I. Enthusiasm
"Thunder comes resounding out of the earth: The image of ENTHUSIASM. Thus the ancient kings made music In order to honor merit, And offered it with splendor To the Supreme Deity, Inviting their ancestors to be present."
"Music has power to ease tension within the heart and to loosen the grip of obscure emotions. The enthusiasm of the heart expresses itself involuntarily in a burst of song, in dance and rhythmic movement of the body. From ancient times the inspiring effect of the invisible sound that moves all hearts, and draws them together, has mystified mankind."
"Rulers have made use of this natural taste for music. Music was looked upon as something serious and holy, designed to purify the feelings of men. It fell to music to glorify the virtues of heroes and thus to construct a bridge to the world of the unseen."
"Religious feeling for the Creator of the world was united with the most sacred of human feelings, that of reverence for the ancestors. The ancestors were invited to these divine services as guests of the Ruler of Heaven and as representatives of humanity in the higher regions."
"These ideas are the final summation of Chinese culture. Confucius has said of the great sacrifice at which these rites were performed: 'He who could wholly comprehend this sacrifice could rule the world as though it were spinning on his hand.'"
The I Ching or Book of Changes The Richard Wilhelm Translation Bollingen Series XIX Princeton University Press
II. The Sound of Music
The yuletide season arrived before one is ready, anticipating the Winter Solstice on the darkest day of the year. My first experience with music was the church choir and holiday hymns, which I enjoyed. My real encounter with music, however, began with a 78 LP my parents played for me, the Bing Crosby song, "Swinging on a Star," the lyrics by Crosby and the music by Van Heusen and Burke. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1934. ("Would you like to swing on a star/Carry moonbeams home in a jar/And be better off than you are/Or would you rather be a ...?")
I continued with the choir until I discovered the a.m radio in my father's car. I continued to participate in the youth choir productions of Gilbert & Sullivan operettas in the summer in addition to Christmas caroling at the local shopping center during the holidays. With time, I morphed vocally into baritone from alto.
As I matured, I increasingly found the choir hymnal to be stultifying, i.e. monotonal. I was learning the piano from a teacher of Van Cliburn and the electric guitar in private lessons. I studied the classical music masters, which included their recordings by modern-day artists. I never understood why the hymnal was performed so dutifully. The voices of Beethoven's or Mozart's choruses were quite inspired, most singers experiencing religious epiphanies! Why were their visions lost to conventionality?
Due to its power to change the soul, music was sacred, even if mundane. The Beatles changed my life forever with their first American appearance on the variety show of Ed Sullivan and their screen debut in UA's "A Hard Day's Night." Ed thought quite well of the boys when he said the lads from Liverpool were not just incredible gentlemen but gifted musicians. They had tremendous talent and played their hearts out each show.
III. "Those Who Can't Play Teach!"
In junior high, I struggled along with many other guitar players. It was a challenge to return to the steel strings, trying to develop calluses on my fingertips. The music was awkward and didn't sound very good at first. Thus, "garage band" was born in a loving parent's house, out of sight and out of sound in a cacophony of beginner's mistakes, noise and feedback.
I always kept an eye out for someone who could play well. They would share pointers and tips, if it was understood who was top dog. I was in no position to argue, although I understood later the best way to learn was to play along with the elders, that is, the original artists on the long-play recordings.
For myself, the guitar was simply an instrument, with a social definition in a limited sense, that is, a way to meet girls. Acoustical instruments were my love, the "natural instruments" intuitively made in their elemental crafting. I wanted to be accepted as a member of the informal guitar players' guild at the acoustical level.
I believed I must be improving when I began to learn "riffs," or "hooks," repetitive phrases that enhanced the sound of the song and made the audience remember the music, like The Beatles' "Ticket To Ride" backing solo or the falling chord pattern in "Help!" Other musical secrets opened to me in time, revealing chord changes the listener's ear might not anticipate.
For a while, I halted my musical trajectory due to university and post-graduate commitments. Many years later, as "Big Hand" developed, my musical career re-emerged with my unexpected songs stimulated by dreams and visions. I had come of age in the technological revolution of the internet, where I believed my songs would be heard frequently and experienced because technology supported them.
I eventually taught guitar, in high school and college. I wondered if I was just a teacher but not a "player." The answer came one day when I was practicing my original material on the sun-dial patio outside my cottage home. A passer-by from Australia stopped to ask me what CD I was listening to. Surprised, I said "my own," and he asked me where he could get a copy. I did not have one so I gave him my business card with the website. As he walked away, he paused and asked me if I taught guitar. I said, "No. I used to a long time ago, but I'm only writing songs now."
IV. The Beat Goes On
The whole business of "rock & roll" began with the a.m. radio and a 45-record player. I listened carefully to the a.m. radio stations of black and white crooners: Paul Anka, Leslie Gore, Bobby Darin, The Coasters, Bill Haley, Bobby Rydell, Connie Francis, Ricky Nelson, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, The Ventures and Roy Orbison. It was wonderful. I thought the world was in the same groove with the music.
In between visits to neighborhoods with barbecue ribs and chicken fried steaks, my best friend and I often attended the local college football games with other school friends who enjoyed football. Every time in a car, I fiddled with the radio. I also gathered 45's at the neighborhood grocery store to play on my limited record player.
The announcer of the post-game college football scoreboard and host of the round-up of the day's college action, sponsored by "Wolf Brand Chili," spoke with stern biblical authority, as if football in Texas in the Southwest Conference were critical to world peace. It was very serious, that is, college football. He was somber and straight-faced. And who were Holy Cross and Colgate, except they lost most of their games?
I ventured out to the neighborhood theater, "The Parkway, " on Friday nights to be scared by the new horror thriller, usually with Vincent Price in an Edgar Allen Poe Victorian tragedy, mixing socially with the adolescent wannabes to find out who was kissing whom. Yuck!
We also went to the local Drive-In Theater on University Drive, everyone hiding in the trunk. We really needed to see "The Birth of Triplets" and "Mondo Cane." Mostly, we talked quietly in the car about school issues and life. And who needs to go to the men's room?"
Surprises were always around the corner. A friend drove up to my house one afternoon in a Hearse. He was quite nonchalant in his black funeral car, but those were the days. My friends agreed we should start a rock-and-roll band, "The Tribesmen," because the car could carry the band and gear to the gigs as well as scare people with our arrival. I never got over the beat of our sound because the drummer was always inebriated. He was was my best friend.
We didn't last long because we were all football and basketball players, but I thought we had the beginnings of a real sound. We relocated to a garage band site with new players and a pool table. When re-considering the name of the band, the "Tribesmen," it wasn't do-able. An older, brother-like figure and long-time friend suggested the name "Johnny Hud," which was OK, except what about the other guys? "Oh, I've got it, he said, "The Kitchenettes!"
It was so goofball, it was fine with me. The other players rightly said, "I'm a Kitchenette? What's that?" What that was, I still don't know, except it sounded really stupid.
