Talent and skill are two things in short supply. They are one of many rare tandems in life … brains and beauty comes to mind.

I predominantly spent this evening writing. I also made a simple and delicious dinner, played the guitar and the piano and found various ways to waste time on the temporal vacuum called the Internet. I did find an article on time signatures and learned some interesting things.

I play instruments, but I am loath to call myself a musician. To me, a musician is like a carpenter. They have a skill that they parlay into a trade that yields them pay. Musicians are people who play instruments professionally, for money. I play instruments because I can (to a reasonable extent) and because I enjoy creating things and expressing myself through song. I would love to be paid, but I am not willing to put myself on public display … which is a pretty crucial component of being paid to entertain people.

No, misanthropy gets in the way of putting myself at risk of being evaluated by people who themselves are too chicken shit to take the spotlight. Interestingly, my few experiences with being on stage have been overwhelmingly positive, but small crowds and no recompense might have been the right recipe.

Recipe is an odd word.

Time signatures, though, fascinate me. I have written many songs, the bulk of which are in common time, the most pedestrian of all time signatures. I realized today, though, that one of my songs is actually in 2/2, or cut time — or maybe it’s 2/4 (”double time”) — and while either is only moderately less pedestrian than 4/4, double time happens to be the time signature of “Let it Be” — a song that has recently been very relevant to me.

No, not because I’ve found Jesus or that I think the Virgin Mary is talking to me … it’s because I like the idea of just letting shit go. Let it be. If Paul were edgier, the song would have been called “Fuck it.”

“When I find myself / in times of trouble / some calming broad / she comes to me / speaking words of wisdom / fu-uck it.”

I’m intrigued by the notion of time in music. I love music theory; it’s fascinating. It’s very logical and mathematical and it is engrossing to sit down and map out a beat and write down a sequence of notes and then play them, without actually having sounded out each note on an instrument, and find that it works. Music is great because it is both creative and methodical, artistic and scientific.

Unfortunately, my dabbling with time signatures does not result in great, bombastic works of compositional wonder. I think a lot of complicated music is kind of shit, honestly. I love rock-and-roll, country and blues. They are simple yet the emotional impact they have can far exceed that of some pompous cacophony of shit, no matter how methodically brilliant that symphonic composition might be.

But I appreciate the skill. I like Baroque music far more than Classical, though most people don’t know the difference. I appreciate anyone who can do something well, has merit beyond their own selfish aims and can appeal to more than just the insipid members of society.

With great regret, I admit that I don’t read that much or listen to new music or consume what might pass for the arts today because I have no faith in anyone’s abilities. Unless someone force feeds me something, I won’t even take a chance on a book or album. And since I think most people’s opinions are shit, if I accept your recommendation, you must be pretty great.

Tags: country music, misanthropy, music, music-theory, rock and roll, the blues, time signatures

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 11th, 2009 at 10:30 PM and is filed under creativity, entertainment, miscellanous bk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.