Had an interesting day today. Made me think about how often people see music as just a part of everyday life, and not anything special in its own regard, as we do. This, in turn, allowed me to realise that the world is full of people like that, and to get someones attention, you have to put enough energy into what you do to convey whatever message it is you’re really trying to send.I suppose it doesn’t matter what vehicle you use for this. Your chosen medium could be anything, I guess, not just music. The materialistic nature of modern society means that everyone takes 95% of everything in the world for granted. To reach out and touch someone requires not only organised thought, and a plan of action, when it comes to what you’re trying to achieve, but YOU have to actually believe in what you’re trying to say.
That said, once you produce solid, consistent results, people start taking what you do for granted. You can put new stuff out; in our case, pieces of music, but it could be anything, remember – and they’ll buy it, because they know you’re behind it, and they have made themselves believe that they’ll like it, whatever it is.
Since starting back at B.I.M.M., I have been listening to a lot of stuff I wouldn’t normally, to try and broaden my ailing repertoire. It hasn’t worked. I suppose with music in general, and the guitar especially, there is an initial learning curve. Once you’re past that, you get stuck in a rut. This rut just gets bigger or smaller, depending on how much new material you absorb, but you can never quite get out of it – you will always be learning new things, and never feel like you’ve mastered the instrument – but your playing, to you, will always sound mostly the same.
Or at least that’s how it feels to me right now.
Had a lesson on Session Skills today. I get such bad Red Light Syndrome, it’s really embarassing! I had a couple of incidences last year in Pre-Production, where I had to play in front of the class, and my head just goes blank, my hands start to shake… But I think I might have made a mistake taking a lesson where the sole purpose of you being there is to be able to make simple, good parts up, on the spot, and play them over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again.
It doesn’t happen to me on stage though. People here at B.I.M.M. keep banging on about either being in a band, or being a session musician. Neither of which I really want to do. There are other ways to be a professional musician. I like making my own music, and I like playing in front of crowds. Considering that my main goal is to become a cruise ship musician… Should I have taken this module?
Then again, I don’t want to just give up on it because it’s a little bit harder than the rest of the stuff we’re doing. I’ve never really been a quitter, and the lecturer taking the class is one of my favourite tutors – such a good musician!
Not sure what to do. Also, time is a factor, I can’t do more than a few lessons in one module, and then switch to another, because I’ll never catch up. I might take one more class of Session Skills, to see if I can actually get used to doing it – there’s no point failing the degree because I took a module not condusive to my main goal, is there?
Then again, I probably won’t fail – I’ll just have to work really damn hard at it.
*Sigh*
Any suggestions?
Ben.
