Oregon Move - One Year Update

It's officially been one year since Laura and I made the move to Oregon. We bought a townhouse last fall in a quiet neighborhood that happens to be directly adjacent to the apartment we had rented. It takes a few minutes longer, but we can still walk to the MAX light rail stop at Orenco Station. And we're still only about five miles from where Laura's sister and her family live so we get to see them a lot. We even child sat for our ten year old nibling recently. We just watched a Disney show and ate snacks and pizza so it was pretty easy.

Laura and me at the Celtic Fantasy Faire

Laura has been able to continue working for the same parent company as in Virginia, and basically just transferred to a new veterinary hospital owned by that company in Beaverton, OR about 8 miles from where we live. It's an all new staff but she's adjusted well. After one year she's no longer a newbie and is probably a veteran there now! I was able to keep my east coast job and work entirely remote, which has worked out great, although I miss not being there in person some of the time. I sold my car before we left Virginia and so far we've managed to get by with just one vehicle.

Trees in the neighborhood this spring

I've gotten involved in the Irish traditional music community here. I had taken about 5 or 6 years off from playing Irish music, so it's been a challenge getting back up to speed, but it's been fun. It's really well organized here, which I like. I try to practice every day and there are opportunities to play in sessions each Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and sometimes Saturdays here. I can't go to all of them all the time but I get around and the people seem to like me even though I'm struggling to keep my head above water.

Skittles enjoying sun on the patio

Laura enjoys gardening in the small back patio space we have, and she recently got a Weber Q series grill and has been grilling out every chance she gets, which I get to reap the benefits of! She is also enjoying having her sister nearby so that they can get together for breakfast or just to hang out. Laura and I both continue to be avid readers, with Laura consuming fantasy novels, while I like the mystery fiction of writers such as Robert B. Parker, Richard Stark, Michael Connelly, Lawrence Block and Max Allan Collins. I can't tell you how many times I've been to the local library this past year.

Skittles is doing well. She turned eleven this year. I take her on daily walks around the neighborhood, and we often take her to local trails or paths that allow dogs. Not all parks allow dogs here because they say that the presence of dogs distresses the local wildlife. Even friendly pups like Skittles! There's a pet store I walk Skittles to about every other week to stock up on locally made treats, which is her favorite recurring thing to do by far.

Skittles in chair

For actual hiking, we learned that the northern terminus of Portland's famed Forest Park Wildwood Trail is at a trailhead only about a 15 minute, mostly rural, drive from our house. We don't get there as often as I'd like, but there is some great hiking nearby. There's also a brewery about a ten minute walk from our house called Vertigo that we like to go to. It's about the closest thing we have to the community that was built up around Origin Beer Lab in Ashland, VA.

We've gotten into local sports and have been going to one game a month, either for the minor league hockey team The Portland Winterhawks or the minor league baseball team The Hillsboro Hops. When one season ends the other begins, so there is never a break in the action. We can take the MAX right to Veterans Memorial Coliseum where the Winterhawks play, whereas the Hops' stadium is only a couple miles from our house. So it's either a short drive or Uber, or we can even take the bus there and have in fact done that.

Hillsboro Hops baseball game, 6/13/25

We love visiting the Oregon Coast and have done excursions to favorite towns such as Yachats to the south and Astoria to the north. We've also ventured into Washington state to check out the McMenamins Kalama Harbor Lodge, which is beautifully positioned on the banks of the Columbia River. And we've done some some day trips to nearby Oregon towns, including Silverton and St. Helens. 

Last month we did our first real week-long vacation since moving here and went to the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington state, near Victoria British Columbia. That was a great trip and I can't wait to go back. This fall I am planning a local "European" vacation for us. There's a Norwegian themed town (Poulso, WA) and a Bavarian themed town (Leavenworth, WA) that we're going to visit. Leavenworth looks like a German mix of Deadwood, SD and Telluride, CO. Should be fun!

Moran State Park - Orcas Island, Washington

As far as live music performances and concerts, I'm not going to as much of that as I used to, but that's OK. We saw Leftover Salmon on New Year's Eve at Revolution Hall and Phish when they came to the Moda Center in April, plus Irish guitarist John Doyle at a jazz club in Portland, and The Murphy Beds (Jefferson Hamer and Eamon O'Leary) at a house concert in Portland last January. There's a local Phish cover band called Shafty that is really good. Upcoming, we have tickets for Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, and for Béla Fleck and the Flecktones.

Local Irish group Kate and Lads performing at McMenamins Rock Creek Tavern

Our first winter here was a fairly mild one, the locals tell us. With lots of rain from November through March as expected, and one day of snow. It stays dark a lot during the winter, but that didn't bother me. Spring took a while to get here with lots of false starts, but now it's starting to feel like summer. If this year is like last year, there will be all sun, blue skies and almost no rain from now into October.

A rainy spring day along the river in Portland!

😄

Am I Getting Anywhere With Music? Does It Matter?

By not working as "hard" at music recently, I'm having more fun than ever playing it and practicing it.  And by not worrying about falling behind, I may actually be making some forward progress, just in a different way than anticipated.

It seems like so much of music practice is focused on improvement and/or increasing repertoire.  You can't enjoy where you are because you are anxious to get somewhere else.  However, for about the last six weeks or so I've been letting go of self-imposed pressures, structure and feelings of being overwhelmed in favor of simply doing what gives me the most pleasure.  I've abandoned rigid rules and have really enjoyed just noodling with no perception of right or wrong.

I'm very susceptible to the muse with no way of predicting where that might go. As I get more comfortable and fluent with music, the pull of the muse is a more direct, natural occurrence - less forced - so it becomes easier to perceive it and follow it down the path.

Remembrances of 50 Phish Shows - Numbers 41 through 50!

Here are my memories of the 41st through 50th Phish shows I've been to.  For numbers 31 through 40 click here.

2010-06-15 (nTelos Pavilion, Portsmouth, VA)
The nTelos Pavilion in Portsmouth is a fan-friendly venue in an urban setting.  The general admission seating and laissez-fare attitude of the surrounding lot and neighborhood seems to work out.  This was the first of many stupendous shows here.  I especially remember the early 1st set Slave and the Tom Waits song Cold Water.  Most people didn't recognize it but I love the Mule Variations album so this song was a treat to hear, even though it didn't really fit in.

2010-07-01 (Time Warner Cable Music Pavilion at Walnut Creek , Raleigh, NC)
The friends that we met up with at this show brought with them a saying that some weird guy had said the night before...not at a Phish show.  It went "Mike Jordan, he retired".  Which morphed into "Mike Gordon, he retired", which eventually morphed into "Mike Gordon, he retarded".  It was fun to say that as we were walking into the show.  A Llama opener is kind of like getting thrown a curveball.  Roses Are Free and Time Loves A Hero were good to hear.  Divided Sky always pulls me in.  Our group of friends cozied up in the same row during the 2nd set so as not to take up any more space than we were supposed to.  It was all very cordial.

2010-07-02 (Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre - Charlotte, Charlotte, NC)
The saying "Mike Gordon, he retired" was still going strong this next day.  Buried Alive was an awesome opener.  Vultures kicked ass.  What was going down was the best band in the world was playing live music and I was there to hear it!  During the 2nd set we got down pretty close on the Mike side.  Man, I love that song The Lizards.  YEM went over well as a 2nd set ender.

