Unorganized Hancock are back! They’ve got a cool new logo, and a new video, Yesterdays by Wes Montgomery:
It was — get this — over sixty degrees, so the boys recorded outside. No, really; it was over sixty degrees, all at the same time, instead of broken into pieces and spread over several days. Farenheit!
Wes Montgomery was such a wonderful and original player. I don’t know why my kids have such good taste. I think they’re supposed to be playing death metal at flight-deck volume or they’ll be thrown out of the garage band union, but they don’t show any inclination to annoy us or the neighbors yet.
Speaking of annoying the neighbors, Unorganized Hancock has a gig. There’s a converted church in town that has a real stage in it, along with function rooms and so forth, and my boys are appearing there next Friday night: It’s called 49 Franklin. (Scroll down to see their promo picture). They’re headlining, but they’re playing first. The drummer is a pro, but he’s got to be in bed by nine, so they’re going to blast away for an hour at 7:00 PM. Good luck to the band that has to follow them. How do you follow that?
Many thanks to everyone that’s hit the tip jar for the boys, and linked to their videos, and hit the like buttons on YouTube and Facebook. The Heir and The Spare had a difficult couple of weeks, and the love and support they receive from my Intertunnel mob means the world to them. And me. (Special thanks to Malcolm from America’s hat) We now have a computer that will play 1080p video (thanks, Cliff E !), and we were able to purchase a big hard drive to put the videos on. The boys have a keyboard now, too, and can both play it some. Look for that soon. The boys are improving by leaps and bounds these days. Me, I don’t even know which end of the piano you blow in.
(Update: Many thanks to Phil B. from Yucca Vall-E!)
(More Up To Date: Many thanks to Kathleen M. from CT for her friendship and support)
(Way Update: Thanks a ton to Stephen L. in Ohio for helping the boys out!)
Unorganized Hancock is back, larger than life, and twice as loud. Amazing to me what the kids have been able to do with a little bit of hardware and software thrown in. I had nothing to do with this, except pressing the big PHD button on the camera. PHD stands for “Push Here, Dummy.”
The Spare Heir is trying to get the hang of playing with his sticks held in the traditional grip, instead of the matched grip like a rock drummer. He likes videos of Jo Jones and Joe Morello, so he wanted to give it a try. He’s using sticks that resemble a bundle of chopsticks, which make a nifty stand-in for brushes.
The Heir fished out my ancient trombone, which I tried to explain to him before — that’s plumbing, not music, son. He doesn’t listen. He’s gotten weary of looking for bass players and learned to play bass pretty passably himself in the last couple months. He’s playing my old bass, the one I told you about in this essay — er, sentence.
If you’ve been living under a pop rock for fifty years, and don’t recognize the song they’re playing, it’s So What by Miles Davis. It’s one of the most important recordings of any kind ever made. We try to teach our children cultural literacy. Pop music is fine, and it can be sophisticated now and again, or more along the lines of I’m Henry The Eighth I Am, but very little pop music is important musically, lyrically, or culturally. People need peanut butter sandwiches as well as pate, so there’s no harm in it, really. But pop musicians that think they’re saving the world are absurd, and need to be told so, regularly.
In 1959, Miles Davis, who had been bopping hard up until that time, decided to try something new. He thought that jazz had become too dense, chordally complicated, too filigreed. He switched it up completely, and made a modal jazz record, called Kind of Blue. I’m hard pressed to come up another example groundbreaking and earthshaking as it was in its time, and after. Maybe Paul Whiteman playing George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue in New York in the twenties. It’s rare that someone is able to turn the musical world on its head.
The Heir painstakingly learned to play the trumpet solo on his guitar. It was the hardest part of this for him to play, though it sounds sort of rudimentary. It’s a great education for a player. Guitar players have a tendency to play things that fall under their fingers on their instruments easily. It’s human nature. But if you learn music originally played on other instruments, you’re playing pure music. Miles was just wandering up and down a scale, followed by another scale, and those scales are superimposed over two chords. That’s what modal music is. The bass playing on that record is very fine, and it was a great education for him, too.
The Heir is named Miles, by the way.
[Many thanks to everyone that’s supported the boys’ efforts over the last year. Your support is paying off, though perhaps that’s not for me to say. You decide. There’s a tip jar in the right hand column for them if you’re so inclined. Links to their video are much appreciated as well]
[Update: Many thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Thud from Old Blighty for supporting the boys!]
