Three weeks ago, something frightening happened to me... The Wall. After over forty years' playing, I didn't pick up an instrument - any instrument - for a week. Didn't listen to music. Didn't hear the tunes. Didn't think about music all the time. Started to wonder what the whole point was... and started to think about a life without music as the centre. This stretched into two weeks, and I felt empty... rootless. After thirteen days, after listening to a long improvised recording, I sat down and just played for fifteen minutes - stream of consciousness - whatever came out. The drought was over, and the tunes are back... all music, all the time. A very scary experience, though. Have you ever been there?
It hasn't happened to me but I'm glad you posted this.
I have two very good friends who after 10 years of playing both put down their fiddles and have given up playing now for bout
two years. I'm very confused by this as they both loved playing. I keep hoping they will come back to it but they say they just aren't interested. Maybe I'll get some insight to this responses to your post.
I'm glad you are back playing.
Although not with regard to music.....yet! ...as a dancer from the age of 5 (47 years now), I've experienced "The Wall." I've gone through 2 periods of time (at least 6 months each) where I didn't dance, didn't WANT to dance, didn't have anything to do with dancing..... although as Will CPT states "my mind never quit playing the tunes every day."
I often wake up in the middle of the night with reels running through my head...and sometimes my feet are moving, too ). I suppose it's much the same with music, although I've only played (on and off) for 8 years, and it all still seems "new" and interesting to me.
Similar to Will, but not such protracted periods of abstinence. There are periods when I don't touch an instrument from Thursday to Thursday (session night). But the tunes are almost always going round in my head. Sometimes yes, I do also wonder what is the point in all this extra hassle, but the rewards outweigh the outlay.
Does music have to exist only because one can play an instrment?
If so it limits the possibilities. It all depends on what you think makes a world with music.
I have stopped going to certain music festivals because I kept hearing from too many festival - goers what they do not like. From my perspective there is wonderful music everywhere ~ so why drown it out with too much sound?
drone certainly it is scary to consider no music. You probably have a greater appreciation now than you had 3 weeks ago. Scary but a good scare.
;)
Since picking up my fiddle after 20 years of abstinence (nothing to do with trad; it was classical that wore me out of any interest in playing music), the only dry spells like this that I've experienced have come from discouragement at the egos, cattiness, authority trips, and meanness that I have encountered in a fiddle club and at certain sessions.
The cure for me has been playing music for those who don't play themselves, who ask questions like, "What's the difference between a violin and a fiddle?" (I always tell them what I learned here, that a fiddle is a violin that doesn't mine getting beer spilled on it.) The appreciation and admiration of nonmusicians is boundless and gives me back so much.
Of course, I'm perishing to find a good session. But for now, playing elsewhere is fine.
cathrynb ~
you just gave me a humorous image of a string ensemble in a pub. As the Guinness is to flowing the well - trained musicians begin to add a lilt to their 'tunes' & someone begins to dance a jig.
It is such a long way from the concert hall to the pub. What is a little spilled beer?
Oh The Wall! ... well, after a brief, maybe 3-5 year introduction to Irish Trad, I went through one that lasted 16+ years (although I could never quite give up on the thought that one day I would be returning ... it just didn't seem, and wasn't really, a possibility then) ... but, yep, back in 1995 I was doing honours by research (Ecology) at uni and one of my nephews gave me "The Wall" tape (probably pirated ) that I used to have blaring in the lab while I was in there at all hours of the night by myself doing unpleasant smelly stuff. Don't ask me what. I don't want to go into gross details, but I found singing away and dancing around the lab to The Floyd made the job at hand so much more bearable ... "before you know it you're just another brick in the wall". Not I! Never!
... and when I'd finished the study ... I dusted off the fiddle that I had previously given away but had just been returned and went looking for Irish Trad ... and found it ... till the next wall (that I'm hopefully climbing outta with the help of some really fantastic people here and elsewhere).
