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After a month long hiatus, I’m back to blogging. In the past, after having taken a long break from blog writing, I’ve always come back to it with some grand declaration and a clear goal to enact (e.g. I’ll blog everyday, release a song every week, etc…), and I am tempted to do this yet again. We are after all still within the window of opportunity for me to tell you all about my multiple new year’s resolutions! I’ve asked around, and it seems like most of my friends are not as enthusiastic about the idea of new year’s resolutions as I am. Personally, I love to make resolutions. It feels great to set big goals, and dream of what my life will look like when I’m living as my peak self.

I’m also certain I could squeeze out a whole blog post simply by talking about the what, why and how of my new year’s resolutions. I’d feel great about myself and all my ambitious plans, and yet you the reader might actually feel a little bit worse. The best case scenario is that you’d get bored and just stop reading. The worst case is that you would think “Wow, Lucas sure is going to do some awfully cool stuff this year! What am I going to do? Not much. I suck. I hate myself. You know what, I hate Lucas too.” Look, I don’t want you to hate yourself, and I especially don’t want you to hate me, so instead of talking about all of my goals and (hypothetical) future achievements, I’m going to try the opposite approach and talk about some of my past shortcomings. Because a little dose of schadenfreude does a body good— it’s my New Year’s gift to you! You’re welcome.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve carried two (mostly subconscious) desires that have motivated much of my behavior: the desire to be liked, and the desire to be the best. In many ways, these desires have served me well in my life. I think I’ve generally behaved in a well-mannered, somewhat delightful way, and a lot of people have liked me because of this (or in the least, they’ve not disliked me). Additionally, I’ve put a lot of effort into being really good at things like music, sports, and school, and as a result I’ve been a relatively high achiever in these fields. And yet, for the past decade or so, as I’ve sought to create, sustain, and grow a vibrant musical life, I’ve discovered that these motivating desires have provided more hindrance than help.

Consider this: one of the best ways (if not the very best way) to improve at playing music, is to play with musicians who are better than you. Here at NYU, and in New York City as a whole, I am surrounded by musicians who are more experienced than me. I have ample opportunity to play with them in both impromptu and organized jam sessions all over town. And yet last semester, I consistently avoided these opportunities, because I have this desire to be one of the best in whatever realm I enter and it feels very uncomfortable for me to be one of the very worst. But if I really am serious about improving as a musician, I’ll quit ego-tripping right now and start getting comfortable with playing with people who are far better than me.

Ultimately I also wish to compose my own music and release it in to the world, and it would be a dream come true if I could earn a living by writing original music. Although it is a relatively rare livelihood, I don’t even think it is all that far-fetched. I know that I can write music that sounds pretty good, and I see numerous outlets for original music: movies, TV shows, video games, advertisements, live performances, or sold directly to an audience (who knows, maybe even old-school aristocratic patronage will come back into fashion). Yet success in any of these realms requires at least one common thread: the willingness to put my music out into the world. Sure, I’ve done this on a small scale— I’ve written some original songs, made some home recordings, and put them up on sound cloud. That counts right? No, not really. The stakes are too low. I’ll never truly know if people like it or dislike it, and that is the hurdle that I am hesitant to jump over. For I have this crippling desire to be well-liked and approved of, and I am afraid that if I put my music out into the world and really try to sell it, people just won’t like it. Yet the fact is, no matter what, some people will not like my music. It’s impossible to write universally loved music— go ahead and try; you’ll end up writing elevator music. If I really am serious about making music my livelihood, I’ll accept that many people are not going to like my music, and just put it out into the world anyway.

Yes, I’m a scared little piglet everybody— I’m afraid of not being the best and I’m afraid of not being liked. Yet I have some virtues as well. In the least, I have an awareness of my fears, and the gall to confess them to you all. I’ve shared these shortcomings with you because I want to move beyond them. As Louis Brandeis said—guys, wait, listen, I’m not going to act like I knew who Louis Brandeis was before I wrote this, I was just vaguely aware of this quote and so I looked up who said it. Anyway, as Louis Brandeis said, “publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” Well, this blog is my publicity, and you readers are the sunlight, here to help me clean up my act. Thanks for reading.

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So a couple of months ago I was waiting on the C train listening to an old man play what sounded to me like Bach on his electric piano. Despite his lowly stage and modest pay, he was playing beautifully and so I looked around to see if any of the other awaiting subway riders were noticing his performance. To my delight I looked up and saw one young woman listening with rapt attention. After dropping a couple of dollars in his keyboard case, I boarded the train and ended up standing right next to that woman. So I did what few New Yorkers ever do, and I struck up a conversation with a stranger on the train. I asked her if she was a musician, and she said no but that music was a big part of her life and that she was actually involved in film (acting, writing, directing, producing, etc…). We chatted about a short film she was producing and eventually I told her that if she ever needed anyone to score her films, that she should call me. I gave her my card, bid her adieu, and got off at my stop, satisfied with the exchange, but not exactly expecting anything to come from it.

Well, I must have made a good impression (either that or she couldn’t resist the low, low price I promised her), because a few weeks later, she called me about scoring the short film that she was producing. Sidenote: kids, it turns out you should definitely talk to strangers, because they’ll end up hiring you to score their films. So for her privacy and my own entertainment I’m going use a completely made up name and call this producer Lilliandra (I estimate there’s an 85 percent chance Lilliandra is going to read this blog, so I hope you enjoy your made up name, Lilliandra). Lilliandra was working alongside the writer/director/star of the film— let’s call her Nira— to put the finishing touches on the work. The film is a comedy with a surprising dramatic turn set at a low-key house party in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Both Nira and Lilliandra admitted that there are some editing issues, and some suspect acting on the part of one of Nira’s costars, yet overall I found the film charming, funny, and heartfelt, and Nira shines as a magnetic personality onscreen (off-screen as well in fact). I was happy to be a part of the project, and after some direction from Nira and Lilliandra, I began writing and recording the music for the film. After a week of hard work I had something I was excited to show them, so we set up a meeting at Nira’s Greenpoint apartment.

