Tag Archives: music

Al fresco

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Al fresco: (adj) in the open air: e.g. an al fresco luncheon.

Much as I enjoy the arrival of spring with the promise of coming summer, and the warmth of that experience, I also become fully aware that I am about to be inundated by many different individuals who want to take advantage of the beauty of the season … to do everything outside.

Especially difficult for me is when they suggest that I take my sound equipment and music and array it on some sort of makeshift flat-bed trailer to perform in a park situation, surrounded by so many distractions that it’s nearly impossible to get the attention of a dead squirrel.

Let me tell you what bothers me about it:

1. Good sound needs walls. Otherwise it floats out and joins with other distracting molecules and becomes distorted or dispelled.

2. Even though I work very hard to be interesting, birds and trees, supersonic jets flying overhead and children briskly running and tripping to fall and scrape their noses do tend the eliminate the possibility of an ongoing attention span.

3. Bugs. If you are a normal person who showers, uses deodorant, or God forbid, aftershave, bugs seem to approach you as if you were a saloon and they are determined to get drunk on your elixir. I’ve had them fly in my mouth, buzz my bald head and perch themselves inside my ear.

I think I’ve just described the definition of “distracting.”

It happened to me recently when some friends invited me out to dinner, and asked if I wanted to sit at a table near the lake. It was a beautiful evening, about 6:15 P.M., and apparently the exact time when the local bees come out for an evening fellowship and what appeared to be church service. They huddled together, gathering around our food, and at times it appeared they were saying grace for the bounty set before them.

We eventually (being more intelligent than the buzzers) found ways to cover up our food, our bodies and the surrounding table with napkins, plates–and I think one lady used a scarf. It was not exactly what I would call a favorable dining experience.

I think going camping is an al fresco event. When you do so, you plan on roughing it, taking on nature and trying to get away from the delicacies of life.

But every other time you go al fresco, you must realize that it’s going to turn out to be a campout–and as soon as you arrive outside, you have departed your home … and entered Nature’s back yard. 

A la

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

 

A la: (prep) 1. a dish cooked or prepared in a specified style: e.g. apple pie a la mode. 2. in the style or manner of: e.g. afternoon talk shows a la Oprah.

May I give you my “a la” list? Maybe better stated, a reality a la “wish.”

  • Success a la humility.
  • Music a la emotion.
  • Faith a la evidence.
  • Hope a la progress.
  • Love a la tolerance.
  • Nationalism a la vision.
  • Equality a la action.
  • Debate a la cohesion.
  • Purpose a la common sense.
  • Bible a la humanity.
  • Entertainment a la inspiration.
  • Humor a la edification.
  • Encouragement a la critique.
  • Family a la expansion.

There are certain things that were meant to go together, and when they are separated, they wander about the earth in search of a mate. If you become a match maker to these estranged lovers, you ignite a passion that sets the world on fire with potential.

Yes … potential a la “what’s next?”

 

Agog

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter AAgog: (adj) very eager or curious to hear or see something: e.g. the tourists were all agog to see New York

I told her she did good work.

She replied flatly, “It’s just my job.”

She was my waitress at the restaurant, and she had done exceptional service to us, worthy of praise and a good tip. She just didn’t realize how valuable and rare she was.

As I finish Tour 2013 across this country, may I share with you a recurring reality? Something has died.

The carcass doesn’t stink enough yet for people to be aware, but it won’t be long. We have gone from being a nation which at least occasionally would be “agog” about our lives to being bored individuals who look at everything as “agig.”

We have lost the spontaneity, the humor, the adventure of solving problems and just the sheer joy of surviving a little bit of hassle in order to manufacture a victory which we can proudly initial.

I’m not exactly sure what we want.

  • Movies are bigger and more expensive than ever, but don’t have legs. People just don’t talk about them.
  • Music is over-produced, over-discussed and overwrought, yet does not create the simple stirring caused by a single Dylan guitar.
  • Government is more prevalent, but certainly less proficient..
  • Churches have become transfixed with the notion of “mega,” while simultaneously settling for a “mini” cultural influence.

