2010 March » Shagtastic Voyage

As old as rhyme, as young as time

With everything going on in the world, it’s hard to keep focus. Sometimes, I wonder how people keep their calm. How do they keep from going insane? How do I keep from going insane? When I started writing this post, it was dead silent in the room. I could hear nothing but the ceiling fan and I had no inspiration to write anything. I just turned on my music player. Now, I have at least three ideas I want to write about. Don’t worry. I’ll only write about one. I’ll try not to bore you.

As cliche as it sounds, I really can’t do anything without music and it’s not just the things I do in music. I don’t think I could survive without it. Sure, I can do everyday things like chores or go to the store but music makes it all better. Even if I’m doing them without music, I’m thinking about music anyway. I’m singing or humming and trying to figure out licks. The other day I was in a friend’s car and I could not stop thinking about a pattern for the circle of fourths. I had to play it when I got back. I woke up thinking about a song today. I’m not sure if I dreamed about it or not. I know it was stuck in my head for about an hour. When music is there, like a cd or mp3 player, thoughts flow better in my head. Music is why I’m able to write right now. It motivates me to do more in the day. The most cliche of them all, music gets me through emotional problems. I’d say if it weren’t for music during the last eight months, I would just be worthless, maybe even worse.

Something else that music helps me with which may sound weird is keeping time. Not like tempo but actual times. I will memorize how long a song is and use it to time myself, especially in exercise (yes, I now exercise and it sucks right now. No pain, no gain, right?). I also like to keep headphones on me at most times. It’s like having a soundtrack to my life. It makes everything even more interesting. One of my worst flaws is listening to music. I can do that and nothing else for hours on end. I will spend maybe two hours listening to music and get absolutely nothing accomplished. I guess I just get lost in my own mind with it. It’s great/bad.

When there’s no music, I can feel the void, like there should be something there. It truly does hold us together. I had heard that music is, ”the most useless thing on earth, while at the same time the most priceless.” It’s everywhere. You can’t touch it but it can touch you…that sounds like a hallmark card. I don’t have too much stress in my life, at least not like most people. Job + pets + kids + house + car + religion + government + tv + laptop + drama + vice + everybody else = insanity. Sometimes, I wonder what gets some people through the day but I figure I can’t be that different from everyone else.

A couple of years ago, I played a gig with my trombonist, Martin Sager, and a new drummer named Eric Ward. This trio gig was originally booked as a quartet (as most of my shows were at the time) but my guitarist couldn’t make it. Instead of finding a sub, I decided to go ahead with this guitarless/pianoless trio. I knew that with a good drummer, a good horn player, and, an O.K. bassist (me) that this trio would work. This is why:

In 2007 (about a year before this gig), Joshua Redman released a trio record called Back East (By no means am I implying that Larry Grenadier, Christian McBride, or Reuben Rogers are just O.K. bassists). Even though the album that made me a Redman fan, Elastic (2002 Warner Bros), was a trio album, back East steered more towards the heart of jazz and that really reeled me in. I know he is not the first to use such trios, Redman’s use of different instrumentations is well managed and the first to really catch my attention.

Fast forward a couple of years and there’s a private party in Dothan, AL that I am booked for. The lineup is Vibes (played by Eric Ward), drums, and bass. Two days before, an issue shows itself and by the morning of, I have to find a replacement for my drummer. So, I call up my trombonist and book him and call Eric and get him to bring his kit instead. And, once again (for the first time in forever), we have the original CH3 and…it is freaking fantastic! I had completely forgotten how much fun it is to have that much trust in my band and that much freedom on my bass.

Of course there are a lot of other cats that do stuff like that but all I know is, without the trios and double trios from Joshua Redman, I would have probably filled that spot and taken a quartet to that gig and I would have missed out. I wouldn’t have thought a group with no chording instrument would hold people’s attention. I probably wouldn’t have done so many duo gigs, either.

Here are some other cats with pianoless/uncommon instrumentations:

Sonny Rollins, Jeff Coffin, Joe Henderson, Branfod Marsalis, John Patitucci, and Joe Lovano -just to name a few.

There is a misguided assumption among hipsters and musicians, these days, that Mac is the Jesus Christ of computers and it is flawless in all ways. PC’s, in this scenario, are obviously Lucifer. Well, here’s the whole ball of wax…

***I want you to know that I am not saying PC OR Mac is inferior and I am not attempting to endorse either one. I like Mac. I like PC.***

The problem that most people don’t look at is that, while financially a wonderful idea, licensing an OS (Operating System) can be problematic. When software is sold, you can look at the minimum system requirements and know whether or not it is going to pull your entire system down. THAT’s where Microsoft shot itself in the foot. They licensed an OS to various companies (actually, any that would buy) but put the minimum requirements for the machines too low.

Now, according to Microsoft’s Vista page, you need at least 512MBs of RAM and a 1GHz processor (for Vista Home Basic). With Vista being such a large OS and having cumbersome, outdated programming codes, it takes 512MBs of RAM to start it up! So, all those machines that used the minimum specs crashed. Even those that doubled that crashed. Why? Well with such a strain on the RAM and processor, anything you add to it is going to kill your productivity and cause you to try to force it to work. With Windows 7, they beefed the minimum up to a gigabyte…still too little, IMHO.

What’s the solution? Beef up your RAM and processor and your fine. Then, you can have a powerful computer without dropping 1,600 bucks. Personally, I wouldn’t go under 3GB RAM and a 2 GHz, dual core processor.

Ok. Rumor number 1:

Macs don’t get viruses.

False. Here’s the skinny on viruses – A virus has to be written for whatever operating system it intends to attack. If you look at the number of PCs vs. Macs (IE vs Safari) that access the internet, you can understand why you hear so much about PCs and viruses. The majority of people who browse the internet STILL use Internet Explorer even with growing popularity of third party browsers. There simply isn’t as many people writing viruses for Macs and there aren’t as many Macs online.

Rumor number 2:

Macs don’t crash.

False. Every new or modified bit of technology that hits the consumer is vulnerable. This is because all the scenarios the few hundred developers and testers run a machine through cannot properly duplicate all the situationsthe several hundred thousand initial consumers will have it in. This hit PC hard because of the whole RAM and processor deal. In fact, Mac’s OS X Leopard had a few issues when it came out. A good friend of mine had his Mac crash twice before he had to send it in to Apple.

Rumor number 3:

You can’t do that on a PC:

This one kind of annoys me. Mac has a lot of neat features, for sure. PCs may not come out of the box with them but there are many (for instance, the ability to save a Word file as a pdf) that you can download for free at Microsoft.com. These ad ons attach to the program and are seamless in integration.

Running media editing programs can also be done. The issues are, again, the RAM and processor. If you take that into consideration when buying it, you will never have a problem.

Also – the PCs version of Apple TV is Windows Media Center and just like Apple, all you need is a shared network connection.

Hey man, I love Mac and I have almost bought one several times. Apple as a whole is a wonderful and progressive company. When I buy my next computer for my studio, it will probably be a Mac but not because I think a PC can’t handle it; I like the UI.

The sole purpose of this post is to let everybody know that you don’t have to buy a $2,000 tower and a $900 display to have a decent computer. For most people, that’s not an option. The best thing (whether you buy Mac or PC) is to know a little about what you need. The average (even above average) user doesn’t need a quad-core processor-you may but probably not. Technology is always going to move fast and you are kidding yourself if you think you don’t need to follow it.

Shagtastic Voyage

As old as rhyme, as young as time

As old as rhyme, as young as time

What I learned from Joshua Redman

I Get to Teach Again!

You can do that on a PC, you know!

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