Yet after showing them my work, I could already see the unfortunate truth on their faces: the music was not right. In a nutshell, the music stepped on the humorous parts and over-dramatized the dramatic parts. Despite the fact that Nira and Lilliandra let me know this very delicately, I’m ashamed to admit that internally I felt very defensive. I thought “didn’t they know how much work I had done… and this music is really good…and I’m giving them a low, low price so they should be happy with what I gave them… etc.” Yet all of this was simply the ego-trip of a rookie film composer faced for the first time with some real life critique of his work. If I am going to continue in this business (which I certainly hope to), I need to grow thicker skin and be perpetually open to direction, critique, and even outright rejection. Lilliandra and Nira were right after all— I had stepped on the jokes, and over-dramatized the drama.

Ultimately, however, I was guilty of something more egregious than simply writing bad music. I had essentially used this film as a forum to show off my abilities as a composer, rather than simply trying to help tell the story. The music was in fact “good” in the sense that it was well crafted and sounded nice, but it was the wrong music for this film. Nira and Lilliandra were going for something more nuanced than what I had presented. My music was outshining the film at the expense of the story.

Likely most of us at one point or other have been guilty of bolstering ourselves at the expense of the larger community or project that we are a part of. In the least we’ve all seen it in the losing basketball team with a selfish “all-star” taking all the shots (I’m looking at you 2015 Kobe Bryant), or the band with lazy songwriting that simply serves as a forum for the lead guitarist to shred painfully long solos (I’m looking at you jam-band scene). Yet the best and longest lasting actors, musicians, athletes or workers in any field are not those who do everything to make themselves look better, but those who realize that they are a part of a bigger picture and simply play their part very well (I’m looking at and applauding you Dustin Hoffman, Dennis Rodman, Steven Drozd, and everyone of their ilk).

Last night I met again with Lilliandra and Nira. I had made many adjustments according to the direction they gave me, and as a result the film’s story and personality was much more clear than it had been in the previous incarnation. We had a pleasant and productive session of simply fine-tuning the musical elements, rather than having to completely re-work them. The night was fun and fruitful because we were all on the same page, telling the same story, and each playing our part.

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World's Smallest Studio
World’s Smallest Studio

Before arriving in New York City I was excited about the prospect of turning over a new leaf in such a lively place. I was convinced that I was going to work harder than I ever had before— I would write, record, play gigs, excel in school and promote myself ceaselessly. For I knew that if I did these things that I would grow musically, enhance my career, meet some incredible people, and learn countless lessons that I would carry with me for the rest of my life. Yet as anyone who has ever set a new year’s resolution knows, it feels great to dream up a grand new life, and it feels bad when you inevitably fall short of your goals. Thus, I was feeling blue last week because (in addition to America electing it’s first cartoon super-villain president) I felt like I was falling short of my musical and personal goals for my time in NYC. Sure, I’ve been going to school, doing my work, and paying my bills— there’s no reason for anyone else to be upset with my behavior here, and yet I am disappointed in myself because I know in my heart that if I truly want to succeed in music here or anywhere else, there is much more that I could be doing. So I did what I always do when I’m feeling down on myself: I made a list of things that I could do to make myself feel better.

1. Seek out gigs. Why? Because performing has been such a large and positive part of my life for the past nine years and I’m sad to say that I haven’t played a single gig since I’ve been here. I yearn to perform, and I absolutely have to if I want to become a part of the New York City musical community.

2. Talk to David Schroeder, the director of the NYU jazz studies department. Why? Because I’ve had something on my chest since I enrolled in school here—namely that I do not think that I am a “jazz musician.” I absolutely love learning from the many jazz masters who teach at NYU, but I needed to bring it to light that I am interested in playing a great many other genres and that it is likely that I am not going to make my millions (or thousands, or dozens) strictly playing jazz.

3. Play music with someone. Why? Because I’ve been spending far too much time cooped up in a small room practicing music, and not enough time actually making music with other people. As I’ve written before, playing music alone and never doing it with others is merely masturbation.

4. Call the producer of a short film that I am scoring. Why? Because I wanted to clarify some of our goals and deadlines, and it is better for me to be proactive than to passively wait on her guidance.

5. Go play pickup basketball. Why? Because I love pickup basketball. It’s fun, therapeutic, social, and there’s no better sound than a crisp swish.

I am very proud to say that in addition to fulfilling my usual school duties, I achieved all five of these goals this week. I booked a couple of gigs for mid-December, I had a wonderful heart to heart with David Schroeder, I played music with a couple of classmates, I got in touch with the producer, and I played pickup basketball. Each achievement momentarily infused me with joy and confidence and yet, on Friday after I had accomplished all of them, overall I still felt low. The good news is that I’ve lived long enough to learn that sometimes my sadness is not a result of outer circumstances, but just part of the natural ebb and flow of my spirit. You cannot have happiness without experiencing sadness, and I’m likely experiencing a natural low after the incredibly exciting high of being a New York City newcomer. I’m oddly at peace with my sadness, for I know it will pass and give way to joy again. Such is life.

So Friday night I was feeling sleepy and sad as I was taking the Subway home—I got off of the A train in order to transfer to the C, when I was suddenly face to face with a vivacious young subway performer wearing a red tie prancing around singing Holly Jolly Christmas along to a backing track. Now I’m generally uninspired by the song Holly Jolly Christmas (especially before Thanksgiving), but there was just something so enjoyable about watching this little dude sing it. He followed up Holly Jolly with his final number of the evening: a highly dramatic dance routine to a high-energy club song. It is comical for me to write this, but I sincerely mean it— that little guy’s sparkling dance routine brought me back to life. I felt intense joy at watching him so freely and spontaneously express himself. Coincidentally, if you go to his instagram page (@masterblasterg) you can actually see video of this exact moment. Scroll down to the video titled “Dance because you can” and you’ll see me in the background, first languidly looking at whatever distraction I have pulled up on my phone, and then by the end, flashing a huge grin.