2011-06-18 (Time Warner Cable Music Pavilion at Walnut Creek , Raleigh, NC)
Starting with two instrumentals is unusual.  This show's catchphrase became "Go back to Mexico!".  I think we told that to Curtis Loew.  It doesn't really make any sense.  I'm a sucker for 2nd set Prince Capsians and My Friend My Friends.

2011-06-19 (nTelos Pavilion, Portsmouth, VA)
Hey cool.  We're back at Portsmouth.  Maybe I was becoming one of those jaded vets, but the cynic in me thought the Phish songcatchers overreacted to the Harpua opener.  I was like, "uhmmm...I saw that one in '94".  Also, why they gots to play Alaska?  That 2nd set had the fire though.

2012-08-26 (Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre - Charlotte, Charlotte, NC)
I haven't mentioned this yet but it's kinda my thing to go pee during Moma Dance whenever that song comes up, whether I really have to go or not, but I usually do have to so it all works out.  Especially if it's in the first set.  What you see going on while walking to the toilets while that song is playing is just as entertaining as the music itself.  So, I remember doing that this show, but it's all kind of groggy.  No details whatsoever of the drive there, hanging out, post-show or anything.  I do remember the Alumni Blues > Letter to Jimmy Page, and I remember the Big Black Furry Creature From Mars, and Trey poking fun at Fishman's songs Tube and My Sweet One like he did at the Asheville show a few years earlier.  I think this is the only show from 2012 that I went to.  We skipped the Portsmouth shows.

2013-10-19 (Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA)
The Bathtub Gin opener kicked serious ass.  Moma Dance was next - time to pee.  It was nice to hear something new like Steam being played.  The Wingsuit/Fuego songs wouldn't debut until Halloween and we didn't know of their existence yet, so new songs were few and far between at this point and welcomed when they did appear.  Steam is not a bad song.  It kind of reminds of the Stephen King Gunslinger books.  I must apologize to my friends Mike and Vickey for puking all over the hotel room later on in the middle of the night.  (Note to self: don't drink liquor during the show).  They have kids and they're used to my foolishness so they know how to handle that situation.

2013-10-20 (Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA)
A greasy, waterside breakfast helped remedy my hangover.  Fresh friends who hadn't been the night before joined our tired old selves for night two of this stand.  Halloween was looming and rumors of what album they would play were swirling around.  Was that a Traffic style jam during Tweezer?  I think I heard some Allman Brothers in there.  That Tweezer got out there.  It rivals the more famous one from Tahoe this same tour.  What was the deal with that Takin' Care of Business?  Ginseng Sullivan and Paul And Silas in the same show?  I was liking it.  This was the Hampton we were used to.

2014-07-29 (nTelos Pavilion, Portsmouth, VA)
Summer 2014.  Laura and I spent a lovely morning in Norfolk enjoying the downtown area, harbor and museums before taking the ferry over to Portsmouth and meeting up with our friends in the infamous unofficial Portsmouth parking lot that we always manage to hang out in pre-show.  Everyone there was cool.  Getting to know some intelligent, funny and obsessed younger fans was a bonus.  Mike Gordon rode through on a golf cart and I shouted a request for Yarmouth Road which he obliged the next night.  I loved, loved, loved this show.  While it was happening I enjoyed it in the moment as much as any show ever.  That's all you can ask for, right...being in the moment?  Every aspect of this show reinforced my love for this band.  We have family in VA Beach so we cabbed it back.  Our cab driver was an old black lady named Rosetta who said she liked "writing poems and playing with water in her backyard".  I quote.  I think she was an angel sent from on high.  Oh wait a second...I'm an atheist.  Nevermind.  Rosetta gave me her card and said to call her the next day when we needed her services again.  Then she took my 40 bucks.

2014-07-30 (nTelos Pavilion, Portsmouth, VA)
Back at it up and early this day.  Another pleasant morning in Norfolk and then we met up with our friends at the Bier Garden in Portsmouth just after lunch time and laughed about how crazy the night before was.  Back to that same parking lot for some more socializing and strange coincidences.  Then, sure enough, it was showtime and this one rocked as well.  I remember being in a really good mood, perpetually.  Nothing too serious or pensive...just goodness.  After the show we wanted to keep hanging out with our friends so we piled in a car and went back with them to their hotel, only to discover that their hotel was only 4 blocks away from where we had been earlier in Norfolk each day before taking the ferry to Portsmouth.  That would have been good to know in advance.  When it was time to leave I called up the cab driver Rosetta from the night before, but instead of her again she dispatched some crazy white dude to give us a ride.  He was all over the road; I think just to see what our reaction would be.  It wasn't a pleasant escort back to the beach like the night before.  Oh well...he got us there, and didn't charge as much!

That's it.  That's all 50 shows.  (Today becomes number 51 by the way).  Sorry I couldn't be more descriptive of the actual music but I'm lucky that I can even remember the dates and locations.  I really should get back to playing banjo now.

Remembrances of 50 Phish Shows - Numbers 31 through 40

I'm recounting the 50 Phish shows that I have attended.  Here's numbers 31 through 40.  This stretch includes Coventry, the Hampton Comeback shows and Festival 8.  For numbers 21 through 30 click here.

2004-08-14 (Newport State Airport, Coventry, VT)

2004-08-15 (Newport State Airport, Coventry, VT)

Everyone who made the trek to Coventry has a story to tell about it.  In our case, Laura and I plus our friends Mike and Daniel set out early from Southwest Virginia in good spirits with plenty of time to get there.  Mike's SUV was loaded up with camping gear and other supplies.  Somewhere in Connecticut we started to have pretty severe car trouble so we overnighted there while his car went into this random small town shop.  The fixing was going to take more than a day so a friend of the owner of the shop rented us a very old mini van to use for the rest of the way while the car was getting fixed.  Of course this minivan completely broke down and fell apart on the side of the highway in Vermont.  We were still 100+ miles south of the festival, but more than a couple hours north of where we had picked up the van.  The person from CT drove up to meet us towing some 1980's Oldsmobile two-door sedan.  We had to down-size quite a bit to fit 4 people plus camping gear into that car but it got us there.  Or at least the outskirts of the festival.  After an overnight stuck in traffic several miles out, we decided to set up camp on some Vermont redneck's property a few miles from the festival and hoof it in.  A local woman - with a baby in the car! - kindly picked us stragglers up the first day and chauffeured us to the gate since she had special access as a resident.  

As for the show(s) itself, I can't say much for them.  The overwhelming gravity of the situation affected perceptions of it.  I was hopeful when they opened with Walls of the Cave.  I even had delusions that this could still be a great finale to Phish's career.  But, it fell way short of expectations.  I still have never listened to these shows ever again.  The whole event put too much of a strain on our friendships that I've never wanted to go there.  I know that I was difficult to be around this weekend.  I do remember liking the song Friday on Saturday, as crazy as that seems.  See you in four-and-a-half years.

2009-03-06 (Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA)

2009-03-07 (Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA)

The butterflies in the stomach feeling on the eve of a Phish show that you've been waiting for is omnipresent.  Never has this been more palpable than at these Hampton comeback shows.  We somehow scored tickets legitimately without having to go through scalpers. I think I just randomly called up Ticketmaster and happened to catch it at a time when tickets were available and ordered over the phone. The same group of four from the Coventry debacle were back together for these shows.  A lot had changed from 2004 to 2009, obviously.  We had shots of Patron tequila in Hooters the day of first concert which foreshadowed the Mexican Cousin which would come around in night two.  But going back to that first night, anyone who was there remembers the sense of catharsis that overwhelmed Hampton Coliseum the instance that the first notes of Fluffhead were recognizable.  Those first few seconds spoke volumes toward the collective sigh of relief that it conveyed.  The actual show or shows can't be described in any way that makes sense other than saying the proverbial "you had to be there".  Phish wasn't just back.  They were back and determined to make good on a legacy that they had left tarnished 4.5 years ago on a muddy Vermont field near the Canadian border.

