5.12.2012 - Matt Law Piano Mixed Improvisation (by matticulate)
Messing around the keys while on camera.
Shedding some lines over the changes to “Beautiful Love.”
Some observations/self-critiques:
When thinking about time efficiency, remember it’s not about how little or how much time you spend doing something. It’s not about how quickly you can finish a project or how many hours you put in. It’s about the quality of the time you spent doing something or with someone. Do you feel that you’re spending your time well? If so, that’s all that matters. Life isn’t a race to the finish or a test of endurance. It’s about living on your own terms, and deriving as much satisfaction as you can from every moment you experience. The quality of time spent can never be quantified or measured objectively; it’s all up to you to decide whether or not you felt like you spent your time well. And remember, everything in your life can be seen from the perspective of time well spent if you let yourself see the lessons you learned from even the least enjoyable or productive moments. So take your time. Don’t rush things, especially time spent with the people you love and care about. What’s the rush? Enjoy life, and chill the fuck out. Don’t take things too seriously. Remember there will always be problems in the world, and that not even Superman can fix all the things that are wrong in life. We all have flaws, so don’t beat yourself up for not being good enough or messing up. Stop putting pressure on yourself or taking pressure from others to prove yourself. It doesn’t matter anyway. Just do things. Live in the moment. Live one step at a time. Don’t make yourself feel guilty. Enjoying as many moments as you can each day, and making that a habit/routine, will more than make for an enriching, fulfilling, and happy life. Embrace your imperfections, be grateful for your natural gifts, talents, and fortune, and remember that everything is all up in here — the small 3 pound brain located inside of your skull. Your mind controls and designs everything, and your will is all in your control. So take care of yourself. Take care of your mind. Try not to tax it too much with garbage or negative thoughts. It can cause you to feel miserable and detracts energy and enjoyment from everything else you want to do throughout the day. Take it easy, and be considerate of others. Treat life like a game. Have fun, know where to draw the line and adhere to fair play and rules, and don’t take it too seriously.
A friend of mine (kirb) who graduated from my alma mater 4 years ago with an electrical engineering degree, which is traditionally a stable and reasonably lucrative field, has been working at a tragically low-paying, dead-end job in NYC for the past 3.5 years on the same soul-sucking project — installing subway train clocks that inform passengers when the next train will arrive. Hardly any of the project requires a fraction of the skills he spent 4 years learning and honing in college, and often he is assigned to work in the field during the most arbitrary of hours and grueling of circumstances (inclement weather notwithstanding), with lazy, cantankerous idiots.
But worse than the nature of the work are the people he works with; aside from the usual bureaucratic bullshit/office politics, at his company, people are rewarded for their incompetence or proficiency at dicksucking. Apparently, it’s not uncommon to see hardworking, ambitious individuals completely disregarded by their supervisors, and slowly decay into languid, lifeless corporate cogs, while executives play favorites. Kirb gets home so drained of energy and strained on time that it’s a miracle to me that he’s been able to put up with this for as long as he has. Waking up in the morning each day must feel like a neverending journey through hell. His other option now is going to grad school (which he’s already been accepted into) to advance his engineering studies, but it’s difficult to determine whether the expenses incurred and the experience gained will help him down the line or just add another dent in his money and time. At the very least, it might be a well-deserved, therapeutic respite from the merciless crutches of the real world.
(5:17:50 PM) kirb: It was too good to be true
(5:17:57 PM) kirb: they are extending me till end of april now :(
(5:17:59 PM) Milk: what’s up?!
(5:18:06 PM) Milk: lol
(5:18:12 PM) Milk: you were hoping to be laid off in 2 weeks right?
(5:18:16 PM) kirb: I really wanted to start collecting my unemployment 2 weeks from now
(5:18:26 PM) kirb: my brain is already on vacation
(5:18:38 PM) Milk: lol
(5:18:43 PM) Milk: do you have to do much thinking at work?
(5:18:46 PM) Milk: just fuck around if you want i guess
(5:19:02 PM) Milk: report to work, dick around, collect your paychecks.
(5:19:34 PM) kirb: nah, can’t quite do that
(5:19:39 PM) kirb: I have to go out to the field everyday
(5:19:42 PM) kirb: still have to bust my ass
(5:19:49 PM) kirb: and I need to get laid off on a good note
(5:19:55 PM) kirb: so I can get recommendations
(5:20:01 PM) kirb: and collect unemployment
(5:20:16 PM) kirb: cause you can’t collect if your job performance was the reason why you got laid off
(5:23:40 PM) Milk: oh shit
(5:23:43 PM) Milk: that fucking sucks
(5:23:44 PM) Milk: damn……
(5:23:52 PM) Milk: where are you going out these days to work?
(5:24:00 PM) Milk: which specific locations?