As he was packing up his gear I went over to slip him a tip and talk to him. His name is Gabriel Angelo and he is 17 years, and he had the same effervescent personality in conversation that he does while performing. I asked him what his musical goals are, and he told me (with a dramatic wave of his hands) that he wants to do more shows than anyone ever has in the world, and to heal people with his music. You’ll have to suspend your cynicism to read this (as I have to suspend mine to write it) but he did heal me that night. I cannot describe it any other way than to say that in watching him sing and dance, he transmitted his pure joy directly to my heart and soul. As if that gift was not enough, he reminded me that I did not fall in love with music for any practical purposes. I fell in love with music because of it’s mystic ability to transmit feelings beyond words. Certainly it is good to set goals for myself and achieve them, but I should remember that practical goals may have very little to do with love, happiness, and music.

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I said to myself, “I am thoroughly happy and content, now. If my most pitiless enemy could appear before me at this moment, I would freely right any wrong I may have done him.”

Straightaway the door opened, and a shriveled, shabby dwarf entered. He was not more than two feet high. He seemed to be about forty years old. Every feature and inch of him was a trifle out of shape; and so, while one could not put his finger upon any particular part and say, “This is a conspicuous deformity,” the spectator perceived that this little person was a deformity as a whole. A vague, general, evenly-blended, nicely-adjusted deformity. There was a fox-like cunning in the face and the sharp little eyes, and also alertness and malice. One thing about him struck me forcibly, and most unpleasantly: he was covered all over with a fuzzy, greenish mold, such as one sometimes sees upon mildewed bread. The sight of it was nauseating.

The above is an abridged passage from Mark Twain’s 1876 short story “The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut,” and the sense of disgust that the protagonist feels at this fuzzy little troll-person very accurately sums up my feelings right now about president-elect Donald Trump. I borrowed Twain’s description because I, in fact, cannot accurately convey with my own words the deep visceral disappointment that I am feeling about the election results. The closest I can come to expressing it with my own faculties is by making pained guttural noises (not unlike what I imagine an aardvark dying would sound like).

I, and nearly all of my friends, family, and Facebook feed are feeling shocked, outraged, and afraid at the prospect of Donald Trump being our next president. It is tempting (and quite enjoyable in fact) to sit back and fire insults at Trump and his supporters. Like this: Trump and his supporters are the human embodiment of a Nickleback song— tasteless, gross, loud, and limp. Yep, that felt good. I could do that all day. Yes it is tempting (and fun), and yet counterproductive. For here is the twist in Twain’s tale: the narrator reveals that the “vile bit of human rubbish seemed to bear a sort of remote and ill-defined resemblance to me!”

Like Twain’s character, we as a nation are now face to face with a clear embodiment of our own twisted nature. I don’t believe that most of Trump’s supporters are overtly racist, misogynistic, or stupid, yet I do know that Trump’s victory has seemingly given license for some of his supporters to partake in some very racist, misogynistic, and stupid behavior. The KKK in North Carolina has announced plans for a Trump victory parade. On Thursday at my own NYU the door to the Muslim Student Association’s prayer room was vandalized with the word “Trump.” On Friday a teacher reported that a ten year old girl had to be picked up from her school because a boy had grabbed the girl’s vagina—when asked why he did it, the boy said “if a president can do it, I can too.” Since the nation’s founding, America, while boasting some truly great cultural, social, economic, and technical achievements, has always harbored an appalling underbelly of racism, sexism, and domination. Because we have elected an appalling, racist, sexist egomaniac to be our president, this underbelly is simply being more blatantly exposed than usual.

If there is any silver-lining to the fact that some people now feel emboldened to play out some of their darkest drives, it is that we as a country can no longer ignore it. Whether in a single person, a family group, or an entire nation, things do not change unless it is first recognized that there is a problem. In my eyes, it is clear that we have huge racial, economic, social, and educational divides in this country, and that those divides breed fear, hatred, and disregard. We cannot simply write this off as the fault of those “ignorant” Trump supporters. If we want America to be great—not “great again,” but for the first time— we all have to accept responsibility for the fear and prejudice in our country and in our own hearts and combat it with love whenever we see it.

I am encouraged by the massive and active backlash against the election of Donald Trump. Right now there is a days long protest roaring at Trump Tower, just a subway ride away from me. Liberals and democrats have been suddenly inspired to action in a way that they would not have been if Hillary had been elected. This is a wake up call. There is a huge amount of energy behind the anti-Trump movement and if everyone who is disappointed in the election results decides to use this energy not towards Trump-hate, but towards acts community building, volunteerism, social justice, and general kindness, then I believe that we can transform Trump’s presidency into a step forward, rather than two steps backwards.

In addition to being inspired towards social action, I also also feel an urgent desire to double down on my musical life after this election. For playing music has been a bridge in my life to communities of people that I would have otherwise not been exposed. I’ve performed with and for people of all different races, cultures, sexual orientations, and political leanings (yes I’ve even been in a band with a Trump supporter or two). It did not matter what our superficial differences were, we were all there to just enjoy the incredible human endeavor of making music.

For it is not politics, but our shared passions (whether music, sports, cooking, dancing, art, science, writing, sewing, etc…) that have always brought people together. In 1999, it didn’t matter if Eminem was white, he was accepted into the historically black Hip-Hop community because he could rap really well. In 1947, it didn’t matter that Jackie Robinson was black, he was accepted into the historically white Brooklyn Dodgers clubhouse because he could play baseball really well. In 1898 it didn’t matter that Marie Curie was a woman, she was accepted into the historically male scientific community because she discovered Radium (and made many other great scientific breakthroughs I don’t claim to understand). Now I admit that Robinson and Curie were “accepted” into those communities with a lot of struggle and backlash, and I need to point out that you shouldn’t have to be superlatively great at something to be accepted into a community. Yet the point that I am trying to make is that it is in fact rarely politicians that affect true social change and progress— the most powerful positive force in the world is normal people coming together to do the things we already love to do.

