed and, shall I say, ease. There are many theories I have as to why, but I won't bore you with them here. It's just becoming increasingly harder and harder for me to sit down and write 10,000 words in a day. How dare my muse do this to me? (Tongue in cheek, folks...)

I often encounter artists whose work I listen to, read, or see, and think to myself, "I want to be as good at anything as he is at his craft." (Some examples: Just about any musician ever mentioned on this blog, John Green, Lawrence Hill, the guy who does chalk drawings on the sidewalk in downtown Ottawa.)

Think about it: If I was as good at writing words as John Mayer is at writing songs, I'd be a millionaire by now. Clearly it doesn't work like that. (Neither does wishful thinking, but I digress.)

I wanted background music to write to, simply because the silence was irritating me. I grabbed my headphones (honestly, if I'm going to listen to music, I want to hear it) and set myTunes to shuffle, figuring since I had no set mood, no desire to hear any specific song or artist, I'd just leave it up to my computer to decide.

Sometimes my computer makes good choices.

A song by one of, in my opinion, the best voices in country music came on about five songs in. The song is just vocal and piano, and it's about choosing a woman (and a life, really) over alcohol. The artist is Joe Nichols and the song is An Old Friend Of Mine. The song is brilliant, especially when you consider that Nichols actually did battle addiction.

Anyway, his voice.

You can't teach talent. You can't. You can shape it, hone it, build on potential. You cannot teach talent. Someone can either sing or they can't. Someone has natural artistic talent or they do not.

Joe Nichols' voice is a gift. From whom or where, I have no idea, but that doesn't really matter. Somehow, he drew the card to have a voice that sounds like that. Clear, clean, emotive. I'd almost say effortless.

This is how I feel about my writing. It's the one thing I do that comes naturally. Of course it takes thought and work, and like any other art form, there is a certain amount of evolution involved in the entire process, piece by piece as well as over an entire body of work. My ability to write is my gift.

So who's to say I won't eventually be as good at writing as Mayer is at lyrical turns of phrase? I'm not deluded enough to think that's even entirely possible, let alone for me, but why rule it out? Why think negatively and accept a reality which may not even be true, that having a talent that a lot of other people have for the same thing may mean I can't excel at it?

I honestly don't even know what I'm trying to get at here. I just had this really weird realization that writing less might mean writing better, and that maybe that whole evolution of the process thing is forcing me to take a step back and ask 'why?' A lot of whys.

Somehow that all ties into music, as just about everything does for me. I hope you can find a point here, because I really did, and now I'm going to try and make sense of that.

This post is archived under joe nichols, john mayer, writing

Hey, D'Angelo. It's me. Big fan. Just sitting here on a Sunday night, drinking wine and writing a bit. Have some music on. Neosoul: You, Maxwell, The RH Factor, Erykah. A little Anthony Hamilton, 'cause...Well, you know.

And Brown Sugar comes on.

You know what happens to me when Brown Sugar comes on? Aside from some Stevie Wonder-inspired head movements and putting my hand in the air? I think about how nice it'd be if you released some new music.

Look, I know you've got your problems; we all do. It's just that the music...That'll help you, won't it? I mean, someone of your talent doesn't just lose it. Sure, it's been a while and, for real, some people might have forgotten about you. But not all. Some of us still listen to Voodoo on our headphones and marvel at the near-perfection. Some of us think the climax of Send It On is possibly the best part of any song, ever.

Some of us are patiently waiting on James River. Great title, by the way. How's that coming along?

This post is archived under anthony hamilton, d angelo, erykah badu, maxwell, the rh factor

Yes. It is.

Badu makes some good points. She also makes incredible music. These are facts. I'm still trying to sort out my feelings from the show last night.

The basics: Badu was 35 minutes late, walked onto the stage like she was waiting for someone to come up and lick her shoes, and then sang the hell out of a few highlights from her huge body of work. I went to the show with a friend who had a Bluesfest pass and had no interest in seeing Badu (or any idea of who she was). As soon as Badu came on stage - before she'd sung a word - my friend turned to me and said, "I don't like her." I still don't know whether or not I've let this play into my perspective on the show.

