“people are not wearing enough hats”
so i was being a good little boy, composing my acoustic guitar parts on an actual guitar instead of on the 88 key thingy to ensure that what i was writing was actually “playable” and “realistic”…when my mind started to drift…
it was summer of 2009, and i was working with a live orchestra for only the second time in my so-called-career. for the play! performance of the theme from warhammer online, i was to make an appearance onstage as Brad Derrick The Composer, and then sit in with the band on percussion. an awesome experience from start to finish, if i do say so my damn self.
during the afternoon rehearsal, i hung out with the percussionists who were gracious enough to let me invade their space and beat on their fancy toys – a very nice bunch of fellers, indeed. to keep up with those blokes, i had to resurrect a virtually deceased part of my musicial persona: the Percussionist (with a captial ‘P’).
now i’ve been a Drummer for 25 years, and a Composer for 20. as a Drummer, “percussion” means beating the snot out of a couple of drums with a couple of sticks. as a Composer, “percussion” doesn’t really mean *playing* anything at all, but rather generating & manipulating sequenced data in order to realize some musical vision.
but a Real Percussionist is a sensitive soul, with hands-on mastery of dozens of noise-making implements from disparate lands and ages. and i used to be one of those guys for a short time, until my inner Drummer arose and beat my inner Percussionist into a coma (on principle, for being a wuss). then later, my inner Composer looted the comatose victim for tips ‘n’ tricks on creating life-like percussion parts. poor inner Percussionist. :(
so i tried to resurrect The Percussionist for the day, but it wasn’t easy. as the fellers around me gently tapped out rhythms on this and that without any sense of aggression or groove, the Drummer in me rolled his eyes and hollered “HIT that shit, dude!” and when the timpanist helpfully informed me of the registral sweet spots of the various kettle drums – and that the part i’d written was clearly outside of those registers – the Composer in me smiled and said, “that’s all well and good, friend, but i know what i’m doing, now kindly just PLAY YOUR PART!”
okay, i wasn’t that much of a douchebag. because i suspected they were looking at me thinking, “look at this drummer here, bashing away at everything with no finesse…and the guy can’t even compose a proper timpani part, for cryin’ out loud…”.
anyhoo, that’s what i got to thinking about as i played the guitar part on my keyboard that i had originally written on a proper guitar: something about wearing different artistic hats, or maybe not wearing some of those hats as well as others, or one hat being killed off by other hats…something about hats.