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Last week I was in a coffee shop struggling to write a blog post about booty, when I started eavesdropping on an amusing conversation. I listened as the shop’s two hipster employees spun a random web of banter (from farmer’s markets to penne pizza to Keurig coffee to that business card scene in American Psycho) and suddenly I had a sad realization: eavesdropping on this conversation was the most interesting thing I’d done all week. I was struggling to write the blog post because I didn’t do anything worth writing about that week— I just went to school, practiced, did my homework, ate food, watched game of thrones, read Harry Potter, and slept. It was a good week— but a boring week to read about, so I was stuck mining my mind for some interesting concepts. But concepts are not interesting— they’re just dead ideas unless you do something with them. So I vowed then and there that the next week I would go out and really do something, because (dammit) I live in the most vibrant city in the world, and (dammit) I need these blog posts to be easier to write. Thus, I’d like to throw out the tired old concepts this week, and just give you a recap of some of the more interesting things I did.

I began my adventures last Friday night by taking a stroll down to Union Square (well known hangout for eccentric characters). I was just eating an apple doing some people watching when I saw a large mass of people circle up and heard someone from the inside suddenly shout “If you’re loving the Cyphers put your fist up, and say hell yeah!” (and naturally all the spectators put their fists up and shouted back “hell yeah!”). I approached the crowd and soon realized that there was a hip-hop beat playing and many people trading freestyle verses over it. Apparently I had walked into a meeting of the Legendary Cyphers, a renowned freestyle session that happens every Friday night in Union Square (read about it here please). Many of the MC’s were wearing Legendary Cyphers shirts, most were just in plain-clothes, and one guy was inexplicably wearing a full Aquaman costume. I learned from their verses that they were honoring an MC called Majesty, one of the founding members of the Legendary Cyphers who had recently passed away. I was captivated by the scene— some of the MC’s were incredibly talented and effortlessly picked up where the previous rapper had left off, then spitting a clever collection of puns, metaphors, and cultural references. Some of the MC’s were clearly amateurs, yet this was obviously a safe, supportive space with the beginners being lifted up by the heavy weight MC’s rather than put down by them. If one rapper began to flounder, there was no dissing or booing—another MC would simply pick up where he or she left off and the cypher would continue. For the roughly hour-long duration that I watched, the rapping never stopped. The beats would change every five minutes or so, yet the MC’s never stopped flowing. As I watched I was constantly aware of the many similarities between this and a jazz jam session, but that is the topic for a future blog post…

The next day I decided to do something I have not done in years: watch an Arkansas Razorback football game. There’s a bar in Times Square called Hurley’s Saloon that hosts watch parties for Razorback sporting events (don’t ask me why). I wanted to go hear some Arkansan accents so I threw on a red shirt and brought my buddy Jonathan along to watch Arkansas get royally stomped by Alabama (coincidentally, Jonathan went to the University of Louisville who is currently having success under the memorably-fired former Razorback coach Bobby Petrino). We sat and drank some beers and I told Jonathan that I wanted to go talk to the people at the table nearby. He seemed doubtful that I would actually cold approach a table full of strangers and introduce myself, but he’s never been to Arkansas and doesn’t understand how small of a world it is there. So I got up and introduced myself to a table of five women (oh maybe it was the “five women” part that made him doubtful), and after some brief small talk I discovered that two of them were indeed in Bible study with my aunt Martha Jane at First Methodist church in Hot Springs, and one of them was an assistant principal at Pine Bluff High School when my friend Epiphany Morrow was a student there. To borrow a term from Malcolm Gladwell, Epiphany and Martha Jane are “connectors.” They both know a lot of people and a lot of different types of people. I’ve been very lucky to have been propped up and helped along my life’s path by a number of friends and family members who are connectors. Because of this, I too aspire to one day be a helpful connector to many people in my life, but that is the topic for a future blog post…

My week at school passed by with plenty of practice and classwork, and by the time Thursday rolled around I was ready for another outing. A fellow guitar student at NYU named Ben recommended I go see the excellent guitarist (and NYU professor) Adam Rogers perform at 55 Bar with his power-trio Dice. Rogers is mostly known as an accomplished jazz guitarist, but in this band he breaks out a Fender Stratocaster and fully flexes his rock muscle. He still played with his trademark technical skill and advanced harmonic and rhythmic ideas, yet he did so in the context of arrangements of songs by Sam Cooke, Bobby Womack, and Jimi Hendrix, as well as some heavy-hitting originals tunes. It was fun and invigorating to see such a great performance, yet watching Rogers play this style of music was inspiring on another level as well. For I imagine that the current generation of jazz guitarists did not first pick up a guitar because they heard a Kenny Burrell or Wes Montgomery album. They were probably first inspired by rock gods like Jimi Hendrix or Jimmy Page and only later seduced by the deep well of musical ideas that the jazz cats provided. Thus, it was great to see present-day Adam Rogers playing something that I imagine a 13 year old Adam Rogers would have enjoyed— certainly my 13 year old self would have enjoyed it, but that is the topic for a future blog post…

I keep harping on this phrase “the topic of a future blog post” to show that simply by going out into the world and doing something (anything really), I have gained, if I want to use them, ideas for at least three new blog-posts as well as concrete experiences to support them. Whereas last week I spent hours upon hours struggling to write a purely conceptual post, this week’s post flowed easily from the pen to the page (and then from the fingers to the screen as I typed it up). Yet because I’m a conceptual kind of guy and I can’t stay away from abstract ideas for too long, I’d like to leave you with what I think is the underlying lesson of this week’s post: The more that you do, the more you that you can do. The more you practice your craft, the more gigs you’ll be able to handle; the more people you go out and meet and invest yourself in, the more people you’ll have to help you in your personal and professional life; and the more you just get out of the house, the more you’ll have to talk about in your music blog. See you next week!