The band was tight as hell. Possibly one of the best bands I've ever seen live. The bassist was a standout. R&B bass players are always ridiculously talented, but this guy was incredible, and fun to watch, too.

So, amazing band, great vocalist, awesome songs. Why am I on the fence?

I just keep wondering: At what point does extreme talent justify arrogance? Or rather: At what point does arrogance detract from extreme talent?

Certainly I think any premier artist is going to have a touch of arrogance, or at least be extremely self-assured. I don't think you can get to the point of being a premier artist without at least thinking once or twice, "I am the best at what I do." But when you start abusing the crowd's love of what you do, it becomes an issue.

Because, to me, when Badu took to the stage, I felt like she had spent the last 35 minutes knowing the crowd wouldn't care once she opened her mouth. Which, fine. Maybe, musically, she made up for being late. Maybe fans can grant forgiveness if she jams on Kiss Me On My Neck for 10 minutes. But should they have to?

No, they shouldn't.

I know the music's good. I know she's going to come on stage and blow the crowd away with her style and voice and presence. I don't feel part of that presence has to be an air of not giving a fuck that thousands of people spent their money and their Saturday night on her.

So yes, the show was amazing, and if I were a regular fan and not someone who overthinks everything - especially where music is concerned - I'd probably have left thrilled that she played the hits and went late and kept The Tragically Hip (who I loathe) off the stage for a good 20 minutes.

I still love the music. I just don't ever want that to play into an artist's sense of entitlement.

This post is archived under erykah badu

So, I've been thinking about love as it pertains to music. Not like, 'love songs' or 'breakup songs', or any kind of song, really.

We've all got those artists and songs, right? The ones that take you back to a certain relationship. Those songs are either difficult or really easy to listen to, depending on the memories they carry. For me, as someone who loves music, I think it's pretty telling, of all my relationships, that I've never really selected a 'song'. And not just because I think that's kind of lame. I just can't ruin a perfectly good song because I associated it with a bad relationship. Or at least a relationship that didn't deserve a good piece of music as its soundtrack.

I'm not so much talking about that kind of thing right now, though. I'm just talking about music, at any given moment, and the people you get to share it with.

What brought this on was my first listen to the Tedeschi Trucks Band's Revelator. I've been anticipating this album since I heard it was in the works, and then no music stores in Ottawa were carrying it (assholes) so I had to have it special ordered. I got it about two weeks after the release date, which sucked, but whatever.

As I was driving home from a night of hanging out with friends, I tore the plastic off the record and played it for the first time. As I'm sitting in my car, driving home in the dark, I started thinking to myself, "God, I wish I was listening to this record with someone right now." That's not meant to make me sound lonely or desperate; I am neither. It's just one of those situations where I love something so much that I want to share it with someone who will love it as much as I do.

I've since been thinking a lot about this, the idea of sharing a love of something with someone, in real time. I recommend books and music like nobody's business, but that's after I've read or listened and can riff off a list of reasons, quotes or songs or intricacies that make what I'm recommending a sure thing. That's not at all the same as sitting next to someone and hearing the line, "He was born to love me. I was raised to be his fool," for the first time. It's not like hearing a slide guitar and looking to the person on your right in the car and sharing that look; that look you have when something's amazing and two people recognize that at exactly the same moment.

This, of course, doesn't have to be a romantic love. I suppose it doesn't have to be a love at all, really. I guess I'm just the kind of person who doesn't really thinks it matters what you love, as long as you love something.

I don't know that any of this even makes sense. I guess I just want to experience more things in the presence of someone who understands exactly what we're experiencing together. Which means that I'll constantly be reminded of that person. Then again, given my track record, I'm starting to think I might not mind being reminded of that person. I've been pretty good at keeping people and music separate. Maybe the fact that I'm starting to want to put the two together means something more than I have even figured out yet.

This post is archived under derek trucks, susan tedeschi, tedeschi trucks band