We saw it coming. For after all, about fifteen or twenty years ago we decided to stop being impressed with anything. We called it “sophisticated.” “Laid-back.” We referred to it as “maturity.” We thought we were extraordinarily cool when we said, “I’ve seen that before.”

So on my part, I have made a conscious effort to avoid looking at anything as “agig,” but instead looking at it as “agog.”

Staying in motel rooms, I have learned to cook with only a microwave oven, making elaborate casseroles and meals. I am impressed with both the results and myself.

I am agog that people are still willing to come out from their homes and experience something new–something they’re not even sure they understand or will appreciate.

If we’re going to arrive at the full fruits of freedom, we must never cease to be in awe of the idea. For the only true way to ever lose your independence is to take it for granted.

And the only way you will ever be devoid of joy … is to stop looking for happy.

Aficionado

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

 

Aficionado: (n.) a person who is very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about an activity, subject or past-time

I am almost certain that these two particular words NEVER, or perhaps better stated, RARELY, work together.

I am talking about knowledgeable and enthusiastic.

In my life I have encountered people who were knowledgeable, but the information they attained through schooling or experience had disembowled their enthusiasm.

Likewise, I have been in the company of those ablaze with enthusiasm, only to discover that their limited scope of comprehension had cursed the project to the great pit of ignorance.

Yes, it is a rarity to discover a human being who is both knowledgeable and enthusiastic, therefore fulfilling Webster’s definition of aficionado.

It is perhaps one of my primary goals in life–to learn the inner workings of my craft without becoming jaded, cynical or bored.

  • For I will tell you, the worst person in the world to teach you about the Constitution, government and the great American dream is a politician.
  • I have never found ministers to be a tremendous source for bolstering one’s faith through their personal testimony.
  • I certainly would not want to discuss lifelong love and fidelity with a prostitute.
  • In turn, becoming excited about the wonderful choices available in a restaurant is not always accomplished by talking to the chef or the owner.
  • And needless to even say, having an inspiring dialogue about the glory of music is doomed to failure if you are going to chat with the first violinist of a symphony.

My goal? To learn to do what I do better–while still maintaining a childlike heart, as if it were the first day on the job.

People often ask me  if I get tired, sharing the same stories and songs. You can sense that part of them WANTS me to be burned out. But there is a little boy or girl inside, who instead wants to leap for joy if I am still thrilled to be on my playground. So it is always my magnificent pleasure to inform them that each song I sing and each word I speak surprises me every night with new significance.

I would love to be knowledgeable. Just not snarly.

I desire to be enthusiastic. Could I do that without being inept?

“Aficionado” should be the goal of everyone who wants to see the world get better.

To do that, we have to learn the truth and allow it to set us free … instead of making us depressed.

　

Adrift

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Adrift: (adj) 1. of a boat or its passengers, floating without being either moored or steered. 2. Of a person, being lost or confused.

You see, I think we have a quandary. We have to learn how three words are quite different:

  • Uncaring
  • Bohemian
  • And peaceful

When I graduated from high school, I didn’t want to be normal. I had studied “normal” through twelve years of the educational system. Now, I was not critical of it. Those who found it appealing were not my enemies, but I did not get in line to take my number, waiting to be “the next one served.”

I found myself adrift. Those around me believed I was uncaring.

Not knowing what to do, I basically chose to do very little. Truthfully, I didn’t do enough to survive–at least, financially. The critics rolled in their opinions. Family was enraged. Friends deserted me.

I was on my boat and decided to float for a while instead of feverishly paddling or hooking some sort of motor up to my life so I could troll the waters of existing social acceptability.

I knew what I liked. I liked music, I liked performing and I liked writing. Was I good? Honestly, it was difficult to find out because I was always dodging the bullets of my pistol-packing townsmen, who were determined to “gun down” my laziness and put me back into submission with the grown-up way of thinking.

Yet I resisted.

Because I didn’t paddle and try to resist the tides and currents, I bumped into a lot of things, did some damage and appeared to those around me to be Bohemian.

“Adrift,” by definition, connotes a loss of control. But you see, I believe the GREATEST loss of control was giving it to someone else, who held my life as a timecard and asked me to punch in for permission to eat and breathe.