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In the immortal words of Q-Tip, “Question: what is it that everybody has, and some pirates and thieves try to take? … Da Booty.” The booty is a natural place to start if we want to talk about music, because one basic function of music is to make you move your ass. It’s liberating to shake your ass after all. Go ahead and try. No one is watching (and if they are, even better). Stand up and shake your butt right now.

Few of you did. I understand, it’s a little embarrassing if people are watching, and if there’s no music playing then you’d probably feel a little bit crazy. It’s much more natural to shake your groove thing if you have a funky beat on hand— for me it even feels unnatural to stay stationary if there is an infectious groove within earshot. This is indeed one great power of music. It compels us to do something incredibly enjoyable that in silence feels awkward and forced. If you haven’t yet let music move your backside, I implore you, the next time you’re alone, put on some James Brown and shake that thing. You’ll be a better person afterwards.

I love music that makes me want to physically move, and a lot of music is written solely for that purpose. Most dance songs (whether disco, funk, electronic, or anything else) are basically telling us to turn off our brains and turn on our butts (the body’s natural center of dance). Yet in studying Jazz here at NYU, I’ve basically had to park my butt in a chair and turn on my brain. For at this point, the only way I can fathom something like playing an altered dominant scale in a 5/4 time signature is to think about it. I’ve got to use my brain for something like that because if I asked my butt how to do it she would just say “man, why not just play in 4/4? That way you can clap on beats two and four! And a what scale? Just play a C chord for a while and then maybe go to that A minor chord… come on it’ll be fun!”

Jazz, more than most other genres, has offered a haven for people who wish to take a cerebral approach to music. I’m not ready to say that this is the only way to approach Jazz, but the very fact that you can get a PhD in jazz studies indicates that there is great intellectual depth to the music, and that using your brain to wrestle with that depth is a worthwhile endeavor for the student of jazz. “Wrestling” is indeed a good way to describe my interaction with the music at the moment. For the past month I’ve been consistently exposed to some of the best musicians I’ve ever heard, making me realize more than ever how little I know. It is a challenge, but I know that the only way that I can begin to climb the ever growing mountain of musical knowledge that I see before me is to use my head. My butt is not going to get me up that mountain— instead I have to use my brain to do the hard work of analyzing tunes, memorizing melodies, experimenting with new harmonies, perfecting difficult rhythms, and much more.

Yet between the brain and the butt, there is another part of the body that has something important to say about music: the heart. The philosopher Herbert Spencer once said that “music is the language of emotion,” and lately I’ve been directly interacting with this idea in my film scoring class. Certainly there are many functions of music in film— in class we came up with a list of about 25— but one of the most basic functions is to convey the emotional tone of the moment in order to make the story being told much more vivid. What, for instance, is the movie The Graduate (one of my all time favorite films) without the brooding sense of aimlessness evoked by Simon and Garfunkel’s The Sound of Silence?— probably still a good movie, but not the memorable masterpiece we know it to be.Great film music tells the story alongside the action onscreen, pinpointing the mood of the scene and communicating it directly to the heart of the viewer. Thus, learning (or struggling might be more accurate)to write film music has been for me a lesson in understanding music’s emotional power.

Last Saturday I went to Smalls Jazz Club (it is indeed, very small) to see the group Jean Michel Pilc and Total Madness (Pilc on piano, Ari Hoenig on drums, Joel Frahm on Tenor Sax, Chet Doxas also on Tenor, and Francois Moutin on bass), and I don’t think I have ever seen a group so expertly capable of expressing music in the three ways that I’ve mentioned above. Throughout the night they were intellectually stimulating, combining advanced harmonies with rare time signatures at blistering speeds. They were also incredibly emotive in their playing— you could feel the emotional weight of their notes instead of abstractly admiring the fact that they were playing them. And perhaps most remarkably, they sometimes made you want to dance— despite the fact that they were often playing in time signatures that my brain could not immediately follow, they played with such rhythmic accuracy and a sense of the groove that if I were a braver and slightly more obnoxious man, I would have busted a move in that tiny jazz club.

Not every musician will reach the height of Jean Michel Pilc and total madness. It is a fine achievement to just write really good dance music, or intellectually challenging music, or emotionally expressive music. But know that music does not serve a single master. Music is a multiplicity that can speak to your brain, your heart, or your butt, and I aspire to let it speak to all of me.

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Watching the presidential debate last Monday was similar to what it would be like to watch the mighty German national soccer team play a match against the tiny nation of Belize* if all the Belizean players were drunk and high on cocaine. Imagine: Germany is far and away the better team, relentlessly and smugly scoring goal after goal after goal on Belize, yet the intoxicated Belizean players refuse to recognize any of the goals scored on them. Belize stubbornly pretends they’re tied and that its an even match. They celebrate furiously every-time they administer a violent slide tackle or use their hands and try to throw the ball in the goal. Also the referee is Lester Holt, and he obviously has no control over this shit-show of a match.

Now I’m not suggesting that Hillary is as precision perfect at debating as Germany is at soccer, nor am I suggesting that Donald Trump debates like he’s drunk and high (although he was sniffling a lot, rambling on and on, yelling… you know what, maybe I am suggesting that). I’m pointing out the vast difference between Hillary and Trump that was exposed by putting the two candidates on stage with each other. One came across as being competent and substantial, and the other came across as being as competent and substantial (and aesthetically pleasing) as a chicken McNugget.

