I've always wondered if I could be successful at technical writing. Creating technical manuals from the numeric materials the science types provide seems like it would be a real challenge to a liberal arts type like me, How to turn the technical data into descriptions a lay person can understand how to operate a certain machine has got to be one of the more daunting tasks a writer could face.
When I boot up my digital keyboard in the morning it brings up all the defaults it's set to at the factory. The keyboard instrument is always Yamaha's best digital emulation of it's classical acoustic grand piano. It's a very close approximation to the real thing. The default drum beat on the drum machine is always #001 8BeatModern.
I know these things because that's what it says on the LED screen that constantly informs the player what the settings on every aspect of the keyboard. Learning how to read the information on the LED screen takes a while, but it's pretty thorough once it's secrets are revealed.
There are several ways I can change the default drum beat to what I want to happen currently. In each case I have to push on the "Style" button first to make the selection. That done, I can rotate a dial button that manipulates the five choices of drum beats that show up in the middle of the LED screen when I press on the Style button.
The high-lighted middle choice of the list of five available beats is the one that is playing. When I rotate the dial button it changes those five choices. Just beneath the rotary dial are two buttons with up and down arrows on them. If I push on either of those two buttons the selection seen on the LED screen will move up or down to the next category of drumbeats.
Just to the right of the rotary dial there is a number keypad with twelve buttons that are arranged three buttons across and four buttons down. The top rows have 1-9 and the bottom row has the zero button in the middle, with the other two button having a "plus" and "minus" button. They move the current selection up or down one drum beat at the time.
Instantly. It usually doesn't even miss one beat before it starts on the new rhythm. That catches me a little off-guard each time. If I press the "plus" button on the keypad and #001 8BeatModern is currently playing, it instantly changes to #002 Cool8Beat without hesitation. There ain't no moving parts. I can spin the rotary dial randomly, and it immediately starts playing the indicated beat.
That's what I did this morning. I turned both my computer and the keyboard on. They're set adjacent to each other so that all I have to do to address one or the other is swivel my chair forty-five degrees. After I'd gone into the kitchen and turned the coffee pot I'd prepared last night on to brew, I came back out of the kitchen and pressed the Style button, randomly spun the rotary dial and pressed the Start/Stop button. I was surprised to recognize the name of drum beat that started playing. #015 PopShuffle. I seem to like any of the beats that have "Shuffle" in their title.
The fact that I'm recognizing some of these beats is interesting to me. As I've mentioned several times, percussion is the one area of music with which I'm the least familiar. The biggest problem i had while playing in the high school band was keeping count so I would know when to play my part at the right time.
I can't say I really know why I bought that djembe drum. I saw it in the display window of a music store I passed by down in Wilmington on the corner of Front Street and Third. I liked the image when I imagined myself playing it. I suspect impulsively buying it was some sort of attempt to strengthen my weakness in percussion, but there are extenuating circumstances that point toward shamanism. Drumming is one way of dealing with shame. That's why there are sha-men. I sho' am that, and more sure of myself in this regard as I go along. Like everything else, man, it's just another rap, and I really, really like words.
I'm a little bit at loose ends these days. It's difficult to think futuristically about music when my hands are showing me more persistently than ever that this grand scheme can disappear in a heartbeat due the the pain I'm experiencing with arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome. I'm trying to play through it, but there's always the chance that it might not go away. It has before.
Playing the scale of G minor has been a trial for me. I start the scale out on the bass end of the keyboard on G with the pinkie finger on my left hand and my thumb on my right hand. Theoretically, I should move up the keyboard playing the notes of the G minor scale until I reach the treble end of the keyboard and play G with the thumb on my left hand and my pinkie finger on my right hand.
Just the opposite as I started the scale out, and just like it's supposed to be. Right? So why do I go back down the scale and finish it with the ring finger on my left hand and the index finger on my right hand, and I've done everything right in between. This would be a lot easier if I had a piano teacher who could, if nothing else, answer me questions about things like this. I'm pretty sure it has to be this way.