2009-06-09 (Asheville Civic Center, Asheville, NC)

By Asheville in June 2009 it was back to business-as-usual as far as seeing Phish goes.  Asheville is a great little city and we had a large group of friends that descended upon it, similar in a lot of ways to the Greensboro 3-1-03 show.  A super-fun time was had hanging out beforehand and the show was great too.  The Asheville crunchy coolness was represented well as the outpouring of love from the audience was among the most authentic and universal I have ever experienced outside of the Hampton shows 3 months earlier.  Joy, teary-eyed-ness and jaw-dropping awe were among the many emotions passed through on this night.

2009-06-10 (Thompson-Boling Arena, Knoxville, TN)

The next night in Knoxville was a continuation of the party.  What great place Knoxville is!  The city that never sleeps...or at least on this night it didn't.  We stayed in a really cool downtown hotel and we were able to walk to the lot from there, even though it was a long distance.  The Shakedown was especially raging outside this arena.  Out of control.  The Waves into A Song I Hear the Ocean Sing was a highlight for me.  After the show we were amped up and kept going to bar after bar.  We even got into a cab that was playing Phish and made the driver blast it, circling around the block of our destination an additional time or two for the sheer enjoyment of it.  We finished the night at a hotel bar full of Phish fans that stayed open waaaaay later than it was supposed to.

2009-10-30 (Empire Polo Club, Indio, CA)

2009-10-31 (Empire Polo Club, Indio, CA)

2009-11-01 (Empire Polo Club, Indio, CA)

Flew out to Palm Springs for Festival 8, with a stopover in Dallas.  The plane was delayed a few hours in Dallas, and it was obvious that multiple fans were going to be on the same flight from there, due to the unusually jovial atmosphere in the airport bar at that gate, despite the wait.  As we boarded the plane a sketchy dude on some weird drugz hit his head as he was sitting down next to a mom and her toddler.  From beneath his sunglasses he said "Maybe we'll get an Althea" which caused me to lose it!  The mom made the flight attendant move this dude to a different seat and I don't blame her.  He hit his head getting into that seat too.

These polo grounds where the Coachella festival is held were a lovely place to see Phish.  It felt lightly attended as far as Phish shows go, but that laid-back California vibe was in full effect.  Maybe not as laid back as High Sierra, but close.  In late October in the desert it would be in the 90's during the day and as low as 39 degrees at one point in the early hours of the morning.  I wasn't prepared for that kind of cold. 

The entire first was excellent, but I especially liked the blimp-like artwork floating during Harry Hood.  Very avant-garde artsy.  Whatever kind of cart that "puppet" was attached to wheeled right by me.  I got completely lost trying to walk back to the campsite afterward.  The grounds were bigger and more confusing than I had thought.  

I'm not a Stones fan.  I was actually hoping for the longshot MGMT album this year.  So, when news spread on Halloween day that it was Exile on Main Street I was nonplussed.  I think I took a nap on the soft, manicured lawn while that set was being performed.  The acoustic set on 11/1 was quite special.  I loved it.  It would have been better if everyone had just sat down and chilled during it instead of having to dance.  Save your energy, folks.  Dancing during that set seemed unnecessary.  After thoroughly enjoying and savoring the final two sets later that night we packed up our tent and slept on a blanket out under the stars before flying back home to good old Virginia.

2009-12-05 (John Paul Jones Arena, Charlottesville, VA)

We had another large group of people at this show and I'm pretty sure we were all in mutual agreement to party harder than ever before.  It was preppy Charlottesville, so why not?  This might have been the tipping point as far as that goes.  The climate was snowy and icy but the show went on.  Our hotel was right across the street from the venue.  Not all of my memories of this show are positive ones, but that is independent of the music, which was right on the money.  It was satisfying to hear not one, but two songs with Virginia references in them - Old Home Place and Sweet Virginia.  That completes 2009, which, 15 years in, was my busiest year of seeing Phish.

Remembrances of 50 Phish Shows - Numbers 21 through 30

There are already lots of blank spaces where my memories should be of the 50 Phish shows that I've attended, so I figured I better write down whatever it is that I can still think while I can still think of it.  Here are shows 21 through 30.  We are now entering the dark side.  Featuring Kid Rock and Jay-Z.  Oh no.  For numbers 11 through 20 click here.

2000-09-27 (Fiddler's Green, Englewood, CO)
This was my one time seeing Phish in Colorado.  Coming from the East Coast where most everyone was gung-ho about Phish, the Denver crowd seemed a little skeptical.  Not quite as universally into it.  Maybe it was the overly corporate venue.  Things have probably changed out there now.  The song My Friend, My Friend can get weird and on this night it seemed especially so.  The You Enjoy Myself was a little truncated to allow room for the Loving Cup encore.  After the show we started heading toward Vegas and after driving for a couple hours we slept in the back of my pickup truck at some random little league baseball field off the interstate in the rural Colorado mountains.  Woke up in the morning only to discover that two other cars from the Phish show had done the same thing!

2000-09-29 (Thomas & Mack Center, Las Vegas, NV)
Laura and I got married before this show!  It was a quasi-elope, because although we knew about it a week or two in advance we didn't tell anyone until after it had happened.  On the shuttle ride from our hotel to the venue the song We're An American Band was playing on the radio and I predicted that Phish would play it tonight...and they did...for only the 2nd time ever!  A good guess, I guess.  Although it was ruined by Kid Rock on vocals, as was a good portion of the 2nd set.  They needed a hook to get that idiot off the stage.  What a big mistake it was inviting Kid Rock out to play with them.  The end was near.

2000-09-30 (Thomas & Mack Center, Las Vegas, NV)
They put this show out on DVD.  Unfortunately the dry, desert climate didn't sit well with me.  I was running a fever by lunchtime, had a sore throat, and felt increasingly more sick as the day went on.  I still went and enjoyed the show, but it was the most unwell I've ever been at a concert - as in like actual illness stay-home-from-work sick.  This show of course had the first Esther since 8/9/98 VA Beach - another show that I was at.  Trey butchered it and it was shelved again.  Esther died.  There's also that bizarre synchronized duel on stage between Trey and Mike.  This would be the last show for 2+ years as Phish was about to take their first hiatus.

2003-01-04 (Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA)
By the time 2003 rolled around we were living back in Virginia.  While Phish was on the first hiatus we filled the time by flying to the High Sierra Music festival a couple times and getting into other bands, but it was nice to have Phish back.  I'm looking at the setlist for this show now, hoping to jog some memories of it, but not much is coming to mind.  I remember the night before, the drive to the show, hanging out in the hotel room beforehand, but not much about the concert itself.  I think I remember being glad that they played Pebbles and Marbles, being a fan of the Round Room album.

