The Song
And I am absorbed into the song.
I am wandering through the notes. Parts of my brain are being tickled by the intricacies, the subtle changes of scale and chord. I smile, finding my feet tapping, my head nodding. The guitar strums along, I hum along. Then the words kick in. Lovely, simple words. A voice like honey, nothing more than an easy conversation.
Then the bass line registers with me. Suddenly, I can hear nothing else. It's only in the background, but it's all I can seem to focus on. I can almost see the bass player standing there, inconspicuous, but tripping on his own. And taking me with him. All too often, we fail to see the underlying rhythms carrying us through our daily lives, providing the base. The bass is the base.
I am reminded of something the guitarist of the band Zero said to me when we played a show once in Hyderabad, many years ago. Inspite of his well-known virtuosity with the electric guitar, all he wanted to do was write songs that he could strum on an acoutic, sitting on his porch when he is 40. Life's like that, isn't it? As we grow, we move from the simplicity of the childhood acoustic, add complications like the electric, the amplifiers (we think the solution to drowning out the noise is to just be louder), the distortion pedals and assorted electronics, and it's only much later we realise what's really important.
The Song crosses the bridge, and I tag along. Moving towards the 3rd act, so to speak. The solo kicks in, asking me to soar too. Now, I am thinking about a hundred other things, about what the singer and I were talking about. I float for a bit, absent-mindedly trying to catch the notes the solo is running through. It's not as perfectly constructed as some others I have heard, but engaging nevertheless. I surf the slides, moving up and down with the pulls, get splashed by the hammer notes, dodge the harmonics. I hold on to my board as the solo moves back up the scale, and the last dragged note brings me back to the calm.
It's time to go, and we're winding up the conversation. Like all good ones, it leaves me thinking about things, new and old, and not really wanting the conversation to end. But as it must, the music eventually stops, with a promise of starting up again sometime.
But I am still in the Song. Searching for the bass.
^
I am wandering through the notes. Parts of my brain are being tickled by the intricacies, the subtle changes of scale and chord. I smile, finding my feet tapping, my head nodding. The guitar strums along, I hum along. Then the words kick in. Lovely, simple words. A voice like honey, nothing more than an easy conversation.
Then the bass line registers with me. Suddenly, I can hear nothing else. It's only in the background, but it's all I can seem to focus on. I can almost see the bass player standing there, inconspicuous, but tripping on his own. And taking me with him. All too often, we fail to see the underlying rhythms carrying us through our daily lives, providing the base. The bass is the base.
I am reminded of something the guitarist of the band Zero said to me when we played a show once in Hyderabad, many years ago. Inspite of his well-known virtuosity with the electric guitar, all he wanted to do was write songs that he could strum on an acoutic, sitting on his porch when he is 40. Life's like that, isn't it? As we grow, we move from the simplicity of the childhood acoustic, add complications like the electric, the amplifiers (we think the solution to drowning out the noise is to just be louder), the distortion pedals and assorted electronics, and it's only much later we realise what's really important.
The Song crosses the bridge, and I tag along. Moving towards the 3rd act, so to speak. The solo kicks in, asking me to soar too. Now, I am thinking about a hundred other things, about what the singer and I were talking about. I float for a bit, absent-mindedly trying to catch the notes the solo is running through. It's not as perfectly constructed as some others I have heard, but engaging nevertheless. I surf the slides, moving up and down with the pulls, get splashed by the hammer notes, dodge the harmonics. I hold on to my board as the solo moves back up the scale, and the last dragged note brings me back to the calm.
It's time to go, and we're winding up the conversation. Like all good ones, it leaves me thinking about things, new and old, and not really wanting the conversation to end. But as it must, the music eventually stops, with a promise of starting up again sometime.
But I am still in the Song. Searching for the bass.
^
spouted by Non-Sensei at 8/21/2009 03:40:00 AM
3 Comments:
:) music.
And NS has returned.
Trippy! Trippy as hell.
Its thrilling how food for thought becomes so much more exotic, when analyzed with music. :)
@TDT: :)
@Manu: yeah, isn't it?
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