The part of doing this presently that fascinates me (and embarrasses me too, because it's soooo rudimentary) is that I'm beginning to connect with the reality that the relative minor of each major scale uses the same sharps and flats. Something about playing the black keys the way they're interspersed with the white keys in G minor seems a little confusing. Intellectually I can figure which keys to press down and with which finger, but it hasn't felt right. In some way it seems counter-intuitive.
I 'know" the key of G minor uses the same black keys of Bb Major, but for reason I hadn't "seen" my fingers reaching to use that same note (piano key) pattern. I was pretty familiar with the notes used to perform the scale of Bb Major before I started learning the scales, because the blues song Adam's Apple that I memorized the chords to was done in Bb Major.
That's a little disconcerting to me. I play the scales by following the Circle of Fifths. It doesn't appear to matter where I start out on the Circle of Fifths or which direction around the Circle I go, so I choose a starting point randomly, and play a major scale first, then follow it by playing it's relative minor. My point is that I play the major scale and it's relative minor together. One after the other. Yet, even then it's difficult, for some odd reason, for me to "see" that I'm playing the same notes except for a lowered third from a different starting point.
I don't understand why this connection doesn't happen automagically with me. I have to deliberately make myself aware that I'm playing the same notes on the piano except for the lowered third. I have to think about it. I can't just assume that's the way things are and act accordingly.
So, I'm just doing it the only way that seems to work for me. I play the Bb Major scale trying to remember that when I finish doing that I'm gonna play pretty much the same notes starting three half steps earlier. Then, I have to remember that when I begin the G minor scale. I have to remember that's all I'm doing, and I have to "watch" my fingers do it and realize while they're doing it, that they just finished doing about the same thing.
I don't know if I'm describing what's really going on or whether I'm just writing anything I can pass off as reasonable. It just seems odd that playing the scales in by pairs is strangely satisfying. I've done this dozens of times, and each time I appear to gain the sense that I'm learning something very fundamental. I don't seem to care how long it will take for this to reach atonement, but it's fun to do. and so it doesn't matter. Nobody knows. Not even me, and yet....
I do appear to understand how the brain entrains itself to whatever environment it enters, and it's doing that no matter what it's purported "owner" thinks about it. I learned about how the brain entrains itself to it's environment from the writings and seminars of Robert Monroe. After he intuitively realized the dynamics involved his theories were proved scientifically valid. Bob came from the carnival barker school, which in itself fascinated me.
I'm sitting here writing while my brainwaves are being manipulated by the constant and persevering sound of this computerized drum beat that hasn't changed one whit in the last hour and a half or more. Once my physical brain and it's patterns take what's going on into consideration, it starts acting like it used to when I was using the float tank and meditating a lot.
One thing I learned from sensory deprivation is that the brain will not abide boredom and ennui unless it's forced to, and even that doesn't control it. Left to it's own devices it's gonna reach out and touch someone. Contrarily, In a sensory deprived environment it can't manipulate by either hook or crook, it turns inward upon itself, and produces the stuff dreams are made of as it's own muse. Click!
I disclaim knowing what the truth is. I can't rightly claim I write to figure it out because I don't that's a useful approach. Truth is what it is whatever it may be. I watch what my fingers show me as we go along. I don't even know if they're lying or playing a joke on me.
I attempt to capture drifting thoughts with words. I can't do that and judge their veracity at the sa-me ti-me. To me, the drifting thoughts I attempt to possess temporarily are either useful right damn now or never. They come and go like somebody I used to know, but never really understood.
I do not attempt to tell the God's own truth here because I don't know what the truth is or hardly ever. I try to capture the drifting thoughts that randomly appear in my imagination for reasons I may not understand. I don't know if the content I capture with these words is true or false. The Comments settings are turned off to prevent me from having to defend what amounts to little more than fanciful, sometime crude speculation. Great moments in our lives never return.