2003-03-01 (Greensboro Coliseum, Greensboro, NC)
The tapes may or may not live up to it, but it was one of the all-time best Phish shows I've attended.  Ironically, while hanging out on the day of I remember doubting if I could even recognize a "great" show any more, circa 2003.  There was magic in the air, the type of magic that can turn crystals into fool's gold.  Lots of good friends and lots of good fun.  There was a point in the evening where every song seemed to be going back to that same transcendent place.  The songs were merely vehicles for the hose to spray its flow.  There was definitely a Trey fist pump at the end of this night.

2003-07-25 (Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre - Charlotte, Charlotte, NC)
This show kicked off one of my most favorite three night runs ever.  Party all day and rock all night, and then get up and drive to the next place and do it all over again, and again.  The specifics sorta bleed together.  There was a muscle-bound crazy guy in the parking lot shouting "Where's My Momma" when his hippie girlfriend disappeared.  We figured she wasn't going to come back but she did.  He was not someone you wanted to mess with.  "Where's My Momma?" has remained a catchphrase to this day.

2003-07-26 (HiFi Buys Amphitheatre, Atlanta, GA)
Is this the place in the ghetto?  Piper > Mountains in the Mist, Waves > Tweezer.  Yeah I think I remember that as being awesome come to think of it.  How could it not have been?!  I lost my voice yelling "Where's My Momma?" after the show.

2003-07-27 (ALLTEL Pavilion, Raleigh, NC)
I remember someone stealing my cooler and thinking I was going to die in the car ride afterword as it became clear that our DD was not fit to be a DD.  Besides that, again, not much.  It's like I wasn't even there, but I know I was.  Maybe this show shouldn't even count on the list if I can't remember anything about it musically.  If I really try hard maybe I remember the Seven Below.

2004-06-18 (KeySpan Park, Brooklyn, NY)
My friend Daniel was the only one brave enough to go with Laura and me to this New York show.  We stayed in Mahattan and took the subway over to Coney Island.  I liked it over there.  The minor league baseball stadium was a good place to see Phish.  There were some interesting bars nearby and authentic pizza.  We looked for Paris Hilton but didn't find her.  The New York crowd was very New York.  This was the show with Jay-Z making a guest appearcance in the 2nd set.  I wasn't into that at all but it seemed like the band was getting a kick out of it.  It made me feel like a tourist.

2004-08-09 (Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA)
It was hard to get tickets to this show but I got one.  The night had a melancholy feel to it; very different from the celebratory times at Hampton in the past, especially the post-setbreak part of the evening.  The band was not healthy at this point in their career.  There are definitely highs and lows across a trajectory like Phish's and this night was a low.  We would soon go back for one last hurrah, though: Coventry.

Remembrances of 50 Phish Shows - Numbers 11 through 20

I counted up that I had been to 50 Phish shows from 1994 to 2014.  I'm about to surpass that number but in honor of that nifty milestone I thought I'd jot down the first things that come to mind about each of the 50 Phish shows that I have attended.  Below are shows 11 through 20.  For shows 1 through 10 click here.

1997-11-22 (Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA)
I didn't know that they could possibly top the night before but they did.  A Mike's > Hydrogen > Weekapaug for the ages to start the show.  Followed by Hood.  A jammed out Halley's opened the 2nd set, if I remember correctly.  That whole 2nd half had such energy.  Such importance.  The Bouncin' encore was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard or witnessed in my life.  Probably my all around favorite two set show, this one.

1997-12-28 (USAir Arena, Landover, MD)
It's funny how much your mood on a given day can impact your intake of the show.  This was a Sunday and I guess Maryland still had blue laws, meaning no stores sold alcohol on that day.  That was a mild bummer and we had nothing else handy to set it right.  This show never quite jived for me.  I remember the Scent of a Mule being cool, though.  At the time I think I was wishing that I was going on to the next three nights at MSG and didn't appreciate this show for what it was.

1998-08-07 (Walnut Creek Amphitheater, Raleigh, NC)
It rained hard before and/or during the beginning of this show.  Weird, unexplainable memories remain of climbing up (proverbial?) walls during Forbin's, and of falling to pieces during Limb By Limb and landing to reform.  It was a quite literal interpretation of the song.  This show inhabits some weird, surgary pockets of the brain and I'm not sure how it got into those places.  It remains a mystery.  Drove home listening to a Grateful Dead tape with a killer Dark Star on it.

1998-08-08 (Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, MD)
This show had a trippiness coming from the stage.  I don't know what was going on but Phish was playing differently this night.  Not necessarily better, just different.  Double pumping Wedge and NICU to kick things off gave it a Dead-like feel that suited the atmosphere of MPP well.  Sweet Jane was an odd way to end the first set.  Page looked certifiably crazy on the big screen while singing it.  Piper carried that second set on its back.  I've never seen a show that relied so heavily on this song in that placement.  Not all of the crowd was on board or riding this wave.  The Sabotage encore was a complete left turn from the mellow and minimal approach being offered this night.  I don't know how they did it.  Everyone on the lawn jumped about two feet forward the instant that song began.  I felt like a poser because I didn't even recognize Sabotage or know what it was.

1998-08-09 (Virginia Beach Amphitheater, Virginia Beach, VA)
It was a long, traffic-filled drive from Columbia, MD to Virginia Beach and we were tired out when we got to the VA Beach Amphitheater.  Two previous nights of Phish had taken its toll.  There was very little time to hang out in the lot before going into the show.  I think we had decent pavilion seats this night, but never found them, choosing to look for alternative seats, which we eventually had to vacate.  Frustrated, we ended up at the very back of the lawn, which allowed for the first truly relaxing moments of the day.  I didn't instantly recognize the Terrapin Station encore.  I wasn't expecting anything like that.  It was unbelievable and made it all worthwhile.  Afterward, walking back to the car there was complete silence all around.

1998-11-21 (Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA)
This show had  what seemed like a very long first set.  Just when you thought they were going to take a break, they would tack on another song, and then another song.  Having seen Sabotage a few months earlier at Merriweather, I was ready for it this time when it opened the 2nd set.  Other than that the 2nd set felt kinda lite, although Ha Ha Ha was fun to hear.  For some reason we didn't go to the night before this one at Hampton.

1999-07-08 (Virginia Beach Amphitheater, Virginia Beach, VA)
I really don't remember much about this show.  Looking at the setlist now, I do remember the Fee jam, and the Meatstick.  The Meatstick dance craze was sweeping the nation that summer.  I definitely didn't pick up on any Days Between jam during BOAF that might have happened.  The Syd Barrett Terrapin must have been a joking nod to the previous year's Terrapin Station encore at the same venue.

1999-07-09 (Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, MD)
I don't have too many vivid memories from this show either, other than knowing that I was really digging it.  The Farmhouse was especially well received by the crowd on the lawn.  I'm sure I was in approval of that What's The Use.  Two Meatsticks in two nights?  That was OK at the time.  The Sweet Emotion quote in Mike's Song was fun.  This was before glowsticks became a nuisance.  The glowsticks went well with the music during the Harry Hood encore on this night.

1999-07-23 (Polaris Amphitheater, Columbus, OH)
Conversely, I have lots of memories of this Polaris show.  My first and only time at this venue.  We drove up the day before.  It was a good 11 hour drive from where we were coming from.  Laura brought along her sister for her 1st and only Phish concert.  A non-fan, but we all had a great time and share lots of fond stories of this trip.  The reason we went to this show was because Columbus, OH was a good meetup place for some friends going to school in Indiana.  We met a guy named Star Man before the show who lived up to his name.  This seemed like the first time that possible drug abuse might be marring Phish's playing.  That Birds of a Feather seemed impacted in this way.  Nonetheless, I enjoyed the whole show immensely.  The Fast Enough For You was especially poignant.  Third Meatstick in a row for me!  There was a big rainstorm during the Rocky Top encore and we all got soaked.