(5:24:22 PM) kirb: everywhere in the fucking city
(5:24:26 PM) kirb: different every day
(5:24:28 PM) kirb: it blows
(5:24:32 PM) kirb: well except queens
(5:24:43 PM) kirb: I go to bronx, manhattan, brooklyn
(5:31:05 PM) Milk: man
(5:31:06 PM) Milk: holy shit
(5:31:10 PM) Milk: that job is stressful as fuck…
(5:31:21 PM) Milk: what is your sister doing?
(5:31:31 PM) Milk: you guys both did electrical engineering right?
(5:31:42 PM) Milk: does she have to hop around from place to place at her position?
(5:31:51 PM) kirb: no
(5:31:58 PM) kirb: but her job is very technical
(5:32:04 PM) kirb: so that’s stressful for her too
(5:32:12 PM) kirb: cause she doesn’t understand a lot of the stuff yet
(5:32:23 PM) Milk: yeah
(5:32:30 PM) Milk: sounds like what my dad used to do for a living in IT
(5:32:56 PM) Milk: the shitty thing is when there are active forces at work preventing you from getting a higher position or acquiring new skills because they’re concerned with covering their own asses
(5:33:05 PM) Milk: then you get pigeonholed
(5:33:05 PM) kirb: yeah
(5:33:11 PM) Milk: and you worry about whether or not you should take a new job
(5:33:21 PM) Milk: or continue making a decent middle-class salary with benefits
(5:33:24 PM) kirb: the transit way of doing things is do as little as possible in your current position so you get promoted out
(5:33:32 PM) kirb: that is nyct/mta
(5:33:35 PM) kirb: not siemens
(5:33:40 PM) Milk: how do you get promoted out that way though?
(5:33:53 PM) kirb: that is just how the institution works
(5:33:55 PM) Milk: they kick you out and find you a new position?
(5:34:00 PM) kirb: pretty much
(5:34:03 PM) kirb: one that pays more
(5:34:09 PM) kirb: and is a higher title, LOL
(5:34:15 PM) kirb: you can’t be totally incompetent
(5:34:20 PM) kirb: but you can’t do a good job
(5:34:22 PM) kirb: at the thing
(5:34:28 PM) kirb: or else they keep you in that positon
(5:34:37 PM) Milk: LOL
(5:34:41 PM) Milk: that’s so fucked up
(5:34:45 PM) Milk: jesus christ
(5:35:20 PM) kirb: I think that is how a lot of other real companies work too
(5:35:24 PM) kirb: do a good job, but not too good
(5:35:25 PM) Milk: and MTA is union too
(5:35:28 PM) kirb: or else you will get stuck there
(5:35:31 PM) Milk: do as little as you can
(5:35:35 PM) kirb: not all mta workers are union though
(5:35:39 PM) Milk: oh?
(5:35:55 PM) kirb: yeah, maybe half of them are
(5:36:03 PM) kirb: the other half aren’t union employees
(5:36:09 PM) Milk: lol that’s really true… “do a good job, but not too good”
(5:36:13 PM) Milk: if you’re too good, they’ll keep you there
(5:36:19 PM) Milk: if you don’t do a good job, they’ll kick you out
(5:36:29 PM) Milk: jesus
(5:36:30 PM) Milk: that’s depressing
(5:36:50 PM) kirb: well if you don’t do a good job, you don’t get kicked out
(5:36:54 PM) kirb: you get promoted, LOL
(5:36:56 PM) kirb: with the mta
(5:36:57 PM) Milk: LOl
(5:37:08 PM) Milk: where you do the same kind of shit
(5:37:10 PM) Milk: but get higher pay
(5:37:12 PM) Milk: ?
(5:38:05 PM) kirb: well you might be doing something completely different
(5:38:10 PM) kirb: and getting better pay
(5:38:52 PM) Milk: man
(5:39:03 PM) Milk: it makes no sense at all lol
(5:39:19 PM) Milk: it’s all luck-based
(5:39:25 PM) kirb: a lot of stuff at that institution doesn’t make sense
(5:39:29 PM) Milk: landing a job is like playing the lottery
(5:39:30 PM) kirb: not luck really
(5:39:37 PM) kirb: incompetence based
(5:39:40 PM) kirb: and dick sucking based
(5:39:43 PM) Milk: hahahahah
The perverse moral of the story? At some companies, the road to professional advancement is to do a good job, but not too good, or you’ll get trapped where you are by people who don’t think you deserve to move up or want you to move up. Obviously, a lot of where you end up is dependent on luck (luck, chance, and opportunity are just as significant in shaping “success” — however people like to define success — as hard work and raw talent are) and a matter of perspective, but it’s scary to see how unreal the real world can be.
