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November 06, 2004
Fancy music-making
When I was a kid, learning how to make and play music meant sitting in a closet-sized room with a piano and an ancient, pee-smelling teacher whom you were afraid was going to die at any second. So much so, in fact, that you could barely concentrate on your scales and your Fur Elise because you knew you had to be prepared, at the first sign of gakking, throat-clutching, or bug-eyed distress, to climb over the teacher to get to the door. Certain angles of the woman's potential collapse would render escape impossible and THEN YOU WOULD BE TRAPPED with the dead teacher, the pee-smell, the much-feared, standard-issue, upright piano.
So distracting was this concept to my developing brain that, although I logged a number of years taking lessons, now all I can play is "The Rose" and that is because I liked the song and taught myself how to play it. My brother also took piano lessons from Pee Pee Corpse, and his remaining tune is the theme from "The Greatest American Hero", which he still plays with much feeling and fairly decent technique.
Our crowning performance was what would prove to be our swan song: a much-anticipated brother/sister duet to be given at a holiday recitial in our massive, tangerine-shagged living room. The room was so big that it comfortably held a grand piano and about fifty parents of fellow students, curious neighbors, and various other grown-ups who liked to drink with and/or suck up to my mother and father.
My brother and I were the last to play, and as we settled next to each other on the gold-cushioned piano bench, I knew it was not going to go well. As we raised our hands over the keyboard, my brother on the lower section of the piece and I on the upper, I was suddenly struck with a fit of giggles. I couldn't play. My brother started on his own and played resolutely on, bumping out a little chord here and there, playing the bass line for a melody that was locked inside me and buried in ten thousand giggles. I think, when he finished the piece, he even stood and bowed. I was a proud of him in that moment, even though I spent the next two hours sobbing in my canopy bed.
So, although I was exposed with the best intentions to the art of music-making, I can't say I have had a great experience of it. Until now. My new computer has a program on it called Garage Band, and holy freaking jesus you have about a billion sampled instruments to choose from. You can also lay down your own vocal tracks and mix them right on in. It is like I died and went to karaoke heaven.
Last night I spent about four hours working on my first song, which is kind of a dancey alt country piece. I believe I may be inventing a new genre(and perhaps there is a reason it hasn't been invented yet). I'm actually singing a song that a friend of mine wrote, so I guess I better clear it with her before I remix the crap out of it with claves, house beats and cowbell. I prefer to keep my ass-grilling to a minimum, and I'm at my quota.
The Bean has woken from his nap and all I've managed to get done is make another ten seconds of my song and enjoy this little walk down musical memory lane. People of Seattle, prepare to greet slightly surly, unshowered, really frigging hungry beat master Max.
Posted by Max at November 6, 2004 12:48 AM