2000-09-25 (Sandstone Amphitheatre, Bonner Springs, KS)
Laura and I moved to Colorado at the end of the summer in 1999 so there was a 14-month gap in seeing Phish during this time.  When they finally did come around we were ready, but we also felt more like grownups than ever before.  It was kind of like a pre-marriage honeymoon.  We stayed at a quaint bed and breakfast in Bonner Springs and went to a winery before the show, which was a newish experience.  I remember drinking this nice Riesling directly out of the bottle and sharing it with a wook in the parking lot, who shared his orange flavored malt liqour back with me.  We were really close this show from the start - like 4th row - closer than the tickets convey.  Hmmmm.  The Beatles song Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except for Me and My Monkey was a nice treat.  It was only the 2nd time they had played it and they haven't played it since.  It got really cold that night - in the 40's - hence the first set Tweezer.

Remembrances of 50 Phish Shows - Numbers 1 Through 10

Not my actual ticket

Yesterday I tried to think of how many Phish shows I had been to and counted exactly 50 of them.  I think that's correct.  It will soon be 51 because I am planning on going to see Phish at the end of this week.  In honor of those 50 times past, I thought it would be fun to briefly write about the first things that come to mind about each of these shows, if any!  Not so much about the music, but just the experience in general.

Here are shows one through ten.  

1994-06-30 (Classic Amphitheater, Richmond, VA)
My first show.  I went with my friend Mike who has been to a lot of shows with me over the years - most of the ones on this list.  We heard Phish being interviewed on a local rock radio station driving in.  They were talking about covering a classic album on Halloween and how fans could vote on the selection.  Was impressed by size of the "scene" in parking lot.  Remember thinking that Trey was a full-on rock star.  Sean Hoppe of the local jamband The Headstone Circus got pulled on stage during Harpua for Honky Tonk Women.  Made it home safely this night, somehow.

1994-10-27 (University Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA)
They played some Gamehendge stuff and I wasn't quite sure what Gamehendge was yet.  I wasn't too impressed by the show at the time, believe it or not.  On the ride back I stopped for gas but it was late and the gas station was closed.  My friend Porkchop reached out the door of the car and grabbed some flowers out of a flower pot at the gas station.  That was a big hit.  Ended up having enough gas to get home anyway.

1995-06-16 (Walnut Creek Amphitheater, Raleigh, NC)
This whole show was good but I remember the 2nd set being exceptionally good.  Like, really good.  Jammed out Runaway Jim into Free.  (Free was their new "Southern Rock" song).  Boyd Tinsley from Dave Matthews Band sat in on fiddle during You Enjoy Myself.

1995-06-17 (Nissan Pavilion at Stone Ridge, Bristow, VA)
Divided Sky opener. Do I recall that or not???  It's hazy.  People were hitting the ground before the show even started. Trey was in a really playful mood this night. Fishman had a coat rack on stage.  Three Little Birds encore with Dave Matthews was a big letdown.

1995-11-22 (USAir Arena, Landover, MD)
Great show.  Night before Thanksgiving.  I imagined some back story for Run Like An Antelope while that song was playing - like there was a history of a certain dance that fans did during that song.  I either imagined it in my head or heard the guy behind me telling his friend that that's what you did during that song or thought it was real and started doing the dance itself.  Also thought that the venue had turned on the house music during The Taste That Surrounds.  Was quite certain I peed my pants during Strange Design but when the set ended I realized that I hadn't.  Rode back to Richmond with my friend Eric and his then girlfriend.  Impromptu.  Not sure they wanted me in the car with them at that moment.  We stopped in a Subway for a sandwich and my sub fit together the way Africa and South America must have once fit together.  Like Pangea.

1995-11-25 (Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA)
Thanksgiving weekend.  Multiple Poor Hearts.  Kung, Mike's Song, Rotation Jam.  Didn't we call it "Keyboard Calvary" back then?  Crowd was lackluster where I was for the 2nd set.  Hampton hadn't quite gained legendary status at that point.  Got ride back to Richmond after the show and was dropped off at home alone in the big house we lived in on Grace Street in Richmond.  (We sure used to drive back from shows a lot back then, huh.)  Had to go down into the spooky basement for something that night and pretty sure I saw the reflection of a ghost in the glass door with my back to the basement steps.  Creeped me out, and I'm an atheist who doesn't believe in ghosts.

1995-12-31 (Madison Square Garden, New York, NY)
Probably the best show I ever saw.  First time in New York City.  My ears fell off while hanging out outside the venue beforehand.  I listened to conversations and sounds from the pavement for a while until the ears returned to my head.  MSG seemed swanky inside.  We left our original seats because the usher kept telling my friend Chris that he couldn't smoke a cigarette there.  Wound up somewhere high up in the arena.  There was a dog inside there who had been to like "9 or 10 shows".  No joke.  I was jealous because this was only my 7th show.  I danced next to and/or kinda in sync with some hippie chick for all 3 sets.  She gave me a hug outside later.  When the show ended I looked to a woman next to me and exclaimed "you might think it's over, but it ain't over!". I think I frightened her.  We rode the bus back from New York to Richmond immediately after the show.  Sat next to an old wise man who had oodles of sage advice, but I can't remember what any of it was.  Secular fate had placed him there.  Sleep wouldn't come so I wrote poems and watched an Andy Griffith marathon at our neighbor's house the next day.

1996-10-25 (Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA)
Long 10 month gap between seeing Phish.  Hampton is just 90 minutes down the road.  I knew about 20 people from VCU at this one and we were all pretty much together for the first half.  This show will always be remembered for The Naked Dude.  Some very young looking naked kid - like pre-puberty - was flung in the air from behind us during setbreak and landed directly next to me.  He hit his head hard as he landed backwards in the seat with his legs pointed up and muttered "This is a dream".  I said to him "No dude, it most certainly is not a dream".  We tried to talk some sense into him but there was no talking sense into this guy.  Too bad it wasn't a naked hippie chick. I was about to push him over the rail and let him fall to the floor when security came and begrudgingly took him away to a padded room.  Besides that I remember Kuroda doing lots of white lights and feeling kinda old already (I was 22 at the time).  Billy Breathes was toooooo slow.  After the show in the hotel room there were a bunch of people in and out, all over the floor.  The movie That Thing You Do had come out and we dedicated that song to a balloon that was magically hovering above the air conditioner.  Not a good way to impress girls, or was it?  Then we watched some cat litter infomercial all the way through.  Rusted Root might have been on late night TV that night and they were obviously hopelessly out of touch with what was going on...with their leather pants and all.  Snake was at this show.

1997-07-21 (Virginia Beach Amphitheater, Virginia Beach, VA)
My future wife's first show.  I was the Phish "expert" at the time and of course they proceeded to start off with 4 brand new, never before heard songs:  Ghost, Dogs Stole Things, Piper, Dirt.  That kind of put her and me on equal ground for the first portion of the show.  This was the early days of the internet and I wasn't online very much back then, but I figured these were some of the new songs they had debuted in Europe earlier that year.  We collectively saw The Man Mulcahy during that Character Zero first set closer.  The portion of the show with the saxophone guy (Leroi Moore) could have been put to better use, as in not having him out there at all.  A waste of precious time.  Sit-ins rarely work with Phish because too many allowances have to be made for the guests.  This was the type of show that left you hungry for more.