It took me about eight years to finally blend my motivation, talent, purpose and opportunities together, to come up with a lifestyle which was acceptable to those around me because it possessed some sort of pay stub.

I never resented those eight years that I was adrift. They were painful, often stupid, frightening, lonely and occasionally enlightening. They gave me the determination I needed to set a course and right my ship in a direction to follow my dreams instead of toe the line.

So even though “adrift” may seem to be a negative posture for any vessel, be it nautical OR human, for me, it was an oxymoron: a meaningful aimless quest.

Activate

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Activate: (v.) to make something active or operative.

Let me give you a new definition for intelligence: Intelligence is when you find an easier way to do something without sacrificing quality.

Do you remember when they came out with check cards? Or really, at the very beginning, with credit cards? They had a process they used to “activate” your account. Can you recall how ridiculously difficult it was?

It involved remembering some numbers, calling long distance, or driving to your local ATM and punching in something you couldn’t possibly regurgitate. Performing the task was usually followed by discovering that you had left some piece out of the process, leaving you holding your totally useless plastic rectangle.

It’s what I love about this country–discovering the best part of capitalism. That is, creating something, making your money from it as soon as possible and then dropping the price or simplifying the retrieval.

It’s why I would NEVER be the first to buy an I-Phone. I have no desire to be an entomologist. I will let all the first purchasers work out the bugs. I’ll just come along later, when I see signs advertising “New and Improved.”

For instance, I like restaurants that advertise, “Under New Managements.” They’re letting me know that somebody screwed up and that now they’re trying to screw it back down.

  • It would be wonderful at this point in our history if some true leaders and statesmen would appear, to activate our government.
  • If some whimsical, free-thinking theologians would activate our spirituality.
  • If some musical artists would activate our emotional souls.

But for that to happen, complexity will have to be set to the side as we giggle at how foolish it was to make things difficult.

Maybe that’s why I write this daily column–just to activate in each one of us the wisdom that is carried in the power of a single word.

 

Acoustic

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Acoustic: (adj.) of music or musical instruments not having electrical amplification: e.g. acoustic guitar

  • It has to be fun.
  • It has to be humble.
  • And it has to be willing to learn.

Those are the three ingredients I think are necessary to make any adventure workable, enjoyable and realistic. Whenever any group of people takes themselves so seriously that they believe they’ve arrived at the apex of all understanding or the pinnacle of all talent, they are obnoxious and in some ways, dangerous.

This is true of musicians.

Music, which was meant to be a heartfelt explosion of joy, intimacy and emotion, has become, God forbid, a craft. And as craftsmen, we sit around and discuss the subtleties of the use of particular implementations which hold our delicate treasures together.

Thus the word acoustic.

So the rock band, which was once willing to admit “they only knew four chords and that’s why their music sounded the way it did,” pretentiously now does a documentary film, sharing their music acoustically instead of using electronic assistance. We’re supposed to stand back in awe of these cave men, who have discovered that there is some little world outside their enclosure, and mull over their genius simply because … “they’ve unplugged.”

I love music.

  • Music was God’s way of saying life should be tuneful.
  • Music was God’s apology for conversation.
  • And music is our way of expressing ourselves without insisting that the whole room listen to us pontificate.

So we should HUMBLY pursue it, realizing our limitations and ceasing to make excuses for our frequent bobbles.

But instead, we proclaim some people who compose to be “masters,” and everyone else mere “minstrels.”

So rather than enjoying the fact that other people have picked up our instrument and exceeded our efforts, we instead attempt to tear them down because they are not purists and don’t honor the traditions of syncopation or structure.

YUK.

I don’t care if you rock, jazz, square dance, hillbilly, rap or insist on Mozart. Be humble about it and have some fun. You’re not a better musician because you play an acoustic guitar instead of an electric one. It’s not a better auditorium because it’s acoustically adjusted to the high A-sharp on the first violin.

It’s supposed to be joyful. “A joyful noise”–remember that? So unless you plan on giggling and dancing, don’t come my way.

Acoustic set.

Somebody needs to take off the rubber nose and the big floppy shoes.

Accelerando

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Accelerando: (adj. & adv.): with a gradual increase of speed (used chiefly as a musical direction)

It was another example of one of those times when I overstepped my boundaries and in the process, slipped on my own crap.