Oh gawd, what an admission ... nothn wrong with The Floyd anyway, hey fidkid, strayaway ... come now KML
I never did get into Pink Floyd. Even at the height of their fame. Even for dancing round a lab. Same as I never got into The Stranglers and Punk. I recall I read in the Guardian at the time that The Stranglers and the Sex Pistols were really actually a new manifestation of folk music - because they all allegedly came from putrifying discuting housing estates (the Projects to Yanks), so what they went on about was this environment. so I tried my hardest to like them. I couldn't do it. I'm so glad I was a Wall-free learner then. I'm sure one of the reasons I took up DIY music was because the manufactured version was (and of course still is) utter sh i t e.
You're not telling me you didn't like that AC/DC thing did you, Danny? I thought it was great - proper music. I like proper music in whatever form it comes, ITM, rock, pop, classical, blues ... whatever, so long as it's real.
I like what I like, ben. I like some crap and probably dislike what some people think is very good music. There's no accounting for taste. Can't stand ac/dc, though. And I've been to one of their gigs (many years ago).
Eg,
I quite like this which you possibly hate. I think it's good because it's so bad.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v39Shz2h36c
Hmmm ... I didn't *hate* it, but it's not my cup of tea, and I couldn't listen to all of it.
I've just re-read my previous post, and I don't think it was very clear. In fact, I'm not sure I can *get* it clear. I don't think I know what I mean by "proper music". I know what i mean when I hear it - i mean that it still has something raw about it - you can see how it's being made, it has a rough edge. It's why I like the playing of Isacc Stern and don't like Vengerov ... I could probably go on ...
I don't think this thread has anything to do with <gag>Pink Floyd<gag>,
but now you know what I think about it.
I got discouraged with classical music after leaving university because
in amateur groups you're just hacking out bad Brahms, etc. When it's
bad like that, it's not music - it's just a note-reading ritual.
As a clarinet player, you're out of baroque and early classical. I
don't like old timey New Orleans jazz, and clarinet is out of
post WWII jazz. I liked playing really bizarre "New Music" at university,
but it's not viable afterwards. So that's why I quit playing clarinet
got into Trad fiddle.
I have sometimes moved to focusing on one instrument instead of another, or focusing on different musical styles over the year, but in the last few decades, have been pretty steadily involved with playing some sort of music. And I have always listened.
I do know people who have become frustrated and given up, sometimes for quite a long time, it is painful to see.
It's no frustration. It's hard to describe. Depression? Questioning the purpose of life and its relevance to the universe...whatever.
WIth Church music....I hit the wall five, six, seven years ago. I keep playing because it pays and supports my ITM habit and helps pay a few bills. But the only time I play piano/organ is on Sunday Morning.
Catholic Church music has turned into sentimental tripe or cover music for a lounge act. Pure drudgery.
ITM... 2 years on the box and the bluish is off the rose a bit on some days. Probably because when I started, I relied on old skills and didn't know how much I didn't know about the box. The more you learn, the less you know-because you start finding out what you don't know.
Also, with as few places to play in with anyone because there are few opportunities on the South Side of Chicago, I sometimes wonder if all I am doing is entertaining Herself's St. Bernard.
The wall? About three months ago. But family things took me away from the music for a few days. But There are still days when you just wonder what its all about, especially if you have a bad lesson and the teacher is not having a good day either.
You know the theory that sleep and dreaming are a way for the brain to shut down and subconsciously process experiences, thoughts and emotions? I wonder if periodic hiatus (hiati?) are times where you, as a personality, get to rest and reassess. And hopefully, wake up refreshed. Or maybe with a new direction.
I don’t have drone’s experience, but I have had his experience, if you catch my distinction. Sometimes I just don’t have the time to play, or go a few days where the thought of sitting down and practicing just doesn’t appeal to me. Then I’ll pick up the fiddle and the next thing I know it’s an hour later, and I think to myself, oh, right… now I remember why I love this music.
I think the fact that you were bummed by the experience shows where your heart is.
