https://youtu.be/2y1-K441-V4 (link to performance referenced in essay)

 

Making Music in the Real World

 

       Musicians enjoy an interesting mixture of reputations in popular culture, depending on

which segment of society assigns them. These range from glorification as almost demi-gods by their fans,

especially when they are highly successful; to a stereotyping, by the more conservative observers, of

their various immoral behaviors such as sexual promiscuity and drug/alcohol abuse. Neither of these

extreme views are very accurate, but they have proliferated over many decades; success and/or scandal

attracts attention, and the media outlets are quite aware of that. In an attempt to present a more realistic

portrayal of the vast majority of musicians, I have chosen a performance that I gave a few years ago

which was captured on video. To date, it has received about 470 views on YouTube, the highest of any

on my channel. When you contrast that with the billions of hits some artists get, you'll begin to realize

how it goes for the 99-plus percent that perform on a local level; making music in the real world.

 

       First, the venue: at the time it was known as “Crow Hill”, located in the heart of historic

downtown Wilmington NC. In the years since, it has changed ownership and names at least three times.

There are about twenty other restaurants/bars offering live music within walking distance, including

two immediately adjacent on either side- so competition is a major factor for an establishment's

success. Crow Hill offered an upscale (and quite expensive) menu and drink selection, and most likely

priced itself out of business. So it goes; very common for the area. It is mostly college students and

tourists that habit the downtown, and in a weak economy especially, people want a bargain. For that

reason and others, the bar was all but empty on the evening of my performance.

 

       In attendance that night were my wife Debra, who shot the video; a singer who joined me for all

but this song; a few patrons; and the staff. That was it. My wife and I decided that we would start with

me solo because the club at the time was empty, and it would offer an audio setting without residual

conversation noise to interfere. Basically it was an attempt to make some “art” out of an otherwise

unpromising evening. There is one other factor of note: just minutes before this shoot came the

depressing discovery that I had locked us out of our van with the keys inside, and my wife was furious;

what a promising scenario and mindset for us both as things began!

 

       The song's full title is “Cause We've Ended as Lovers”, originally composed and produced by

Stevie Wonder, with lyrics. He gave the song to his wife at the time, Sereeta Wright, to include on her

solo album, but it never received much airplay or acclaim. It was a later instrumental version, recorded

by guitarist Jeff Beck, that became the definitive performance that brought the song to prominence (one

of those instances where a cover by another artist eclipses the original, such as Jimi Hendrix's “All

Along the Watchtower” which was a Bob Dylan composition).

 

       “Cause We've Ended” has a haunting, melancholy melody and chord progression, which evokes

the heartbreak of a love relationship's demise very poignantly. It's personal significance to me is multi-

layered. It reminds me of times in my own life when women I loved moved on, including two divorces.

Jeff Beck is also one of my all-time favorite guitarists, whom I have studied and tried to emulate within

my own style of playing. And, for the moment at least, thanks to the key mishap, there wasn't a whole

lot of love in the room between me as performer and my upset videographer wife.

 

       My performance is aided by a piece of equipment known as a “looper”. Basically it allows me

 to play one guitar part, recording as I go, and then by stepping on a switch at the right moment the part

I've just played starts again at the beginning, and will repeat until I switch it off. The video begins just

as I'm completing a 54-second long loop of the background chords, and then I add the solo sections.

 

       Technology such as this allows me to become a sort of one-man-band, by “multiplying” myself.

There is a small rack of stage lighting set on a slow blink, which gives the effect of my

appearing and then disappearing over the course of the video. This was a happy accident, which I

accentuated further by processing the raw footage in black and white, and this in my opinion added

to the sad atmosphere of the song. Also included are some “accidental performers”- the various

automobiles and pedestrians filing by outside the window behind me on Market Street (note the police

car right at the beginning). And despite our wishes, there is some audio interference, which is the

clinking of glassware by some employee in the background. I think even that adds to the overall lonely

ambience. Last but not least is my demeanor itself. I was not very happy, for aforementioned reasons,

but in all honesty “what you see is what you get” from me, on just about any given night. I am very

much the introvert on stage, even when a gig is going wonderfully.

 

       “Art on one level already may be a state of mind” observes Michael Kimmelman in his “The

Art of Making Art Without Lifting a Finger” chapter of The Accidental Masterpiece. “What makes art

good is partly its power to proliferate as a variable memory, an intangible concept, filtered through

individual consciousness” (Kimmelman 81). My state of mind was a factor in this undertaking, and is

always so. The few individuals that witnessed it, including myself, take their own memories from it

with them. Unlike the majority of my performances however, musical and otherwise, this has the bonus

of being preserved in a digital form. Theoretically, anyone on the planet that has access to the Internet

can experience it, and the recorded moments will still exist after I am gone.

 

       The significance of this video, in my opinion, is that on some small level it does become an

accidental masterpiece. Although in the actual moment I and my wife were under significant stress,

and did not think it was going well at all; I ended up playing quite adeptly and went to some interesting

choices of notes. Almost all of it, except for repeating the melody at certain times, was improvised.

My wife did an excellent job too, especially the close-up of my hands at the end. Under the bleakest of

circumstances, our collaboration became art. Comments from viewers have all been positive, and we're

proud of it. We use the video as promo on websites and social media, and it has landed me numerous

other solo gigs.

 

       For the remainder of this analysis, it is important to make some distinctions between the very

diverse types of performances, and what constitutes art. First and foremost, it should be stated that I do

not have the pretension of considering myself a true “artist”. I am an interpreter; I have developed a

skill on an instrument that came from many years of work, but I play compositions by others. The

composers created them, and at best, sometimes I am able to put my own spin on a song and take it

somewhere uniquely mine.

 

       When one improvises, they are essentially composing on the spot. It is very

similar to the concept of having to make an impromptu speech or sitting down in front of a blank

canvas. The speaker possesses a vocabulary of words to choose from; the painter has colors and

techniques at his disposal; and the musician has many phrases or “riffs” that the fingers will go to

almost subconsciously. Under ideal circumstances when I play a guitar solo, there are no decisions to

be made, and the hands do their own thing totally independent of my mind. It's a very Zen moment.

 

       My performance exhibited here is a fairly basic one, representing countless others typical of

working-class musicians who will never be overly successful but do so because of their love for it. It

is not a piece of “performance art” such as Yoko Ono and other avant-garde visionaries accomplish. I

see my work as an example of what the majority of the anonymous players out there do: show up for

the gig; make the best of it you can, no matter what; hopefully entertain a few people; collect your pay

when it's over and go home; repeat... We don't ride around in limos and own mansions, and neither do

we habitually get stoned, drunk, and/or sleep around. We're just average men and women with a

passion for music. This is the sociological implication of my performance- showing how it is for this

segment of the population, of which I'm proud to be a member.

 

 

Works Cited

 

Kimmelman, Michael. The Accidental Masterpiece: On the Art of Life, and Vice Versa. New York:

 

            Penguin Press, 2005. Print.