Little Richard

March 30, 2009

I was flying out of Nashville the other day. As I was walking into the airport I saw a big, black SUV parked out front and the driver was speaking to someone who was standing at his window. I looked closer and saw that the driver was Little Richard! I was truly star-struck. I waved and he waved back. There was a buzz all around the terminal as people realized Little Richard was there. He was wearing a bright lime green outfit and gold-rimmed sunglasses so it would have been harder to miss him that to spot him. It turned out that he was to be on our plane and since he's in a wheel chair now so he got on the plane first. He greeted everyone with a smile and a handshake and spoke a few words to each person who stopped to talk to him. All the passengers and crew on the plane were sort of awe-struck by him and he put everyone at ease by just being a regular guy (As much as a bona-fide Superstar can be!). One of the guys traveling with him gave me a book and an autographed photo of Little Richard. It was a Christian book telling the story of Christ. So I spoke with Little Richard on the plane and we chatted about his gigs and where he was headed. Then I thanked him for the book. He said, "You're welcome and God bless you." I said, "God bless you too." I started to walk on down the aisle and my wife was directly behind me. Little Richard looked up at her a split second after saying "God bless you" to me, saw my wife and said, in a low sultry voice, "Hey, how you doin', baby?" Now THAT was funny! He gave everyone on the plane some time and attention and we smiled all day because of it. Thanks Little Richard...

Read Music

March 18, 2009

Would you like to be a professional musician? Would you like to compose music so that others can play what you have written? Would you like to have jobs playing on recording sessions, or be able to play different kinds of gigs at the last minute because the regular player just got in a fender bender and can't make it? Do you want to write for film scores, television or even have a dance band that works on the weekends making a few extra bucks. Well my advice for you is this: Learn to READ MUSIC It is the language of musicians. It is how musicians communicate. It is relatively easy to get the basics down. Imagine going to a foreign country where no one speaks English and you try to ask for breakfast or a room for the night. Or ask for the bathroom or for a beer. If you can't speak their language, you can't get anything done... at least not quickly or simply. But if you take some time in advance, learn a few key phrases and some sentence structure, how to conjugate a verb or two - your experience is so much more. You can talk to people, learn more about them and their culture. You can understand the signs as you go sightseeing. Your trip to this other country will be enhanced ten-fold. It's the same with music and even better. If you can read music the whole world becomes available to you. You can play a Bossa Nova or a Choro. You can play your favorite Jazz tunes from the 30's and 40's. You can play Celtic music and African music. You can play New-Age and Bluegrass. In short, you can do it all. Will you be the best at each of those styles? Probably not. But you can work as a professional musician and make a decent living if you take the time to study the language in which you are trying to communicate. I have gotten more work because I could read than I could ever remember. I was fishing one morning about an hour from Nashville. Standing in the middle of the river my cell phone rang. The fishing was slow so I answered the phone call. It was a composer that I did not know. He asked if I could read well. I told him I could. He was in a jam and needed a guitar for three nights with a chamber orchestra and the first rehearsal was in 30 minutes. I told him I could make the afternoon rehearsal and hurried back to town. He had written a 10-12 minute piece featuring guitar, mandolin, oboe and orchestra and the guitarist he had written if for showed up unprepared and could not read music. So I packed up my fishing gear, drove back to town and did the gigs. That started a long relationship with the composer and the orchestra that has given me work for over 10 years! I have a client that I do records for every year or so who writes out things for the guitar in great detail. I always get the music in advance so I can study ahead of time then I show up and play his parts and he keeps hiring me. Another client writes very difficult music to read and I have to be on my toes for every recording session I do for him. None of them are easy. But I get through them because I took the time to learn to read. And I'm not what you would call a great reader. I am however, a quick study and I have my own bag of tricks that I am able to pull out when I need them on a gig or a recording session. Besides recording and performing, my life has been so greatly enhanced, on a personal level, by the ability to read music that I can always find new joy in music and I can never say I am bored. I like to learn things like Barrios, Puccini, Albenez, Villa-Lobos, Gershwin, Coltrane, Miles Davis. I do that music for myself. It gives me a great sense of satisfaction to learn music of great composers and it makes my own composing much better because the well from which I draw is much deeper. Some folks tell me that they don't want to learn anyone else's music because somehow they believe it will lessen their own music. HOGWASH! If you don't know any music, if you haven't learned the great music of those who have come before you how in the world can you expect to write something great? Osmosis? I don't think so. Except for the very, very, very rare instance where God touches someone on the shoulder and a genius is born among us, is just doesn't happen. Hard work, baby. That's what it's all about! I have a friend who is a song-writer who told me 20 years ago that he had never read any books. He didn't understand how people could write such great powerful lyrics. He didn't know where they were getting such great ideas and the ability to develop them into 3-minute masterpieces. I asked what he reads. He said he didn't like to read. Said it just slowed him down. I said, "How can you have any output when there's been no input?" (He started reading. He became a voracious reader and eventually he got through all the classics - many more than I - and now his song writing is pretty darned deep.) If you've never read anything, how can you expect to write anything? It's the same - exactly the same - for musicians. So grab some music and get to work. What's the worst that could happen...? You have a good time and learn something new...? Cheers!