Maybe the period of quiet is like that of a creature about to undergo metamorphosis, when its metabolism slows dow inanticipation of the massive transformation about to happen. Maybe you'll turn into a frog. Or a butterfly. Or like Gregor Samsa, a giant cockroach....BTW, AC/DC appeals to the heavy metal stoner, not Cholo, mentality of the Mara Salvatrucha. Another reason why I wouldn't be a fan of them. http://www.knowgangs.com/gang_resources/profiles/ms13/
The Wall
The Wall
Three weeks ago, something frightening happened to me... The Wall. After over forty years' playing, I didn't pick up an instrument - any instrument - for a week. Didn't listen to music. Didn't hear the tunes. Didn't think about music all the time. Started to wonder what the whole point was... and started to think about a life without music as the centre. This stretched into two weeks, and I felt empty... rootless. After thirteen days, after listening to a long improvised recording, I sat down and just played for fifteen minutes - stream of consciousness - whatever came out. The drought was over, and the tunes are back... all music, all the time. A very scary experience, though. Have you ever been there?
# Posted on September 6th 2008 by drone
Re: The Wall
Drone,
It hasn't happened to me but I'm glad you posted this.
I have two very good friends who after 10 years of playing both put down their fiddles and have given up playing now for bout
two years. I'm very confused by this as they both loved playing. I keep hoping they will come back to it but they say they just aren't interested. Maybe I'll get some insight to this responses to your post.
I'm glad you are back playing.
Mary
# Posted on September 6th 2008 by Antikhntr
Re: The Wall
Geez, over 42 years of playing music, I've gone months at a time without picking up an instrument.
But my mind never quit playing the tunes every day.
Maybe stay away from the moose wellington?
# Posted on September 6th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: The Wall
Thought this was about Pink Floyd
# Posted on September 6th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: The Wall
Although not with regard to music.....yet! ...as a dancer from the age of 5 (47 years now), I've experienced "The Wall." I've gone through 2 periods of time (at least 6 months each) where I didn't dance, didn't WANT to dance, didn't have anything to do with dancing..... although as Will CPT states "my mind never quit playing the tunes every day."
I often wake up in the middle of the night with reels running through my head...and sometimes my feet are moving, too
). I suppose it's much the same with music, although I've only played (on and off) for 8 years, and it all still seems "new" and interesting to me.
# Posted on September 6th 2008 by Ceolagusrince
Re: The Wall
Similar to Will, but not such protracted periods of abstinence. There are periods when I don't touch an instrument from Thursday to Thursday (session night). But the tunes are almost always going round in my head. Sometimes yes, I do also wonder what is the point in all this extra hassle, but the rewards outweigh the outlay.
# Posted on September 6th 2008 by Alf Tupper
The Dark Side of the Moon
Does music have to exist only because one can play an instrment?
If so it limits the possibilities. It all depends on what you think makes a world with music.
I have stopped going to certain music festivals because I kept hearing from too many festival - goers what they do not like. From my perspective there is wonderful music everywhere ~ so why drown it out with too much sound?
drone certainly it is scary to consider no music. You probably have a greater appreciation now than you had 3 weeks ago. Scary but a good scare.
;)
# Posted on September 6th 2008 by Random_notes
Re: The Wall
Since picking up my fiddle after 20 years of abstinence (nothing to do with trad; it was classical that wore me out of any interest in playing music), the only dry spells like this that I've experienced have come from discouragement at the egos, cattiness, authority trips, and meanness that I have encountered in a fiddle club and at certain sessions.
The cure for me has been playing music for those who don't play themselves, who ask questions like, "What's the difference between a violin and a fiddle?" (I always tell them what I learned here, that a fiddle is a violin that doesn't mine getting beer spilled on it.) The appreciation and admiration of nonmusicians is boundless and gives me back so much.
Of course, I'm perishing to find a good session. But for now, playing elsewhere is fine.
# Posted on September 6th 2008 by cathrynb
Re: The Wall
Anyway, I'm just so glad this isn't a discussion about Pink Floyd....