1997-11-21 (Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA)
11/21/97 grabs you from the first note and never lets go.  This was my first taste of that Fall '97 phunk and it seemed like Phish had really taken everything to a new level in just a few months.  If you didn't like this show you didn't like Phish.  Plain and simple.  It was a new era of playing, jamming, improvising.  A more mature, unexpected sound that was exactly what we wanted to hear, even if we didn't know it yet.  A seat had opened for Phish in the annals of music history and they pulled up a chair.

I Like “Jambands” So Why Not “Jazz”?

I like bands which specialize in collective group improvisation.  To my knowledge, the bands that best exemplify this are the Grateful Dead, Phish and Medeski Martin and Wood.  Some might call this "jamband" music.  Improvisation is also a big component of jazz, so after all these years why haven’t my tastes made the leap?

When I think of “jazz”, I tend to think of the innovative musicians who made their most groundbreaking work during a 10 to 15-year span from the mid-to-late 50's to about 1970. People like Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Thelonius Monk, Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Wes Montgomery and Sun Ra. In the age of Spotify and YouTube, much of the music that these artists made is only a click away, yet I often have to force myself or remind myself to listen to it rather than come by it naturally. Why is this?

I think it partially has to do with the way this music comes across when compared to the music that someone of my generation was conditioned to listen to; we're not taught to prize the sound of a trumpet or saxophone or a noisy solo, but we are taught to worship the sound of the electric guitar…or in my case the guitar as played by a select few masters including Jerry Garcia and Bill Frisell. (There are plenty of “great” guitarists whose style does not appeal to me at all).

By the time I was in college I had a pretty clear grasp on the type of music that I liked and it didn’t necessarily have to include The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix or Pink Floyd. I didn’t omit these bands altogether but I also didn’t focus on them.  With the broad variety of music under the rock n’ roll umbrella I could cherry-pick my favorites – based on what appealed to my particular tastes rather than just what is popular or what other people have said is good – and still feel like I was getting a full view.

I don't have that same nonchalance with jazz so I can't help but wonder if I am missing something by not devoting more time to the jazz equivalents of The Beatles or The Stones (Miles and Coltrane and so on)?  Perhaps by listening to improvisational "jambands" I had found not a gateway to jazz but a modern-day substitute for the innovative spirit of jazz.  So, in effect, that jamband music wasn't an alternative to the standard forms of rock n' roll as one might think, but a tie-in to a freer type of expression more akin to the jazz aesthetic.

However...things may be slowly shifting more toward jazz anyway as I get older.  For example, whenever I know that I'll be visiting a new city one of the first things I research is where to hear jazz music...not where to hear rock music.  This is because I know that generic rock music is probably going to annoy me but generic (AKA authentic) jazz is going to be pretty cool!

Playing Music in the Morning

The write-up accompanying the Vijay Iyer Trio's recent NPR Tiny Desk concert contained this description: "The morning after a gig in Washington, D.C., the trio got up to visit NPR headquarters before a noon train back to New York. There was a lot of espresso involved".

I take a little bit of an issue with the concept that musicians as a whole are nocturnal, that they are not morning people. Life on the road may not allow for this, but the morning can be a very creative, eye opening time.  I recall a Martin Hayes documentary where he talks about the benefit of playing tunes first thing in the morning, and I once read a David Lowery interview where he mentioned that his most productive writing time is in the very early hours of the morn'.  One of my musical idols, Bill Frisell, is also an early riser.

I used to host a music jam that started on Saturdays at 10 - the AM, not the PM.  I found it to be a fun, interesting time of day to interpret music collectively.  You can't tell me that some of the world's best musicians aren't already up and practicing by then!

The writer Jonathan Lethem describes morning benefits like this:

Write before the world wakes up and announces its clawing demands. This is more important than ever, given the way our typewriters and telephones have converged. Whenever you start, start earlier. Start while the coffee is still brewing, start while NPR is still playing BBC World News, start half asleep. Get it done first, and you'll be someone another human being might be willing to live with, at least eventually.

Musicians are certainly concerned with rhythm, so why keep in tune with the earth's rhythms?

St. Paddy's Day Week as a Player of Irish Music

As a player of Irish music, St. Paddy's Day Week is, ironically, just like any other week.  If there was a friendly local session going on that was open to someone of my intermediate abilities, then I would enjoy going to that.  But as it is I'll just continue doing what I do every night...which is playing tunes at home...getting better acquainted with melodies such as The High Reel and Tripping Up the Stairs.

A lot of it has to do with not being good enough to be offered gigs or other (paid) playing opportunities, but some of it has to do with a personal disconnect to the idea of Irish music as performance.  Of course, if I saw what I do as a possible form of entertainment for others, and I was good enough and confident enough to present it as such, and someone was willing to pay me money to basically do what I would already be doing anyway (which is playing tunes), then I would definitely be open to that!

It's funny that I should be disinterested in the groups that play a polished, concert form of Irish music because I am definitely susceptible to the idea of music in the concert setting and can identify with the hero-worshiping fan.  If I counted up the number of times I've seen Phish, Dark Star Orchestra, moe., Leftover Salmon, Yonder Mountain String Band, Sound Tribe Sector 9, Keller Williams, Strangefolk, even String Cheese Incident, it would number in the hundreds. (yes these are bands for white kids to take drugs to, but also great performers!).  So, I'm no stranger to the perspective of being a starry-eyed music spectator and appreciator.

I suppose there's a slight feeling of being left out going on here, although prior to playing Irish music I had no real connection to the culture so I didn't pay much attention to St. Patrick's Day as a holiday. Now I'm more aware of it due to a quizzical feeling of should I be a more direct participant in some way?  There's got to be more to the celebration than just the secular Americanized version of guzzling green beer, even for a snoot like me.

90% of my music listening these days is to Irish traditional tunes.  I view this type of listening as a disciplined study; mental preparation for the music that I love to play, which is basically any form of traditional Irish instrumental tune.  That's probably not a well-rounded absorption of Irish music as it noticeably omits the pub style ballad that so many listeners think of when they think of the Celtic genre.  It's a selfish indulgence that becomes more complex this time of year.

Music - Figuring It Out for Yourself

My transcription of a tune I'm learning -
a work in progress

You don’t really learn something until you learn it yourself in your own way. For example, I remember finding other people's instructions on how to play by ear and re-blogging this information long before I had ever tried it myself. That was over three years ago. Now that I am five weeks into attempting to learn tunes by ear I'm developing an inkling of an idea of how to do this based on how I’ve managed to do it thus far.

After a full year of playing by ear I'll have an even better understanding of the process and a more refined way of doing it. Chances are what works for me - my eventual way of understanding it or describing it - may be different than the way it was explained in those instructions written by others.

Another example is the chord player who refers to a chord chart to tell her when to go to the IV chord, the V chord, and so on.  If instead she learned through trial and error by relying on her ear to tell her what’s right and what’s wrong rather than what some guy wrote on some sheet or even what some teacher said to do, then not only is she learning in a more direct, intuitive fashion, but she may also happen upon personal harmonic preferences, such as hearing a minor sounding chord that the chart omitted.