And yet, Trump still has his supporters. No matter what ridiculous, inaccurate, or offensive thing he says, a lot of people are still going to vote for him. The logistical and ethical holes in his policy plans do not deter Trump supporters. They just like the way he talks: simple superlative adjectives delivered in a coarse, firm tone and a healthy dose of xenophobia. That or they just hate Hillary— probably continuing in the ages old trend of hating or distrusting women, what with their vaginas and everything. Hillary can present all of the well-researched, plausible policy plans in the world, she can continue to not say racist or offensive things in public, and she can tout all of her experience in both the white house and senate, but she will not sway some people.

I’m not going out on a limb by saying that Hillary is objectively more qualified to be president than Trump— yet that’s not what matters to people. Do you like Hillary? Or do you like Trump? That’s the question. To use a musical example (this is a music blog after all), let’s address an old question: Beatles or Rolling Stones? Sure you can like both (I do), but everyone likes one a little more than the other. Some people are going to fight me on this, but I’m also not going out on a limb by saying that The Beatles were the more musically advanced group. The Rolling Stones never wrote music in odd time signatures, they never utilized a Bach-influenced piano solo, or borrowed from Indian Classical music— The Beatles did (Here Comes the Sun, In My Life, and Within you, Without You, respectively). Yet I am not going to try to convince you that you should like the Beatles more than the Rolling Stones just because they are more musically intricate. If you like the Rolling Stones more than the Beatles (or vice versa), you do so because you just like the way they sound, and that’s fine. Unfortunately political decisions are a lot like this as well— I contest that they aren’t always (or even often) informed intellectual decisions about who would make the best political leader. Most likely, if you support Trump, you just like his Trumpiness, and if you support Hillary, you just like her Clintinivity (and the truly inspiring fact that she could be the first woman president).

I suppose I was comparing Donald Trump to the Rolling Stones in that last paragraph, and for that reason I would like to sincerely apologize to the Rolling Stones. I also don’t want Hillary to start thinking she’s the Beatles of politics (whenever she reads this blog post). These two candidates are not the Beatles and Stones— we’re dealing with two of the most hated candidates of all time. If I’m searching for comparable musical acts, I’d say this election is closer to The Backstreet Boys (Hillary) vs. Milli Vanilli (Donald Trump). If you don’t remember Milli Vanilli, they were the German R&B duo popular in the late 80’s who were eventually outed for not actually having sung any of the vocals on their album and for lip-syncing at all their concerts. They were just models posing as singers (perhaps not unlike many singers today). Similarly, Donald Trump is just a super rich guy posing as a politician (perhaps not unlike many politicians today). The longer he sticks around, the more likely it is that he will be exposed as the phony that he is— I only hope we don’t have to elect him president for him to be fully exposed.

For as much as I clearly detest the man, I also feel sorry for him. It must be hard to so often stand up in front of people and not know what the hell you’re talking about— Lester Holt’s asking you questions about creating jobs, and you just want to go watch the Bachelor. I admit that I sometimes feel a little bit Trumpy in my NYU jazz studies master’s program. Compared to some of my other classmates, I don’t sight read very well, I don’t know as many tunes, and I’m not as familiar with the Jazz language, and yet when it is my time to take a solo, I have to come up with something to say just like the rest of them. Between trying to simultaneously navigate the song form, the guitar fretboard, and the sound of the band at large, I sometimes get lost and basically don’t know what the hell I’m playing or what I should be playing. I end up just rambling on incoherently.

The difference between me and Trump (well, hopefully not the only difference) is that I am not trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes. When I suck (and I suck often), I want to do it freely and openly in front of my teachers and classmates, beckoning them to help me. The repeated embarrassment of this experience will motivate me to practice my craft and elevate my level, and (if nothing else) the fact that I’m paying many thousands of dollars for this education will hopefully motivate my teachers to show me the way forward.

Playing jazz, running for president, and challenging Germany in soccer are all enormously difficult tasks. No one is born ready for these endeavors. Sure, you can pretend you are— you can also pretend your sloppy spray-tan looks really cool. The better idea would be to resign yourself to the difficulty of your goal (whatever it may be), embrace a life-time of honest learning, and walk the long path from mediocrity to competency and ultimately to mastery. That’s my plan at least.

*I want to say that I meant no disrespect to the nation of Belize in this blog. Belizeans don’t get drunk or high more than any other nation (although the white tourists who travel to Belize probably do). Just to clarify I picked Belize because they have a pretty bad soccer team and I traveled there once.

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img_0967—Sunset at Coney Island, not related at all to this post, but this was my view on Sunday evening—

Billy Drewes can levitate. The jovial saxophonist/composer who has collaborated with Woody Herman, Lionel Hampton, Tony Bennett, Herbie Hancock, John Scofield and countless others, incredibly is teaching my improvisation class at NYU. He used the first day of class to get to know us, the ten bright eyed graduate students in his class, and tell about his background. He included in his rich backstory the fact that on at least three occasions he thought he was levitating: once after being administered a generous dose of codeine at a hospital, once after being put in a euphoric state via acupuncture, and once during a powerful improvisation at a concert with Eddie Palmieri. Each time he had to physically check to see that he was still on the ground, and each time that act of checking broke the spell. After spending a couple hours with him, it’s no surprise to me that he’s accidentally dabbled in levitation. Despite his undeniable status as a heavy-hitter in the music world, Drewes is incredibly light-hearted and easily swept up in his surrounding experience.

Yet it takes much more than happy thoughts to get off the ground in music. After a week of being surrounded by incredibly talented and accomplished students and teachers, it is clear to me that I’m just beginning to crawl. Frankly I’m not used to feeling so far behind my musical peers. In Little Rock I was sometimes told that I was the “best guitarist in town”— that was certainly a gross overstatement yet I enjoyed the ego boost of feeling like I was among the cream of the crop. Here no one is going to accuse me of being the best, nor of being particularly creamy at all. Yet I didn’t come here to prove myself as “the best” (a generally bogus pursuit if you ask me), I came here to learn. And in a mere hour and forty minute class with Billy Drewes I learned several musical tricks of the trade.