I wrote a musical piece for the piano and was blessed that a small symphony orchestra agreed to play it in one of their concerts. It helped that I was good friends with the conductor. She thought it would be excellent if I performed the piano part with the symphony, giving it more focus.

Never considering my limitations on the magical eighty-eight keys, I quickly agreed, and gave a passive effort of rehearsal.  It was passive because I had enough arrogance to believe that I was a fairly decent pianist, and also regarded myself as being acquainted with this particular music since I had written it.

When I arrived at the first rehearsal with the orchestra, it became quickly obvious that I was ill-prepared to be anywhere NEAR the musical instrument  provided to make the melody, especially when I came to the end of the concerto. Because I was unable to the play music in the correct timing, I slowed them up, which prompted a flutist near the conductor to raise his hand and ask, “Is this passage going to be rubato?”

My conductor friend shook her head without verbally responding.

He persisted. “So — should we anticipate an accelerando?”

She frowned and once again shook her head.

It was very embarrassing–similar to being in a foreign country, and in a clumsy way ordering off the menu, only to notice that the waiter has gone back to the cook to chat in their common language and laugh at your selection.

Later on, my conductor friend explained that the flute player was asking if my playing was going to be rubato, which meant purposely slowed up by my own choice, or if there was some way she could build a fire under me to create an accelerando ( in other words, play it right).

I discovered that day that even in the world of classical music, there is still language available that says, “Hustle up your butt!”

The fact that it’s being said in Italian only makes it a bit more elegant.

It also makes it a trifle more aggravating.

 

Absonent

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Absonent: (adj.) discordant or unreasonable.

Actually, my “discordant brothers and sisters” in music thought I was the unreasonable one. Almost universally, they decided to pursue a life of making absonent compositions that were completely atonal and vacant melodic and harmonic tenderness. They contended that all the possible linkage of notes had already been achieved, and anything done now would simply be a rehashing of former inspiration.

I just found it sad. It’s very similar to going to a meeting and having the moderator inform all those attending that it was decided not to do much of anything because everything that was brought up seemed to be either impossible or just a remake of old ideas.

When did we become so cynical? When did we discover we lacked faith in the abilities that pulsate through our bodies–so much so that we can’t take the chance that something original could spring through our gray matter? Why do people feel intelligent nowadays by finding reasons that things should not work instead of taking the time to champion a cause and risk trying something that could be beneficial?:

I don’t know.

But in a six-year period, I sat down and wrote twelve symphonies. I did. I don’t know if they’re great. I don’t know if someone would listen to them and insist they heard hints of “this and that” and garnishes of “whatever.” In the moment I composed them, they were original to me, and they thrust my soul light-years ahead in awareness and jubilation. That can’t be bad, right?

So the next time you get around someone who insists that the intellectual approach to any situation is to be discordant or nasty, just quietly slip away to your room, write a melody that comes from your heart, and sing it with the confidence that it is yours and yours alone.

For after all, in that moment … it truly is.

Abnormal

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abnormal: adj. deviating from what is normal or usual, typically in a way that is undesirable or worrying.
So I have spent my life worrying people. I felt it was my job.

  • I worried my kindergarten teacher by coloring outside the lines. she felt it warranted a meeting with my parents.
  • I worried my high school football coach by choosing music over linebacking.
  • I worried my wife by flying out to Arizona to “rescue” her from her parents’ disapproval of me.
  • I worried people in the music industry by refusing to conform to trends, but rather, pursuing the melody in my heart.
  • I worried the political system by turning down the invitations to all of their parties.
  • I worried the religious system by believing in God without reciting all the prescribed words.
  • I worried my doctor by creating a scenario of longevity, wherein I have only a “fat chance.”
  •  I worried my family by continuing to faithfully execute my talent in a world which seems to be negating the need for gathering and fellowshipping.
  • I really don’t see the sense in living your life if you don’t worry those people around you who are content with mediocrity.

The truth of the matter is, there is nothing we regale, worship or believe in today that was not, at one time, abnormal.
Of course, some abnormalities need to be confronted and changed.

For instance, the idea that elected officials from varying corners of the country can come together and pass constructive laws …