When you figure something out for yourself, you learn what's important and what you can leave out.  My chicken-scratch transcriptions make sense to me and don't need to be any clearer for my use and understanding, but would be confusing for someone else. A lot of people will say when you are learning a new song you figure out what the chords are first and then go from there.  I may be wrong in my approach and this may be an incomplete view, but I don't really even think about or care about chords. I think in terms of melody. That's what's important to me.

I like to learn the melody first and then go from there.  I understand theory well enough to know what chords would be available in the scale being used, but I don't need to know that to play the tune.  I might harmonize a melody note with another note - that's similar to the idea of a chord. It took figuring this out on my own for me to personally decide what's important and what's not.

One impact I hope learning by ear will have is, rather than being so focused on just playing the notes - a "midi" style melody - I can shift my focus to articulating the general feel, rhythm and vibrato of the piece. You don’t need a book telling you where to do a triplet or hammer-on, you just hear the need for it in the music and do so automatically.

Musical Diversity - Accentuating the Similarities

getty images

There’s a research paper entitled Mozart to Metallica: A Comparison of Musical Sequences and Similarities, by Stuart Cunningham, Vic Grout and Harry Bergen. The paper found that “Many musical pieces, though perceived as being greatly different in terms of their style, are often very similarly constructed on a strictly notational basis”.

Now that I’m attempting to play and notate some music by ear, I am noticing this more myself. Genre has its uses and conveniences for categorizing and selling music to the general public, and as a player of music you can delve pretty deep into the nuances of different styles and traditions if that’s your thing, but the more I play and study music, the more I see the similarities.

I personally define traditional music as the act of creating music on your own, for your own enjoyment, using some type of musical instrument. This must have been how people did it back in the days before recordings, mp3s and clicking play. If you’re sitting on your front porch playing guitar, then you’re playing music in a traditional fashion, no matter what sound is coming out. It could be Bach or it could be Mary Had A Little Lamb.  One could also argue that pursuing your own musical interests based on the influences around you is more traditional than going out of your way to preserve an archaic style.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

To me, (tenor banjo) is a music equalizer. I can use it to pluck any instrumental melody that my ears are capable of hearing and my fingers are capable of playing. The universality of this act neutralizes the concepts of musical genre, style, tradition and other perceived differences. In other words, a classical composition, a fiddle tune, a jazz standard, an Eastern European folk song – when envisioned/interpreted as notes on the 4-string banjo – sort of all become the same thing, rather than a bunch of very different things. At this micro-level, the only genre is the genre of making music on your instrument. There’s a lot of freedom in that.

The tenor banjo is one of the core instruments in Irish traditional music. It’s loud, it cuts through the din and it uses the same fingerings as the fiddle. It made sense for it to be adopted into the fold. But, when I play an Irish tune on tenor banjo, I try and view it as more of a coincidence than an association with an established style. Irish tunes are just one of many things I might want to play on this instrument. Hopefully, I’d still be playing Irish tunes on the tenor banjo even if there wasn’t already a precedent for it (although it is nice to have that roadmap).

Everything is malleable. For example, I’m pretty sure the Phish song Guyute is in 6/8 time like a jig (if it’s not it could be). When stripped of its album version, its arena-rock context, and its jamband distinction, and with no one to please but yourself, playing Guyute on your instrument should be fundamentally no different than playing something like Irish Washerwoman on it. Conversely, when stripped of its clichéd “Irishness”, playing Irish Washerwoman on the tenor banjo should be no different than playing an arrangement of Guyute on it. It works both ways. One is no more or less an aberration than the other.

In Plein Air - Can Visual Art Influence Your Pursuit of Music?

Plein Air is an art term used to describe the act of painting outdoors “in plain air”.  (Plein rhymes with glen).  The gallery near where I live - Gallery Flux - is featuring a ‘Plein Air and Big Skies’ exhibit now through September 27, 2014.  

At the opening reception last week, I was impressed at the variety of different styles and techniques that fall under the plein air umbrella.  Many of the paintings depicted either the countryside or the beach/water, but the way each artist chose to interpret those scenes was unique.  

Gallery Flux Plein Air exhibit, August 2014

There were some in the Impressionist style, some had a Bob Ross kind of thing going on; some were very realistic, some were very abstract.  I suppose the common thread throughout all plein air work – besides the act of painting outside – is an attempt to capture the essence of light and convey the intangible. 

How does this relate back to music?

A painter might have a particular style that is reminiscent of artists that have come before her (much like the fiddler who plays in the style of her favorite oldtime master), but she is still painting her own paintings.  Additionally, the abstract artist whose plein air canvasses almost look like a Rothko still shares a kinship with the artist who paints his outdoors-inspired work in a very detailed way.

Not all of us have the composition skills or creative urge to write the next Mississippi Sawyer or Swallowtail Jig.  Many of us are content to work within the repertoires that have been handed down to us by previous generations.  That doesn't mean that you can't still express yourself through these tunes.  I think of these traditional, centuries-old melodies as palette to work from, but not strictly adhere to.

The most enduring fiddle tunes and folk songs are rubbery enough to respond well to endless interpretation.  If you are inspired to play this music in your kitchen or on your front porch, for your own enjoyment and in your own way, then you still share a kinship with the traditional musicians of old who played for exactly the same reasons, long before the days of session police and oldtime nazis!

Coloring Outside the Lines of Tunes

Traditional music is like a coloring book.  Rather than starting from a blank sketch pad, as original songwriters and composers do, the interpreter of traditional music is working from a pre-existing template that has already been partially outlined.  Flexibility comes from the materials you use to fill in that outline, what hues you choose to color it with, and how inside or outside the lines you choose to go. 

In their natural habitat, oldtime jams and Irish sessions both rely on unison melody playing, so you have to keep your tune mutations within the realm of conformity.  However, unlike classical music where the musician’s job is to perform the piece without letting too much of his or her identity get in the way, with traditional music you are allowed a certain amount of leeway.  Part of the fun is seeing where you can take that while still remaining within the group mind. 

In my mid to late 20’s, before I ever even considered playing a musical instrument, I used to write these abstract journal entries.  I would fill up a notebook page – on an almost daily basis – with a stream of consciousness flow of written words; trying not to be overly cognizant of what I was putting on the page and purposely shifting course whenever I thought too far in advance.  After filling an entire page I would then close the diary without really knowing what I had written.  Later – weeks, months, years later – I would go back and look at random pages and try to make poetic sense of it. 

I didn’t over analyze this activity or try to assign it an identity.  I simply opened the notebook having no preconceived notions of what I would write, said “go”, tried not to pause at any point while writing, stopping only when I got to the bottom of the page.  Always the same exercise but never the same result. 

I’ve recently resumed this writing practice after a decade plus lapse and the freedom of this kind of open thinking is complementing the tunes I am playing.  I’m not really drawn toward musical ornamentation/experimentation when playing.  I might play a tune several times through with pretty much the exact same notes and get off on the repetition.  Variation could seep in by fooling with the timing and emphasis – prolonging something by a little bit here or there and/or adding an accent to a place where it normally is not.  I leave the true improvisation for the page, where I give myself one chance per day to open that spout and let whatever is waiting there to pour through.

There is no right or wrong, criticism, pressure or audience for these abstract journal entries.  It’s just me, a pen and a blank page about to be filled with ink.  That’s kind of the way I’m starting to look at the open air – silence – before the notes are played in a tune.  The air is the blank page and the notes are the words that color it.  

Do You Find Your Instrument or Does Your Instrument Find You?

