solo gig

Last night I played a solo gig for the first time in a lonnnggggg time.  Years ago, I did the solo thing a lot but every since I began to perform with my daughter Alexis about 15 years ago, I've found myself playing the role of backing up a singer.  Being a side player is a very different experience.  It truly is a supportive role.  You listen to the singer and wrestle with a song that is the singer's choice, trying to enhance his or her performance.  It is a unique discipline to give your talents and skills for another's art.  The upside is that you are responsible primarily to the singer rather than the audience.  If a mistake is made or there was something lacking in the choice of material, that falls back on the singer.  At the same time, to some degree you lose the joy of making your own choices.  When backing up a singer, I clearly play my style, but there is always the possibility of the singer vetoing something that I feel works well.

As a solo performer, you are responsible for everything - the choice of material, the pater between songs, and all of the aspects of the performance.  There is nobody else to blame for anything that doesn't work.  All of that adds up to serious nerves for me.

In the two years plus of producing the Cambridge Drive Concert Series I have paid serious attention to which acts seemed to connect the most deeply with the audience.  While depth of songwriting, skill of playing their instrument, and quality of a voice all count for something, that was only part of the picture.  The best musicians and the best songwriters did not necessarily make for the best performances.  There is an intangible connection that characterizes some performances that really makes a special time.  The audience has an experience that enriches their lives.  The best performers consistently enable that kind of experience.

You'll have to ask someone who was in the audience whether I was able to create that kind of experience.  I do have to say that I felt that my guitar playing has been better when playing behind someone else.  Still, I felt very good about what happened.  I'll keep at it and try to do some more solo gigs.

putting it out there

Last week we had a wonderful show in the Cambridge Drive Concert series with Terry Holder.  At some point during the day, I was talking with Jerry, Terry's husband and guitar player.  He wondered out loud why it was that guys in the audience assume that every female performer "is available to them" and told stories about guys who tried to pick Terry up.  One fun story involved a guy who had purchased 3 CD's from her merchandise table and then learned that Jerry was her husband.  He returned the three CD's and walked away without even asking for his money back.

I was thinking about the discussion this morning as I was walking to work and listening to some music.  I love "If I Were a Boy" by Beyonce and, despite the controversy over the rights to the song, I think she just kills that song.  Every time I hear it, I believe her.  I feel the pain at being taken for granted by some guy and her yearning for "a better man,"  and I figured it out.  A great performance involves putting it all out there.

As a culture, we're just immature about emotions.  When a performer opens his or her soul and puts their emotions out there, it feels intimate.  Indeed, it is intimate... but that doesn't mean we really have an intimate relationship with the performer.  All those guys to whom Jerry was referring were just unable to experience emotional intimacy of any kind without assuming it came with sex.  They really need to be "better men"  who can experience powerful emotions without making assumptions.

So, here's my question... how do we raise a crop of better men who really do understand the emotions of other people?  Who are emotionally mature, caring, and giving, and who understand where the lines are?

Here's a live performance of "If I Were a Boy..."

The Music of the Spheres

As I was reflecting more on music in worship, I remembered this silly little piece by Steve Martin



I don't believe for a second that atheists have no songs... but there is something inherently "spiritual" or "religious" about music when it is at its best. There are those moment when music takes us outside and beyond ourselves and connects us with that for which there are no words. I remember the first time I herd a good soprano sing Puccini and felt the goosebumps on my back... Gorecki's Sorrowful Songs moved me to tears. When I first heard Edgar Varese's Density 21.5 as a junior high student, it made me hear things in a new way. Julie Miller's Broken Things felt so right after 9/11. My list could go on and on... I have heard so many performances that have opened new windows for me, taken me to places I had never imagined, broken my heart, and healed it, connected me to other people and the world around me, and shown me how isolated and alone I am.

As a performer, that spiritual side of music is even more pronounced. There are those moments when a band or choir or duo melt together and it isn't a group of individuals playing or singing, it is one body in touch with something in the very structure of creation. The performers disappear and all that is there is the music. When that happens, it is communion in the deepest sense.

Which brings me to the tiny bit I have read about string theory - that everything is made of tiny strings which are constantly vibrating (music) and the "pitch" of the vibration determines whether the strings make up matter or energy... At it's deepest level, everything that is, is a song sung by God. And I get to sing and make music along with God.