[Up-Update: Many thanks to the lovely Julie from Florida for sending the boys some green courage]
Up-Up-Update: Many thanks to Barbara M. from scenic California for helping the boys out. She suggests a mandolin. I’ll go along with anything that isn’t the bagpipes]
[Updates, the Continuing Saga: Many thanks go to Leslie G. from A Z for supporting the boys!]
[Updates, We Haz Them: Our thanks go out to Kathleen M. from CT for her constant support and encouragement]
[Updates, We Got Updates:David R. from Cal-if-forn-I-A is generous with his wallet and his advice. Many thanks. He wants The Heir to buy a 5-string bass, though, but I think he has too many stings already, and have been thinking of removing the G string. Maybe we should compromise, and have him play a 4-string bass.]
[Updates Roll On: Many thanks to Paul H. from the Lone Star State for helping the boys out, and saying pleasant things, too]
[Right Up-To-Date Update: Melissa K. From Tejas is very generous. Many Thanks! There appear to be a lot of nice people in Texas]
(Thanks to reader and commenter BJM for slipping the video into my comments the other day)
Way to go, kid.
And mom and dad, too. There’s the rub. I see the hand of mom and dad in that video, and the cold, dead hands of legions of moms and dads that came before them. Teachers, too; although sometimes they’re the same people. Some teachers still try under trying circumstances.
I was sick until this morning, and abed. That’s rare. We do not send our children to the petri dish they call a school here in town, and are spared a lot of such things. But I laid there like a casualty and got my information about things in the house second-hand. I heard all sorts of things.
I was unable to make a fire, but they got made all the same, as I have a family and we do things together all the time. I could do what my wife does, and she managed to tend the furnace. The kids help out.
I got all my information like a submariner would. Shut up, away from everyone, but still hearing the sounds of familiar things. My wife would bring me ginger ale and crackers and updates. Life, boiled down to short messages, can be wonderful.
The kids were on tenterhooks because their mom told them I was ill. Kids raised properly are attuned to disruptions in routines. Kids raised in unsalubrious surroundings are inured to most everything. Everything’s in an uproar all the time so they don’t notice, or care.
My wife was teaching the little feller. There was some discussion about his older brother, who will finish high-school level homeschooling this year. He had questions about what that meant. “Your brother wants to be a musician when he is a man,” my wife said to him; “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“I want to be a musician, too,” he said, though I wonder about that. He’s sort of a wunderkind in a small area of musicianship — he can do simple things almost effortlessly. But he has not shown the dogged determination that his older brother has shown at learning music. He is very young and might change his mind, and be one of those people I used to hate: people that could play music better than you could, but never had to try at it.
He wasn’t done. “I want to be a husband. I want to be a father.”
That is an astonishing thing to hear. Why should it be astonishing to hear a nine-year-old wants to grow up and be a husband and father? It shouldn’t be, but it is. If he’d uttered that in a public school, I imagine he’d be in a re-education camp by nightfall. And on the flip side, I don’t think the term “wife and mother” can be uttered in public school without a SWAT team of egalitarians being called.
My children don’t want to be musicians because they dream of drug abuse and licentiousness and a vision of being carried around on a litter chair by flunkeys. My older son was old enough to have come to my music shows and seen the real work it was. He still wanted to do it, because work doesn’t scare him. They both want to be productive citizens, useful to other productive citizens. They want to be husbands and fathers, with everything that means.
It is everything we’ve wanted for them. When the little one shows flashes of genius, I dread it. You do not want to be wonderful in this world, son. Wonderful is a big millstone in the swimming pool of life. I wanted to be normal my whole life, and during my lifetime on earth, being “normal” has gotten so strange that your mother and I are living on the edge of civilization hanging on by our fingernails.
Obscurity and a competence—that is the life that is best worth living. — Mark Twain
I want you to at least have a chance at being normal, if you want it. There are so few people committed to being useful, salubrious, and carrying on their traditions, and then having or supporting families that will rhyme down the centuries, that you’ll be wonderful enough if you manage it.
The Intertunnel is like my submarine, too. I get pinged, literally and figuratively, all the time. I feel the water temperature by putting my hand on the hull. Leslie from out west is kind enough to read, and comment, and buy furniture, and send the boys some shekels for their music videos. She is one of the many people I call my Interfriends: People I don’t know, and most likely will never meet, but they’re my friends. They know about me and mine, and I know something about them and theirs. If everyone that corresponds with me here were my actual instead of virtual neighbors, I’d live in the most interesting and pleasant town on earth. Leslie sent me a picture of her now grown, formerly homeschooled daughter’s work. She makes cakes. But saying she makes cakes is like saying Da Vinci was a housepainter. So I get to say something I’ve been dying to say since I was a little kid watching TV in the sixties: Ladies and gentlemen, tonight we have a really big shoe.
