Several weeks ago I got an email from my friend, Howard, whom I’ve known since the beginning of this millennium, when we were both employees of a now-defunct software company started by a friend of mine. It was time for his annual birthday jam (session), a fine event I’ve attended let’s say a half-dozen times before. The idea is simple: 1) You tell your neighbors that this one time you’re going to be making music until the wee hours of the morning. 2) You set up a sound-system in the front parlor, along with a drum kit (while fitting out the rest of the first floor for a party). 3) Invite everyone you know to come to the party. Many of those people are musicians, and many are not. The musicians will generally bring their instruments. The others are welcome to listen (or not) and to pick up a cowbell, tambourine, or a shaker if they want to get in on the musical action, which some of them do.
Then you party.
How do you pick what music to play? While no one knows everyone else, not even Howard, as some people bring strangers to the event, we’ve played with one another at one time or other in one configuration or another. So there are a bunch of songs we more or less know and even if you don’t know a tune, you can often pick it up on the fly. People take turns playing guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, or singing. I’m the only trumpet player I’ve seen at these jams, but a saxophonist sometimes shows up, last night we had a fiddler and a flutist.
One song that has been a constant at these jams is in fact two songs, both by the Grateful Dead and often performed by them back-to-back: “Scarlet Begonias” followed by “Fire on the Mountain.” Those tunes are in the key of B. If you don’t know just what that means, don’t sweat it. Think of a key as a selection of notes and associated structures you can draw on in playing. The thing about the key of B is that it is convenient for guitar players, but hellish for trumpet players. We’re talking about how you manipulate your fingers to play the instrument. For guitar players it’s the fingers on the left hand that are used to depress strings against the fret board. For trumpeters it’s the right hand fingers used to depress the valves. For both instruments, some finger patterns are easier than others. Tunes that are easy for guitar are difficult for trumpet, and vice versa.
Thus, when I undertake to perform “Scarlet Begonias/Fire on the Mountain” I have to give up half my technique. Riffs that are easy in the key of B-flat are difficult in the key of B. I’ve got semi-virtuoso technique; I can play lots of fast, intricate, and even flashy patterns. But not in the key of B.
So what? Does that matter? Well, it depends. If you value flash, which I do occasionally, then that’s gone. Can you play without it? Yes. But still there are problems. Even when I slow down, I can’t be sure just what notes are going to come out when I manipulate my fingers. More often than not, they come out OK. But when they don’t, that doesn’t sound so good. All of a sudden I have to start actually thinking about what I’m doing. Thought may be fine enough in practice, but it’s not so good for performance. When performing you want to be able to do everything on autopilot. No thought. You’re sailing on pure intuition. That’s what you want. You don’t want to think.
Anyhow, I’ve played these tunes before, many times. I’ve always managed, somehow. I decided that this time I was going to do more than manage. I decided that I wanted to make some actual music. That meant that I had to practice.
So I started two weeks ahead of time. I’d get cue up one of the many versions of “Scarlet Begonias/Fire on the Mountain” that are on YouTube and start playing along. The minimum goal is to not play any wrong notes. At first even that was tricky. Beyond that you want to play notes that form meaningful musical patterns. More difficult.
When I’d hit a wrong note sometimes I’d just play through it and keep on moving ahead. Other times, though I’d start repeating the botched pattern, but with corrections. I’d repeat it until I got it right. Sometimes I’d do this while the music continued while other times I’d stop the music and turn the pattern into a technical exercise, an exercise that I’d repeat over and over until I felt smooth and comfortable under my fingers. I did a lot of that, make up little technical exercises. Gradually the glitches began disappearing and musical statements would replace them, meaningful statements.
After about a week of this I was getting more comfortable, more comfortable than I’d ever been with these tuns. Of course, I also picked up patterns from the performances, guitar riffs, fragments of the melody. I’d double the vocal, then play a harmony line, sometimes standard harmony (below the melody), and sometimes I’d go for high harmony. I worked on that long riff The Dead often used to connect the two tunes. Things were looking up.
Yet, something was missing. I needed something more. Just what, I didn’t know. Then it hit me on Thursday before the jam, Elmer Bernstein's soaring main theme from The Magnificent Seven.
I immediately tried it out. It worked. I could lay it in there nice and sweet and have an actual melody to work with. I was all set.
And it worked. Best I’d ever done on those tunes. I was happy.
I’d have been happier, though, if my chops had been stronger. I’d been off the horn for a long time. I just didn’t have the power and endurance I needed to really make that melody sing. But next year, though...Just you wait.
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