I must really, really love playing melodies.  This is probably why I’ve gravitated towards fiddle tunes, Irish trad and other instrumental folk music.  I had a broad, hungry and obsessive taste in music long before I ever decided to play an instrument, so the fact that I’m pretty much only interested in playing fiddle tunes and folk melodies has come as a bit of a surprise.

I listened to a lot of Grateful Dead and Phish in my 20’s, and this sponge-like nucleus of sound spawned pathways toward jazz in the form of Miles Davis, Medeski Martin and Wood, Bill Frisell and Grant Green, toward the bluegrass/Americana of Norman Blake, Hot Rize, New Grass Revival, Yonder Mountain String Band and John Hartford, “No Depression” style alt. country ala The Flatlanders, Wilco, Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt, undefinable instrumental bands such as Tortoise, Laika and the Cosmonauts, and Sound Tribe Sector 9, singer-songwriters like John Prine, Gillian Welch, Nanci Griffith, Steve Earle and Townes Van Zandt, contemporary rock bands My Morning Jacket, Dawes and Dr. Dog, “new” classical ensembles and composers Uakti, Bang on a Can Allstars, Terry Riley and Steve Reich, roots-fucking reggae in the form of Culture and Augustus Pablo, progressive acoustic instrumentalists including Bela Fleck, David Grisman, Akira Satake, and Leo Kottke, and trippy bands like The Meat Puppets, The Flaming Lips and Ween.

I name checked all these cool groups and musicians simply to demonstrate where I might have been coming from when I first picked up an instrument (tenor banjo) 8 years ago, back in June, 2006.  Note that NONE of the music I liked up to that point is what you would call Irish or oldtime, except for maybe Norman Blake.  

I assumed that I’d be wanting to strum chords and sing John Prine, Neil Young and Grateful Dead covers, but I didn’t enjoy that at all.  (Maybe the fact that I hadn't chosen a guitar would have been an early indicator.)  Then I was introduced to some fiddle tunes like Arkansas Traveler and Silver Spear and I was hooked right away!  It probably helped that tenor banjo was an instrument more suited to picking melodies than accompanying songs, at least to my ears. 

Tenor banjo was my first choice, primarily to be different, but I wonder if I inherently knew that it was the right choice at that time?  Now that I’m kind of switching over to mandolin, the world of music is continuing to open up - both forwards and backwards.  

I still am all about playing melodies but as I continue to work on developing my ear, there’s the opportunity to learn a portion of a Phish jam or a riff from a Medeski, Martin and Wood composition, for example.  Not everything from my music listening past will lend itself to this treatment, but anything you can whistle you can play on mandolin.  I also want to be open to any influence this old favorite music might have on the interpretations of traditional music.  It's all the same language.

Playing mandolin is definitely going to continue to dictate the type of music that I play.  The mando's consistent, standard tuning of GDAE, coupled with the fact that it's fairly easy to play in any key, as well as its melodic range and friendliness toward melodic notes, allows for me to broaden my search for tunes to all the corners of the globe where music is part of a cultural tradition.  

Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones - As Applied to Music

During my recent vacation I read Natalie Goldberg's well known book of Zen practice/writing practice entitled Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within.  I mostly interpreted it slightly out of context, inserting the words "playing music" instead of "writing" wherever possible.  For example, consider the following quotes with music-related words substituted for writing-oriented words:

"When I teach a beginning class, it is good. I have to come back to beginner's mind, the first way I thought and felt about (music).  In a sense, that beginner's mind is what we must come back to every time we sit down and (play)."

"You should feel that you have permission to (play) the worst junk in the world and it would be OK."

"Take a (tune) book. Open to any page, grab a (musical phrase, play it) and continue from there.  A friend calls this writing off the page.  If you begin with a great (melody), it helps because you start right off from a lofty place.  Every time you get stuck just rewrite your first (phrase) and keep going."

"If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you."

"If you want to know (music), listen to it.  Little by little you will come closer to what you need to say and express it through your voice."

"If you are (playing) from first thoughts - the way your mind first flashes on something before second and third thoughts take over and comment, criticize and evaluate - you don't have to worry.  We can't always stay with first thoughts but it is good to know about them."

"When we know the name of something...it takes the blur out of our mind".

"We always worry that we are copying someone else, that we don't have our own style. Don't worry. (Music making) is a communal act....we are carried on the backs of all the (musicians) who came before us.  We live in the present with all the history, ideas and soda pop of this time.  It all gets mixed up in our (playing)."

"Right from the beginning, know (playing an instrument) is good and pleasant. Don't battle with it.  Make it your friend."

"Don't even worry about (playing) well; just (playing) is heaven."

"Not the why but the what...it's enough to know you want to (play). (Play)."

"If you want to (play) in a certain form, (listen to) a lot of (music) in that form.  When you (listen) a lot in that form, it becomes imprinted inside you, so when you sit down to (compose), you (compose) in that structure.  If you want to write short (tunes), you must digest that form and then exercise in that form."

"When you want to learn something, go to experts who have put in thirty years and learn from them.  Study their belief systems, their mental syntax - the order in which they think - and their physiology, how they stand, breathe, hold their mouth when they do the task they are expert in."

"In order to improve your (music), you have to practice just like any other sport. But don't be dutiful and make it into a blind routine.  Don't just put in your time. That is not enough.  You have to make effort.  Be willing to put your whole life on the line when you sit down for (music) practice. Otherwise you are just mechanically (strumming the pick across the strings) and intermittently looking up at the clock to see if your time is up."

"Learning to (play music) is not a linear process.  There is no logical A-to-B-to-C way to become a (musician).  One neat truth about (music) cannot answer it all.  There are many truths."

Natalie Goldberg

As you can see, some of these quotes didn't require any editing at all, and the ones that did still make perfect sense in a musical context even though they were intended for poets, novelists and other writers.  This process is a bit farther removed than say, reading Philip Toshio Sudo's Zen Guitar and changing the word "guitar" to "mandolin" every time it is used, but it can be done.  In doing so the subtitle of this book becomes Freeing the Musician Within instead of Freeing the Writer Within.  The same would have been true with any subject you chose to steer it toward.

A funny thing happened as I was reading this book.  The more I read it out of context, the more I started to read it in context.  An earlier creative endeavor of mine, before I took up playing tunes on the banjo and mandolin, was filling a page a day in a notebook with a form of stream of consciousness prose poetry.  An abstract journal, if you will.  I only kept this practice up for a couple years and had stopped before I got my first tenor banjo, but reading Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones may have inspired me to take up this medium again.

This time I want to be a better creative writer by figuring out and gathering together who my writing influences in this style are going to be, studying their technique and learning how to be influenced by them, whether they write in English or not.  Only recently have I started to grasp how to be influenced by other musicians, musical genres and styles, and I'm sure that with enough practice the same can be done with writing.

Chris Smith - author of Celtic Back-Up for all Instrumentalists - was the one who recommended Writing Down the Bones to me.  A few years back I had emailed him to vent some frustration over my inability to learn to play Irish traditional music.  When I inquired about his Zen view of music, he responded: "As an artist and teacher, I have found profoundly helpful Zen's emphasis upon concentration, attention to the present moment, suspension of ego, growth of self-awareness, and appreciation for doing things as well as possible. I also love that Zen people refer to meditation as 'practice' - that is, something you do every day out of a belief that steady effort and consistent attention will enhance performance. Likewise, Zen's insistence upon letting go of attachment to specific results is very, very helpful for a performer or other improviser."