My little son especially thought this was the bee’s knees. “It’s a shoe with a big upheel!” He makes up more, and better words than Chaucer.
Leslie’s daughter is grown up, and I’d tell you she’s beautiful but I’m an old man and not supposed to notice such things, so I won’t mention it; and her parents tried, and obviously succeeded in producing a fully actualized person, ready and willing to be a good and productive (and inventive) citizen, and maybe someday produce her version of the same thing all over again.
We are a merry band here at the Cottage, busy being normal. We know we’re not alone, because we hear the thrumming on our bulkheads. We know you’re out there. There are plenty of people still trying to be decent citizens, and produce some more, by hook or by crook. We need a secret handshake or something.
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers –and sisters.
I’m not exactly sure where it came from. My children have heard Take Five a million times in our house, of course. We’re catholic in our tastes, and Brubeck is a staple in the audio stable of anyone that’s not a barbarian. But this is not our –my wife and I, I mean –idea.
It’s the kids’ idea to play it. We homeschool the kids. Well, my wife homeschools the kids, and I try not to mess it up too badly. Take a big bite, and keep chewing, we counsel them. This seems more than a big bite to me. I’ve watched it dozens of times already. I find it kind of astonishing. But better than that –I find it entertaining. I’ll put this version of Take Five on my mp3 player and erase the original, and never look back.
The Heir is doing all the heavy lifting. He is playing three parts on the recording. He has learned to play the bass fairly well, even though he only recently started messing around with it. He tried to cajole a handful of his friends to play along with him, but they all fall out almost immediately. He decided to do it himself. With the help of my readers, he’s able to record multiple tracks now, and makes the most of it. It’s a tiny little thing, his multitrack. But it works. He recorded the rhythm guitar part along with his brother, in one take, and then added the bass, and then the melody and the solo. His little brother never misses, so he gets to go back to playing Minecraft right away.
I know him, the Spare Heir. He’s thinking of playing Minecraft the whole time he’s playing Take Five. I’m certain of that, because I remarked to him, after the last cymbal strike decayed into hiss and the recorder was turned off, that I thought he played really well, and he looked at me funny and immediately started in with: My Minecraft mod has such-and-such and so-and-so in it and blah, blah, blah…
Honestly, I don’t know how he does it. He’s still only nine. I can’t play Take Five properly on the drums. There is no one in Oxford County, Maine, that can, probably. It’s in odd meter: 5/4. If you’re unfamiliar with that term, watch it again and count the beats as the measures go by. You’re probably used to doing that. 1 2 3 4, you go. Count 1 2 3 4 5 for this song. It’s how the song got its name, of course. The saxophone player in Brubeck’s band, Paul Desmond wrote the song, which was mightily overlooked when Brubeck passed away a short time ago. Everyone assumed Brubeck had written it.
At any rate, the big one learned to play the saxophone part on the guitar, and they tried it out. The little feller played what was essentially the correct drumbeat by ear. Sat down and did it. I sat down after him, a little curious, and tried it myself. I sounded like I had some sort of affliction, and was falling down the stairs while playing the drums. I jerked around like a fish on a line for a while, then gave up. I mentioned to the boy that what he was playing would be more effective if he opened his hi-hat on the second beat and closed it crisply on the third, to make it sizzle. He immediately added that to what he was playing, further confounding me. It’s very prominent on their recording if you look for it. That’s the limit of my input into the playing.
Yesterday was special. I promised my wife, and the kids, that for the first time in three years, I’d take a day off. A real day off. No furniture. No writing. I’ve promised that in the past, many times, and always failed. I wrote everything the day before, and didn’t bang my thumb or anything in the woodshop. I volunteered to be their key grip.
We took the furniture out of the dining room, and lugged their stuff in there, and we set up two ladders. Between the ladders, we laid two, eight-foot two-by-fours. We got the two-by-fours from the dump. We took a skateboard, and clamped a video camera to it with two spring clamps from the woodshop. Then I rolled the skateboard back and forth while the kids played. We moved the ladders this way and that for the different shots. We didn’t bother filming the bass playing. My wife was out all day on a mission of mercy, and we boys re-enacted The Cat In The Hat, tearing the house asunder while Mom’s away, and putting it all back, and doing all the dishes before she got home.
It was, in every way but one, the best day of my life.
