Paws in the Plaza 2012

Date & time: Saturday, February 11, noon to 3 p.m.
Place: Casas Adobes Plaza (southwest corner of Oracle & Ina)
Directions: Go here
Cover: Free, but the Humane Society will happily take donations

If you're gonna blow off rehearsal ...

... attending a free lecture given by Noam Chomsky isn't a bad excuse.

Just sayin'.

Bubblegum

Sometimes it's scary trying new things. Like that first attempt at a bubblegum pop song I mentioned before.

Deal is, a song needs two components to be considered bubblegum:

1. Inane lyrics


2. Musical arrangement so catchy that you either don't notice the lyrics are stupid or you don't care

So I had to write something silly. But the music had to be good enough to both carry the silliness and make it seem on-purpose. Otherwise, listeners would just think, "Wow, that's dumb."

One line in particular nagged at me. I needed to rhyme the refrain "Dance to it." The best I could come up with was "Shake off your pants to it."

No, really. That's the line. It's not like I didn't try other rhymes. Other rhymes existed. They just weren't in keeping with the spirit of the song.

I decided to bounce it off people when I had a whole song to play for them. The way I figured it, either I'd failed miserably at this genre, or I'd succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.

* * *

I finished "Dance to It" late this afternoon. As it happened, there was going to be a Singer-Songwriters meetup just a few hours later. What better place for a trial run?

They loved it. They thought "Shake off your pants to it" was hysterical. "You can't get rid of that," one person said when I mentioned my reservations. "It's like the punchline."

So I'm keeping it for now. We'll see if Ron the Drummer laughs with it or at it at our next rehearsal.

Arrangement is everything

Every now and again, someone will tell me my songs are all depressing. While this isn't precisely true, it occurs to me that in over a decade of songsmithing, I've never written bubblegum pop.

Seems like something I should try at least once, right? So I've started. Here are the first two lines:

News on the radio
Tells stories of upheaval and despair

Yeah, this is gonna be great! Further updates as events warrant.

Up-tempo

The band was hot. Well into their last set of the evening, they had a whole lot of people—including me—up and dancing.

Then lead singer Kristin Chandler addressed the audience. She was nervous about doing this next song, she said, because it was slow. That took her out of her comfort zone. She invited us to follow her out of her comfort zone.

The band played sweet, slow, and reflective. But after it was over, they launched into another danceable tune.

A week or so later, I finally had the chance to listen to the CD I'd obtained from the gig. Unlike their live set, most of Deja was singer-songwritery. That is, slow or mid-tempo, more contemplative, inviting listeners to pay close attention to the meaning of the lyrics.

I was a little surprised, but I shouldn't have been. I knew exactly why Kristin would feel good about recording songs she wouldn't play live.

About two-thirds of the songs I write are on the singer-songwritery side. When Ron the Drummer and I put a set list together for a Cinder Bridge show, however, we skew more toward songs that are up-tempo, or heavier, or have a prominent groove. We do it because live audiences prefer music that moves. When I'm in the audience, at least for unfamiliar music, I'm the same way. I'll happily bop along to a bar band whose stuff I'd never listen to at home.

So I get it. But it's annoying. It means a lot of my favorite songs aren't rotated in as often as I'd like.

We have GOT to put a new album out.

Change

A lot of my songs are about change. Specifically, about how change is scary, and what people will do to avoid it or put it off ...

... Which, when you think about it, speaks to what a sheltered life I've led.


Only people born to a life of relative privilege have the luxury of fearing change. Those treated less kindly by the status quo hope for it—or fight for it.

Have a good Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Music therapy

One year ago in Tucson, a gunman killed six people and wounded thirteen at the Safeway plaza on Oracle and Ina. Among the wounded was congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Mistakenly declared dead in initial news reports after she took a bullet to the head, she has made amazing progress in her recovery. A contributing factor: music therapy.

Giffords still struggles to speak in sentences, but she has much less trouble singing. An important part of her therapy now involves singing songs she knew before the shooting.

The ability to speak is mainly controlled by two areas on the left side of the brain. But when we sing or listen to music, wide swaths of both sides of the brain become active. Doctors have learned putting words to melody stimulates memory and helps a damaged brain recover the ability to process language.

"And the idea is that can maybe be used as a proxy or as an alternative," said Dr. Michael Lemole, who was Giffords' neurosurgeon. "Just take away the music part and all of a sudden now you're stringing words together in a sentence.

Music, for me, has always been a powerful, magical force in itself. I don't love it because of its potential medicinal effects. I love it because it's music.

Still, the idea that singing can help people remember how to speak makes sense to me. Very simple phrases have a lot more emotional impact when they're set to music in just the right way. Singing marries thought and emotion. Songs help us feel what we're thinking and understand what we're feeling.

Everybody needs music therapy once in a while.