“I’d get the most done when I didn’t have my instrument… just singing,” he said, talking about how he would practice. In other words, any instrument has its physical strengths and weaknesses. You’ll be compelled to play or not play certain things depending on which instrument you play. Yet if you are singing or even just thinking music, you have no limitations other than your musical imagination. It doesn’t matter if (like me) you are not the most talented or natural singer— if you start with your mind and voice and then transfer those ideas to your instrument, you’ll often come up with new and more natural ideas, ideas that truly come from inside of you rather than merely existing on the surface of your instrument.

Later in class he asked us “does everybody read pretty well?” and the room fell silent. If its not obvious, he was talking about reading music (let’s safely assume everyone in my graduate program knows how to read words). “That’s an important thing,” he went on “if you don’t have that, you kinda cut yourself off from things.” Drewes was a strong reader when he was at Berklee College of Music in the 1970s, and as a result he was able to get plenty of gigs. He explained why: “It’s a time thing. It makes rehearsals go faster.” If you can read, you can work all the time.

A large part of our class was also devoted to talking about composition. He was curious if any of us composed music, and everyone did except for one. Drewes himself recently embarked on a composition project called “first ideas” in which he wrote 24 pieces of various lengths, styles and textures which were all simply his fist ideas, with no editing or rewriting. He told us when composing to “keep every idea,” a suggestion that was repeated to me later in the week by my Film Scoring instructor Irwin Fisch. For musical content that does not quite fit in with a current piece often proves perfect for a different piece days, months, or even years down the road.

The ideas above seem obvious to me now—perhaps I should have come up with them on my own. Yet ideas like these are easier to trust when they’re coming straight from the horse’s mouth (especially a horse who has made a living since the 1970s performing and composing music, who has collaborated with a laundry list of jazz masters, and who currently plays saxophone, clarinet, and flute for the Village Vanguard Orchestra). Every day at NYU, I’m being inundated with great ideas. Earlier I described this as “learning the tricks of the trade,” but the truth is, I haven’t really learned anything yet. Musical knowledge is not transferred verbally. The only way I can learn these lessons is to sit down and apply them. I confess I am not the best reader, I rarely practice without having my instrument in my hand, and I don’t keep every musical moment that I compose. I’m still crawling. Yet I firmly believe that if I work hard to incorporate the musical wisdom provided by my brilliant instructors here, I too will be able to levitate someday.

By the way, here’s what I’ve been listening to this week:

 

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dsc00478

Well, I live in New York now. So far I’ve spent most of my time lazing in Central Park, exploring the NYU campus in Greenwich Village, or piecing together my tiny bedroom in my Upper West Side apartment (pictured above). All summer I’ve been excited about this move and proud of myself for taking this leap, but I confess I didn’t (and still don’t) know what I was getting myself into. I suppose a naive part of me expected that I would arrive and immediately begin walking down a clearly paved road to musical success. In reality, I’ve just been trying to figure out how to properly feed, clothe, shelter, and transport myself in this enormous city. I’ve been here for just over a week, and every day I oscillate between being a giddy tourist and a homesick child. I walk around stupefied by the iconic streets full of hip beautiful people, I constantly screw up on the subway, and I miss my family and friends to the point of tears.

And still, I’m so happy to be here. I know that eventually I am going to figure out the subway, I’ll learn where/when to go to the grocery store, I’ll make great new friends, and I’ll start to feel like my tiny closet of a bedroom is a cozy home. Many of my now effortful actions will change into natural routines. What will not change is the fact that I am living in one of the most exciting cities in the world, surrounded by rich culture and a talented, driven, diverse population. I have every resource I could hope for to help me fulfill my dream of musical success: world renowned instructors, innumerable venues, plenty of talented collaborators, and a potentially vast audience of music fans. I have a sense that if I am not successful here, it will be my own fault. This city is full opportunities for me and I believe that I’m going to be rewarded if I only work hard and consistently choose to step out of my comfort zone. Frankly, my dream is to write, record, and perform music all over the world, and I think I’m in the best possible place to make that dream a reality.

This is where you come in precious reader. I’m going to document my musical life and thoughts once a week in this blog, and I need you and everyone else to read it. Sure I could try to hold myself accountable to my goals on my own, but I’d likely end up frequently binge watching any of the brilliant shows available in this golden age of television instead. I wish I were entirely self-motivated, but the fact is, if I know I have an audience, I’m going to try a lot harder. In exchange for your readership, I’ll offer you delightfully useless observations (e.g. New Yorkers won’t make eye contact with you until they are slowly rolling out of your life forever on a subway car— and then it’s nothing but blazing eye contact), as well as priceless nuggets of wisdom (sometimes). You’ll also have a candid look at my life as I rise from Lucas Murray levels of obscurity to Kanye West levels of international superstardom and egotistical delusion.

Finally, I’m going to cap off each weekly blog post with a playlist. I’ve adopted the city-wide habit of walking around with my headphones in— I put all of my music on shuffle, and am consistently delighted by the synchronicity of the random song I’m listening to and my outside environment. Thus, the songs that I’ll include in each playlist are the songs that were most significant or enjoyable to me that week as I roamed the city. And like New York itself, this playlist is going to be diverse, including both old and new songs from a variety of styles. You can find each playlist at the bottom of my blog posts, or follow me on Spotify and find the weekly playlists there if you’re interested in hearing the songs but don’t want to read the blog (you lazy so and so), or if you you like, I can even burn it on to a CD and mail it to you because I’m cool like that (just shoot me an email).