(There’s a Paypal button in the right column if you want to help us buy the kids a better skateboard for the dolly shots)
[Update: Holy cow, many thanks to Stephen L. for his generous bang on the tipjar!]
[Up-Update: Many thanks to (Sloop) Jon B. in Cholerahdi for helping the kids out!]
[More Up To Date: Many thanks to Philip B. from Yucca Val-E!]
[The continuing saga of Updates: Thanks a ton to Nathan A. with an M.O. from MO.]
[In this episode of As The 45 Turns, we send a metric carload of thanks to Bruce W. from CO for his very generous body-slam of the Paypal button. Stay away from the Donner Pass, Bruce; the world needs you]
[Cutting-edge Update: Many thanks go out to Kathleen M. from New Milford, which is obviously a much better place than Old Milford, because Kathleen M. lives in New Milford]
[Rocky Update: Why are people in Colorado so nice, and nice to us? It’s a wonderful mystery. Thanks, Mark M. from Leadville for your very generous Paypal button workout]
[More Up-To-Date Update: Muchas gracias to Tanis E. for supporting the boys. Very generous! Why are people in Texas so kind, and kind to us? We don’t know, but we’re grateful for it.]
[Update: Maine edition: Tom C. from Bridgton sends along a generous and neighborly show of support. Many thanks!]
[Lone Star Update: Holy cow, Texas has adopted my children. Many thanks to Linda L. from League City. You’re a peach!]
[Empire State Uppadate: Arthur R. from Bellport is a pleasant and generous fellow, and we’re grateful for it. Many thanks!]
[Up, Up, and Awaydate: I’m speechless. Well-wishes and support keeps coming. Impresario Dave R. from California is continually generous and helpful. Many thanks! ]
[More, More, Moredate: Lee P. from the Keystone State is a generous supporter. Many thanks!]
[California, Somemoredate: Long time reader and commenter and Interfriend Lorraine, who I do not like — I adore her — ladles money and good wishes on the boys, and me too. My life is better with Lorraine in it. Many thanks!]
[Week Later Update: Our grateful thanks go out to Peter H. from the North Star State for his generous help and support!]
[So Very Up Update: Many thanks to Signe from Coasta Meysee for supporting the boys!]
I must admit I look forward to these videos overmuch. The boys do them entirely by themselves now. Sometimes I hear them being made, and get a good idea of what the finished product might sound like while it’s still an unthrown pot. Other times, I’m working in the shop with everything humming and banging, and I get it sprung on me the same way you do. I have to remind myself not to meddle. It’s deuced difficult. I got out of bed this morning, eager to open my browser and see this video for the first time. The Heir compiled it last night, after he and his brother recorded it yesterday afternoon. I do believe a stranger could be entertained by them.
The little feller is still only nine. He deserves ever so much less credit for his efforts than his big brother. Big brother has painstakingly learned everything you see here, on his own, mostly. The little feller is just a wonder. He can play the drums as unwaveringly as a professional adult can. This is not a father’s opinion. I played for money with lots of professional drummers. Maybe one or two of them were better than he is right now, in the only way that matters: the ability and willingness to play something suitable, steadily, while accompanying other people. When you see videos of really young drum phenoms on YouTube, they’re generally playing along by rote with a (bad)recording, not other humans. That’s data entry, not music. Not many of them, and even fewer of their parents, have much of an idea of them ever entertaining an audience by being musical. It’s just Can You Top This. Music is not weightlifting. The world’s gone crazy and The Gong Show has replaced Carnegie Hall. You’re supposed to be entertained, not impressed, anyway.
I do believe the little feller deserves to be called a musician. His big brother certainly does. Their father and mother are very proud of them. There’s a PayPal tip jar in the right-hand column if you want to show them some love. But I’m warning you right now — no matter how much money you send them, I’m not buying them saxophones.
[Update: Barbara M. sent along a generous donation to buy saxophones for the kids. Oh Jayzuz, not saxophones. A saxophone is just a flute with emphysema, and I don’t like flutes either. But I love Barbara!]
[Upside-Update: Dave R, who dared the kids to start this whole thing, is very generous with his moolah and his suggestions and expertise. Many thanks! Kathleen M is relentlessly generous. Many thanks! Melissa K is amazingly generous and we’re very, very grateful for it. Many thanks to everyone that watches, and comments, and hits the tip jar]
[Once Upponna Update: Thanks to Sarah R. for helping the boys out! ]
Tag: homeschooling
sippicancottage
A Man Who Has Nothing In Particular To Recommend Him Discusses All Sorts of Subjects at Random as Though He Knew Everything.
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