# Posted on September 6th 2008 by Alf Tupper
Re: The Wall
cathrynb ~
you just gave me a humorous image of a string ensemble in a pub. As the Guinness is to flowing the well - trained musicians begin to add a lilt to their 'tunes' & someone begins to dance a jig.
It is such a long way from the concert hall to the pub. What is a little spilled beer?
# Posted on September 6th 2008 by Random_notes
Re: The Wall
What's wrong with The Floyd? Set the controls for the heart of the sun, we're off into interstellar overdrive, me and Arnold Layne, that is!
# Posted on September 6th 2008 by strayaway
Re: The Wall
"Hey! You! White House. Ha ha! Charade you are! "
-Pigs (3 different ones)
My fave Floyd tune
(nothn wrong)
# Posted on September 6th 2008 by fidkid
Re: The Wall
What about Brain Damage, the song, not my mental state.
# Posted on September 7th 2008 by strayaway
Re: The Wall
Dave Gilmour singing Richard Thompson's "Dimming of the Day" at a night club in Paris. Absolutely wonderful.
# Posted on September 7th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: The Wall
Oh The Wall! ... well, after a brief, maybe 3-5 year introduction to Irish Trad, I went through one that lasted 16+ years (although I could never quite give up on the thought that one day I would be returning ... it just didn't seem, and wasn't really, a possibility then) ... but, yep, back in 1995 I was doing honours by research (Ecology) at uni and one of my nephews gave me "The Wall" tape (probably pirated
) that I used to have blaring in the lab while I was in there at all hours of the night by myself doing unpleasant smelly stuff. Don't ask me what. I don't want to go into gross details, but I found singing away and dancing around the lab to The Floyd made the job at hand so much more bearable ... "before you know it you're just another brick in the wall". Not I! Never!
... and when I'd finished the study ... I dusted off the fiddle that I had previously given away but had just been returned and went looking for Irish Trad ... and found it ... till the next wall (that I'm hopefully climbing outta with the help of some really fantastic people here and elsewhere).
Oh gawd, what an admission ... nothn wrong with The Floyd anyway, hey fidkid, strayaway ... come now KML
# Posted on September 7th 2008 by Clear Drops
Re: The Wall
I never did get into Pink Floyd. Even at the height of their fame. Even for dancing round a lab. Same as I never got into The Stranglers and Punk. I recall I read in the Guardian at the time that The Stranglers and the Sex Pistols were really actually a new manifestation of folk music - because they all allegedly came from putrifying discuting housing estates (the Projects to Yanks), so what they went on about was this environment. so I tried my hardest to like them. I couldn't do it. I'm so glad I was a Wall-free learner then. I'm sure one of the reasons I took up DIY music was because the manufactured version was (and of course still is) utter sh i t e.
# Posted on September 7th 2008 by Alf Tupper
Re: The Wall
Whatever Daniel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDx-1ZvgV2A
# Posted on September 7th 2008 by Ray Mariani
Re: The Wall
Yes, exactly. thanks for that...........
# Posted on September 7th 2008 by Alf Tupper
Re: The Wall
it' nice to warm my bones beside the fire...
# Posted on September 7th 2008 by pipewatcher
How so?
"I do also wonder what is the point in all this extra hassle."
# Posted on September 7th 2008 by Random_notes
Re: The Wall
You're not telling me you didn't like that AC/DC thing did you, Danny? I thought it was great - proper music. I like proper music in whatever form it comes, ITM, rock, pop, classical, blues ... whatever, so long as it's real.
But maybe I've missed some subtle joke ...
# Posted on September 7th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: The Wall
I like what I like, ben. I like some crap and probably dislike what some people think is very good music. There's no accounting for taste. Can't stand ac/dc, though. And I've been to one of their gigs (many years ago).
Eg,
I quite like this which you possibly hate. I think it's good because it's so bad....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v39Shz2h36c
# Posted on September 7th 2008 by Alf Tupper
Re: The Wall
Innovative, that's what Floyd were, innovative.
Possibly a bit close to the bone for traditionalists.
# Posted on September 8th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: The Wall
Hmmm ... I didn't *hate* it, but it's not my cup of tea, and I couldn't listen to all of it.
