Each afternoon, I leave my office for an hour and walk along the river. As I walk, I usually listen to music on my Iphone, as this is the only time of day I can choose songs without fear of judgment (some of my tastes are considered unpleasant and/or embarrassing to my family).
As a lifelong drummer, I lean toward music that features drummers who practice their craft as an art form. Today I was struck by the realization that writing and drumming have a great deal in common.
A writer's craft is to establish irresistible rhythm and cadence in a story, using well-chosen words, punctuated phrases and varied sentence structure to build to an emotional climax. A drummer does this as well, choosing notes instead of words and punctuating his phrases with fills and crashes.
As with music, a good writer knows that it's not the notes you play that matter. It's the notes you don't play. Economy of language often separates professionals from amateurs.
Great writers and great drummers assert their presence without drawing attention to themselves. When at their best, a performance can be enjoyed without really noticing the artist. A guise of transparency, or verisimilitude, belies the virtuosity hidden within.
The best writers have a musicality to their writing, adding lyrical and melodic components to their language. Drummers do this too, by carefully placing the tones of their drums and "colors" of their cymbals.
When on top of their game, true artists make everything look effortless. Complex works like Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment could never be enjoyed if written by a hack. The same is true of Keith Moon's playing on Quadrophenia.
Sometimes, keeping it simple is the most challenging approach. Just ask Ernest Hemingway or John Bonham (if either of them were alive). "Simple" should never be confused with "easy." As Hemingway said, "know how complicated it is, and then state it simply."
A handful of drummers move adeptly from style to style. Jeff Porcaro comes to mind. Porcaro was perhaps the T.C. Boyle of the drums.
As for combining sheer technical abilities with impeccable taste and style? I would choose Vinnie Colaiuta (drums) and Phillip Roth (keyboard).
Today I will practice writing rhythmically and lyrically, only crashing when absolutely necessary.
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Good Luck Maniac. A Chicken by any other name. I was right, I AM much better looking, as long as it's from a distance that is...
ReplyDeleteI am certain that whatever you do during this endeavor, it will be interesting and worthwhile. I will check back soon, in a few days, maybe to tell summer's story so far, but nothing so cool here happening in Oregon as a repurposing of a lifetime's desire as the primary goal. THAT might be hard enough without a public announcement and ambitious timeframe. Propitious coincidence came together for me to see this blog-o'-yours, and I am glad to see you getting your skills out there for all to see. High time you made something of yourself mister. If it doesn't pan out, don't forget the barbecue sauce idea. I keep turning down inadequate offers for my Maine property, but once that goes I could buy a few trial ingredients. But that may be a road already traveled for you perhaps. I hope you have two thousand words, good ones, nothing less, down already. You do right? No blog posts until the day's work is done!
It's cheating if you count the short ones, isn't it?
I hope your wife is well these July days, and your family too. For now, I will leave you with this: if you ever actually get some digital ink down, I have some editing experience, free to you if you need some other mind's eye view unclouded by sparkling Colorado air (I could get contact info to you somehow); also, and I bet you will find this fact interesting, there is a good chance that of all the other collaborators in that investing universe (where I have been absent from lately, busy Spring/Summer) that you spoke with, I am the only one that has actually been drinking in a crowded DePauw University dorm room of a friend a couple days after graduation, where to my compliant amazement, a DP coed I had never met started making out with my somewhat impaired but apparently not too disgusting self on the top bunk, as we all listened to The Dark Side of the Moon. It was my first time hearing it, and it never, ever sounded better than that spring afternoon, in Greencastle at a dorm party with almost all the students outta' there, a pretty girl kissing me, in the first days of a driving adventure in my orange '71 Triumph TR6 heading, ultimately, to the Florida Keys.
Ah, good times... :-)
Remember this?:
Time (Mason, Waters, Wright, Gilmour)
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.
So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.
Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines.
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I'd something more to say.
Kind of relevant, eh? Nick Mason had half pages of scribbled lines too.
We all do. Six degrees...
But yours sound better than most and you will nail this plan and it will not be for naught.
So...
As a past DePauw bacchanalian, and a reading bird, I wish you great luck Tom. You are probably going to need it, but you won't need to search for writing talent, it's racing around to come up behind you again, I'm sure. If you do decide you need a "wildass character", you can call him Falcon if you want, and hopefully he gets lots of women and excitement and mystery and fulfillment and great life moments to ward off the sad ones, just like...me.
Type away like the drummer inside you buddy,
I'll return again soon,
Falconarm
aka,
david
Are you going to write dialog Tom? There this cool thing that happens in the rythym of writing when naration holds a beat and the dialog, "bam bam" he said, plays against that beat. Never thought of it as drumming til you mentioned it now
ReplyDeleteCool thought, Bill. Almost like point and counterpoint.
ReplyDeleteI will definitely write dialogue. My novel will attempt to strike a balance between narration and dialogue. But while narration and exposition come naturally, dialogue doesn't come easily to me. I'm studying my favorite writers to learn more about what works and why.
Thanks for the comment.