Malibu morning picture of the day - Monday, August 25, 2014

Dear family, friends, and gentle readers,

Another Monday has arrived as planned. Here's what it looked like at 0730 this morning.

Many textures today in both sky and sea today. As you come up the coast highway from Santa Monica, it's pretty obvious when it's a good day to surf--it's crowded out there on the water.

You can say a lot of things about surfers, but they are morning people when they need to be. Unfortunately you can't get a very good picture of them from a moving bus ... otherwise I'd try for you.

I am experimenting with trying to learn to place the electric bass guitar (my church owns one and it was just gathering dust so I thought I'd give it a whirl). A bassist once told me, while he never gets the spotlight, he always gets work. I also have learned that bassists call their instruments "horns." As a "horn player" myself (trumpet, flugel), I don't get it--but professional jargon doesn't have to make sense. You HAVE probably heard the term "ax" that all musicians use to refer to their instrument in a generic way. THAT makes sense.

Not this one, but it's close.

Unlike a real horn, the best part (to me) about the bass, you don't have to regulate your breath to get to the end of a phrase. You gotta be able to keep a steady beat though. I did play the tuba back in junior high-high school, so my sensibilities on covering a bass line were developed at an impressionable age, so improvising a bottom figure no strange task to me. If you play piano or any keyboard, the bass guitar intellect is embedded in your left pinky if you think about it.

For someone learning their 5th or 6th instrument, it's basically about muscle memory more than anything else. I met a man in a community band who was an excellent timpanist--he had been a professional violinist but had been drafted into the percussion section (because he basically sat around in the back during rehearsals while is partner played the clarinet, and he had just been hanging out to enjoy the fellowship, as well as being present to support his partner). If you have competent musicianship, technique is the only thing holding you back. You might not get to the top of the craft, but who does anyway?

Try applying your expertise on something else this week. You may surprise yourself at how good you are.

Love,
Pops