Nothing Has Meaning

Sometimes I reflect on the concept of ignorance is bliss as applied to the creative process.

Ignorance of how its done or how it should be and so on can open the door for very creative and unusual compositions. Think Paul McCartney not wanting to learn to read music to stay pure.

Dumb. Actually.

The reality of the situation is that a tool is just a tool and creativity is a mindset and way of being, the way of knowing things, the way of arranging things, the way of expressing things.

The tools used, such as knowledge of music theory, knowledge of song structure, a hammer, make no difference to the truly creative mind.

Create, by any means necessary.

Rhythm is part of the addiction and desire for repetition.

This is known as meter or timing. Drummers used to have to be good at it, to lay down a foundation the rest of us could follow. Ended up doing it myself most times.

The human heart beat is the cliche metaphor to explain the need to drum.

When a drummer lags, the world is put on hold, but like the locomotive with momentum eventually you cross that bar.

Today is the day I wore all black at school in 1980.

My idol had been shot and killed the night before, John Lennon.

I cried all night long I think, and many times thereafter. What an emotional wimp. When my friend Dave Koch called and told me about his death the day of, I was hopefully dubious and asked him repeatedly if he was joking. Judy came by too. What a drag to have your idol gunned down. Strange too how not one kid at school seemed to give a crap, and none of the teachers either. I must have been out of it and missed something I hope. I had my guitar with me for some unrelated reason, to perform in class, nice company for the occasion. Got a lot of very strange looks.

I wanted to visit Lennon when we went through up state New York back in the seventies. I was not entirely suprised that wasn’t gonna happen. A standard kid fanatic.

I couldn’t listen to the Beatles or Lennon for a long time without serious pain. Funny considering I never knew John Lennon. I feel really strange about this fame thing that he had and how us fans somehow identify with Lennon and feel we have a clue when clearly we do not. Or any famous person for that matter. Fame, bully for you, chilly for me, got to get a raincheck on, pain. David Bowie, John Lennon.

Time counts and keeps counting and the pain went away, and the awareness of Lennon being human dawned and the lustre of his magic started to fade. I still feel the magic, Hey Bulldog, I Found Out, I Am The Walrus, Come Together and on and on.

But the magic, the wild abandon, is so easily forgotten, so easily let go, unwittingly banished. Hold on. Living isn’t only loneliness. Off Every Day.

Lennon sang he didn’t believe in magic once, but he was magic, and a person, just like us all.

Remember. . . . the 8ee8th . . . of December. And the day after.

Well as many of you don’t know, composing music is kind of like breathing. You do it without really being aware, always, and you sometimes mess it up and lose you breath.

Dumb metaphor.

Let’s try composing music is like meditating. Yeah. Better. Sometimes you can die happy, sometimes you can’t.

So sometimes when I listen to my songs, music not usually words, sometimes the music hits me in a way that reminds me of life, the perpetual motion of life, the stillness of life, in essence the law of inertia.

And sometimes my music reminds me of a locomotive, very difficult to move, very difficult to stop.

When I listen to music, I look for the riff that is to die for, like a lot a Jimmy Page’s early work, Lennon has some, DiMeola and others.

When I hear those, I understand that an achievement such as that, leaves one little need to ever achieve anything else.

A die happy performance.

And then, inevitably, the opinion changes, about oneself, and the quest continues.

Happy Birthday John!

Yeah he’s dead, but the perspective lives.

What of the mind of the man? Nothing is real? And nothing to get hung about?

My kind of guy.

Miss you Mr. Lennon, selfish yes, but the truth.

Wanna Die

If I ain’t dead already, girl you know the reason why.

John Lennon

Creative outlets are somewhat like water behind a dam finally breaking out, or not.

I have seen playing guitar, composing music and recording as sort of the rain falling.

Man, its been raining a long time.

Then I see the dam or levee breaking as sharing all that with others. I certainly haven’t wanted to but. . .

If the rain don’t stop the levee’s gonna break.

Testing this freaky thing with jonezingtheflow.

copyright 2005 Mark Stamas

[audio:jonezingtheflow.mp3]

Today I would like to take the opportunity to reflect on original music.

There seems to be some sort of misunderstanding regarding originality.

From my perspective music is a bizarre controlled conglomeration of sonic vibrations that can elicit a trained response in humans.

Or is it trained?

We’ve all heard the infamous classical music study where plants died under the influence of rock and roll and thrived under the influence of classical.

The researcher must have been under the influence.