The Universal Mind Of Bill Evans (by rickstolk)
[Loosely transcribed excerpts from video]
Bill Evans: It’s obvious now that jazz is the most central and important thing in my life. Yet I never knew that. I was involved with jazz. I went to college, i got a teacher’s degree. Because I thought I might teach. But when the moment came, bang, I went out into jazz. It was so much a part of my inner life and I didn’t realize it. It’s like you ask a kid “what do you want to be when you grow up?” Well I would’ve said, “Anything.” Because I didn’t really know and I don’t think many children do. But I became so involved in jazz. That was just a natural road, it pulled me here, it pulled me there. I started studying piano when I was six, but this was classical music. From ages 6 to 13 I acquired the ability to sight read and to play classical music, so that actually both of us were performing Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and so on. Intelligently, musically, I couldn’t get myself to play music without the notes.
So when I first joined the rehearsal band and played it exactly as written. One night I got really adventurous, and I put in a little bang, it wasn’t written. Playing music that wasn’t indicated. That got me really thinking about how to make music. Of course, I learned mostly on the job, I learned the changes, harmonics, I learned how the tune was built harmonically, so I could remember the harmony and be able to play without music and be able to substitute one harmony for another or change the harmony and so on.
The whole process of learning the facility to play jazz, is to take these problems from the outer level in, one-by-one, and to stay with it at a very intense conscious concentration level, until that process becomes secondary and subconscious. When that process becomes subconscious, then you can begin concentrating on that next problem which will allow you to do a little bit more.
It wasn’t until I was 28 that I started to feel a degree of expressive ability. The ability to now lay out my feelings freely through some sort of a craft, in a simple area, the popular idiom.
Harry: But it is marvelous to see you get involved so quickly. It doesn’t take an hour of getting ready, or preparing, or getting in the mood, or anything. It could be 2 o’clock in the morning, it could be at 8 o’clock in the morning, it could be noon.
Bill: You learn to throw that switch in. As a matter of fact, there’s plenty of times when you just feel like I can’t possibly get up there and play. But as soon as you get up there and when the moment comes, you have that discipline. There’s a professional level of creativity that I can depend on and which is satisfactory for public performance always and which I can depend on when I throw that switch.
But those other high levels which happen just occasionally, you don’t know when the heck they’re not gonna come. I’m so happy with the trio we have now, we broke in, we worked it out in 5 weeks. We finally got to San Francisco in our 6th week. We went into an area that was far and away. Proved everything to me about the potential of the group. There’s no way you can try to recapture it. The only thing you can do is look forward and sometimes it happens.
It forced me to build something. That might give you an idea of how a problem is approached, and what degree of time and effort is necessary to make all of this subconscious, so that you can then express yourself. I would certainly say it’s more than worth it. I think most people just don’t realize the immensity of the problem and either because they can’t conquer it immediately think they haven’t got the ability or they’re so impatient to conquer it that they never do see it through. If you do understand the problem , then I think you can enjoy your whole trip through. I know that I’ve been tremendously fortunate in finding a position that I now have. And yet I can remember coming to New York to make it or break in jazz, and saying to myself now how should I attack this practical problem of becoming a jazz musician in making a living and so on. Ultimately I came to the conclusion that all I must do is take care of the music, even if I do it in a closet. And if I really do that, somebody’s going to open the door to the closet and say “Hey we’re looking for you.” This is the way that I really approached the whole thing.
Harry: Most of us have this type of approach. Our approach is: “I have to do this and be accepted.” It’s almost as if we’re inclined to work and live… for something else rather than the thing we’re doing.
Bill: I had those things going too but I always tried to distance myself to straighten them out and all that. Really, I felt that, otherwise, see, if I spread myself all over the place, I would have lost sight of everything. It’s like you’re saying it’s terrible that there’s war there, starvation there, and poverty here, and what am I going to do as a human being about this whole thing. Well, gosh, if you try to accept every problem you’re just going to go insane. So you have to choose some field in which you operate at your best capacity and which will then serve as an influence to deter all these other things that you’re worrying about. So I figured, if I take care of the music as best as I can with my truest beliefs, then all of these other things will be affected as I desire them to be affected as much as I can affect.
(Source: youtube.com)
Herbie Hancock on Sesame Street
This is a wonderful clip of Herbie Hancock, demonstrating his Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument), one the first modern samplers to become commercially available. It changed music production forever, and in order to explain how it worked, Herbie went on Sesame Street, around 1983.
The little girl at the start is Tatyana Ali, who went on to become Ashley Banks in the sitcom ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel Air’.
DIRTY LOOPS - Rolling In The Deep (Adele Cover) (by dirtyloops)
Elis Regina - “É Com Esse Que Eu Vou” -Ensaio - MPB Especial (by TramaTV)
