My thoughts about Music

Hi Stephen,

I hope your new year is starting out great so far! What's on the agenda for 2011? An awesome comeback perhaps?! (Hey, a girl can still dream ya know). Ah well, I don't blame you if you never hit the stage again, really, the way music is nowadays.

I don't know why, really, but the fact that Justin Bieber won the American Music Awards really just annoys me to no end.  I confess, I've never really paid much attention to him or his music, but even if he is a good singer, I am still annoyed.  Why?

Because people today who sing are mostly "surface dwellers," who never DIG DEEP into themselves or anything else, and skim along doing the bare-bones of each performance just to fill their bank accounts. There is a lack of soul, a lack of emotion, a lack of musicality, that I truly MISS in music.  Very few artists have any vibrato, much less crescendo, or decrescendo, they wouldn't know what "legato" means if you asked them. There's no depth, ya know? There's just too much formulaic nonsense going on.

Having played the flute all my life, as a member of my elementary, junior high and high school bands, (Symphonic first chair babyyy, not to mention marching band, pep band, etc)...then as a member of a community college band, a community band, and performing in several weddings...having done all that for most of my life, I see music from a symphony stand-point, rather than as a business full of skim-surfacing formulas.

I see music as a "higher calling," actually.  I see it as a TEAM effort, to make the piece sound as amazing today as it did when it was first composed, not to grandstand each other, or drown each other out, or even to earn any money at it.  It's a catharsis, a magic, something that a group of totally different people create together---something that did not exist in the cosmos before we put our hearts and minds together to breathe life into it---inflating those one-dimensional flat black and white pages of notes so they soar in the wind.

It's even something that makes God smile, if you ask me. I mean, when I listen to Josh Groban, holy CRAP that kid can sing, but it feels like something ETHEREAL, ya know?  Like he's communicating directly with the angels in heaven. HE has got musicality, and depth, and soul permeating his entire being! THAT is talent.

I never watch that American Idol crap either, (sorry, even though Randy Jackson is your pal), I just think it's awful.  It kinda takes away the important reason behind music---it's not competition---it's supposed to be a FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION---not trying to sound like everybody else, not skimming on the surface, and not being insulted by the mean judge-guy, Simon Cowles.  (I'd like to hear HIM sing, actually). There is a FREEDOM in the playing of music, something bigger than myself, and that freedom is just not there anymore in the music of today.  At least, it doesn't seem to be.

Maybe I'm just old fashioned, or have a totally different background than most in the music business, but I loved the bands I participated in, even if I didn't LIKE some of the people around me.  I loved my music teacher too---I had Ms. Louise Rosswaag from 5th grade until 9th grade, and I loved her the MOST because she made me want to rise to the challenge of playing something perfectly. It fed my soul to do something absolutely perfect, and it was the ONLY thing I ever really COULD do perfect, ya know? And she believed in me, and pushed me further, and made me want to achieve higher heights.

Because of "Weezy Washrag," I won nearly 20 blue medals, and only one red (2nd place) in state competitions.  I also won the first chair of our section in many of the "challenges" that we had between flute players, (and that was a big deal, lemmetellya)! We would play a solo piece that we'd find in the library of music in our teacher's office, in a practice room with the door open, where nobody could SEE who was playing, and the whole band had to VOTE on who played it the best.  Sometimes I won the first chair, sometimes I got stuck sitting in the 2nd chair, but I never went below 2nd.

I loved playing my flute.  I loved it so much that I practiced that flute of mine for at least 4-5 hours a day, every day, and when it came time for me to play the solo piccolo for "Stars and Stripes Forever," I got my first and only standing ovation----well, we ALL did when the song ended---but my solo got a lot of compliments!  I knocked 'em all out of their chairs, and I felt like I could RULE THE WORLD!! (I loved playing the piccolo a lot too, but I didn't own one myself).

In fact, I still play it every now and then.  But mostly now, it sits in a box with all my medals and music. I miss it a lot, but when I do take it out, it's like greeting an old friend.  I get tired of playing all that old music, over and over, but I don't go out and buy new music very often anymore either.  It's just not something I have much time for now in my hectic life, and it's almost like a piece of me is missing. I mean, I am no Jethro Tull!! But I know I was good, and I tried my best every time I picked up my flute.

Well, those are just my thoughts about music. I don't know exactly how YOU feel about it, but my guess is, you may share in some of those beliefs too.  That microphone was a part of YOU, those lyrics, that sweat, those autographs, the crazy tours and long days...and you were answering a higher calling, something bigger than yourself, whenever you sang.  You paid homage to Sam Cooke and Otis Redding every time you sang. You believed in reaching a higher ground, a higher octave, you strived to reach that musical perfection....just as I did all those years ago.  And I know you miss it.  Every day.  So do I.

I miss you, and your voice, and that higher calling of music that you once believed in with all your heart.

I hope you never lose that love of music, even if you never sing again.

Love, Rebecca