So if you believe in me like I believe in me, please follow this blog, share it with your friends, family, and rich patrons, and don’t be afraid to contact me with any questions, comments, or words of encouragement. Also, if you don’t believe in me or just plain dislike me, please follow this blog, diss me often in the comments section, and judge me as I shamelessly try to pursue my foolish dream of musical success. Whether friend or foe, WordPress user or not, if you would, please go push that follow button at the top right of this post, drop me your email, and then tune in each week for a new post. Thank you!

And here is this week’s playlist:

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Lucas1

Here’s a secret to life kids: do what you say you are going to do. In 2008 I was 19, I had just dropped out of Lake Forest College after one uninspired semester, and I was telling myself that I was going to write and record an epic album. I imagined all the glory, wealth, and fame I would eventually receive— oh how sweet it would be. Instead, I got a job working at Burge’s Smoked Turkeys & Hams, drank too much, smoked too much (and I’m not talking about the turkeys), and grew depressed. It would have been depressing enough to have a poor diet, not get enough sleep, and live in a disgusting house with three other lethargic 19 year old dudes (as I did), yet added on top was the existential angst of not doing what I had set out to do. I yearned to write and record, and instead I ate catfish sandwiches and partied for a year.

A turning point came when Michael Carenbauer, the Director of Guitar Studies at UALR, walked into Burge’s one day to get some lunch. I had known Michael from my days at the community school of the arts at UALR and he suggested I enroll in some of his guitar classes. Thus, I went to UALR part time for a semester until I decided, with encouragement from my parents and Carenbauer, that I should apply for the Donaghey Scholars Program. I received a full-scholarship and a generous stipend and began classes full-time in the fall of 2009. Unlike at Lake Forest, I was determined to put in my best effort this time around. Fearing a lifetime of making cherry limeades at Burge’s, I told myself that I would work harder than I ever had in school, and that is exactly what I did. In 2013, I graduated summa cum laude with a 4.0 GPA.

Yet the most potent takeaway from my time at UALR was not my institutional success, nor was it the knowledge and skills I gained there— with a bachelor’s in music, and my only tangible skills being the ability to play guitar and write essays, I didn’t exactly have a clear path to follow after college. The most important thing I realized at UALR was that I had the personal ability to set my mind to something and achieve it. So I set upon my next goal: I would be a full time professional musician. I vowed to not take a job unless it was related to music, and thus started hustling to find enough gigs and guitar students to pay my bills. For three years I’ve steadily increased my musicianship, my notoriety, and my income (though all three are certainly modest) as I’ve succeeded in my goal of being a full time musician. I feel very proud of this fact. Although it is rarely a glamorous lifestyle, and I make far less money than some of my professional peers, I have a great psychological peace with the fact that I am doing what I dreamed of doing and what I said I would do.

Those of you who have followed the premise of my recent blog posts know that this is something else that I said I would do. On April 7th I stated that I would release one blog post and one song every week for nine months. For fourteen weeks I have diligently stuck to that promise (if you’re wondering why this week’s song is only Opus 12, it’s because two of the weeks I released songs under an alias). Now I’m going to quit. Yes I realize I just spent the last three and a half paragraphs talking about the importance of doing what you say you are going to do and bragging on myself for doing so! So what! I quit.

The truth is, I’m quitting for a good reason (I can hear your skeptical comments). I made the vow of doing this for nine months before I knew that I would be moving to New York City. Upon deciding that I would attend NYU this fall, I realized that I would not be able to keep recording a song every week. It has taken a lot of time and effort to keep this up, and I will not have that kind of time when I’m trying to keep up with the accelerated pace of grad school and NYC. I will, however, keep doing a blog post every week, I simply won’t be releasing a song.

I’m stopping now primarily because I need to take time to prepare for school. At the beginning of September I have music history and theory placement exams as well as ensemble auditions at NYU. I am going to take the time I had been using to write and record songs and use it instead to practice and study (I received two thick music textbooks to work through yesterday in the mail). Yet another big reason I’ve chosen to cut it off this week is that I am preparing to fulfill another long standing commitment I once made. I’m finally going to record that “epic album” I dreamed about when I was 19!

Ok, it might not be epic; it might not bring me fame or fortune; it might not even be that good. But I once told myself that I would record an album and I know that I won’t be happy unless I do. I’ve booked time with Jason Tedford at Wolfman Studios, recruited my friend and musician extraordinaire Daniel Olah to help me, and later this month will record 12 of my best songs (many of which I released during this project). I’m just gonna do it!

Now I could wrap this all up by saying this: “life is short, just do it!” But that would be a lie. Life isn’t necessarily short. If you aren’t doing that thing that you want to do or that thing you’ve been saying you are going to do, then life will be very long. You’ll have a nagging sense of regret, shame, and yearning and time will just creep slowly by. The good news is that in that long, lingering lifetime you can turn it around at any moment and start doing what you say you’re going to do. Don’t worry if you never become rich or famous— life isn’t about winning the prize, it’s just about doing the damn thing.

Now that was a nice, neat narrative, but the larger reality (like everything in life) is much more complicated and deserves some qualification. I realize that not everyone was born into circumstances as favorable as mine. I have a wonderful supportive family, and while I did not grow up rich, I certainly never felt worried about money. Some people do not have the freedom to set their mind to some lofty ideal because they are simply struggling to get out of a dire economic situation, or even worse, struggling for their survival. I am not here arguing that everyone can easily come up with a dream and achieve it. I understand that in America the chips are stacked greatly against you if you are a person of color, a woman, LGBQT, physically disabled, poor, or anything else that isn’t rich, white, and male. The inequality in our country is horrendous, and must be remedied if we want to continue to pretend to be a civilized country. I wanted in this blog post to offer inspiration and advice, but I’ve quickly bumped into the realization that my perspective is limited due to my fortunate upbringing. I haven’t fully wrapped my head around how to reconcile this. Yet I still feel that there are some good sentiments in this post, and they are here for anyone who might find them useful.

Here’s the final Opus (for now). Sorry to end it on a sad note, but hey, tears are part of life too.