I've just re-read my previous post, and I don't think it was very clear. In fact, I'm not sure I can *get* it clear. I don't think I know what I mean by "proper music". I know what i mean when I hear it - i mean that it still has something raw about it - you can see how it's being made, it has a rough edge. It's why I like the playing of Isacc Stern and don't like Vengerov ... I could probably go on ...
# Posted on September 8th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: The Wall
I don't think this thread has anything to do with <gag>Pink Floyd<gag>,
but now you know what I think about it.
I got discouraged with classical music after leaving university because
in amateur groups you're just hacking out bad Brahms, etc. When it's
bad like that, it's not music - it's just a note-reading ritual.
As a clarinet player, you're out of baroque and early classical. I
don't like old timey New Orleans jazz, and clarinet is out of
post WWII jazz. I liked playing really bizarre "New Music" at university,
but it's not viable afterwards. So that's why I quit playing clarinet
got into Trad fiddle.
# Posted on September 8th 2008 by Hup
Re: The Wall
I have sometimes moved to focusing on one instrument instead of another, or focusing on different musical styles over the year, but in the last few decades, have been pretty steadily involved with playing some sort of music. And I have always listened.
I do know people who have become frustrated and given up, sometimes for quite a long time, it is painful to see.
# Posted on September 8th 2008 by AlBrown
Re: The Wall
It's no frustration. It's hard to describe. Depression? Questioning the purpose of life and its relevance to the universe...whatever.
WIth Church music....I hit the wall five, six, seven years ago. I keep playing because it pays and supports my ITM habit and helps pay a few bills. But the only time I play piano/organ is on Sunday Morning.
Catholic Church music has turned into sentimental tripe or cover music for a lounge act. Pure drudgery.
ITM... 2 years on the box and the bluish is off the rose a bit on some days. Probably because when I started, I relied on old skills and didn't know how much I didn't know about the box. The more you learn, the less you know-because you start finding out what you don't know.
Also, with as few places to play in with anyone because there are few opportunities on the South Side of Chicago, I sometimes wonder if all I am doing is entertaining Herself's St. Bernard.
The wall? About three months ago. But family things took me away from the music for a few days. But There are still days when you just wonder what its all about, especially if you have a bad lesson and the teacher is not having a good day either.
# Posted on September 8th 2008 by zippydw
Re: The Wall
blew that..'blush' no bluish'
# Posted on September 8th 2008 by zippydw
Re: The Wall
Mr. Pink aside, this is an intriguing discussion.
You know the theory that sleep and dreaming are a way for the brain to shut down and subconsciously process experiences, thoughts and emotions? I wonder if periodic hiatus (hiati?) are times where you, as a personality, get to rest and reassess. And hopefully, wake up refreshed. Or maybe with a new direction.
I don’t have drone’s experience, but I have had his experience, if you catch my distinction. Sometimes I just don’t have the time to play, or go a few days where the thought of sitting down and practicing just doesn’t appeal to me. Then I’ll pick up the fiddle and the next thing I know it’s an hour later, and I think to myself, oh, right… now I remember why I love this music.
I think the fact that you were bummed by the experience shows where your heart is.
# Posted on September 8th 2008 by fidkid
Hitting The Wall
Thanks Bliss
I believe you answered my question (somewhere up there ^ ) rather succinctly.
# Posted on September 8th 2008 by Random_notes
Re: The Wall
So do I.
Happy to be of service.
# Posted on September 8th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: The Wall
Maybe the period of quiet is like that of a creature about to undergo metamorphosis, when its metabolism slows dow inanticipation of the massive transformation about to happen. Maybe you'll turn into a frog. Or a butterfly. Or like Gregor Samsa, a giant cockroach....BTW, AC/DC appeals to the heavy metal stoner, not Cholo, mentality of the Mara Salvatrucha. Another reason why I wouldn't be a fan of them.
http://www.knowgangs.com/gang_resources/profiles/ms13/
# Posted on September 9th 2008 by Alf Tupper