Where the Music Comes From – R. Leschen
At age nine, I was given a guitar and after a short stint of formal training I learned pop-folk songs, then rock’n roll, and finally landing somewhere between country and bluegrass by a teen. As it was as it is now, friends were constantly exchanging music, so my palette was being enriched by global sounds, and I listened to just about everything. The types of live music available ranged from accessible “big names” which were by that time playing small theatres and arenas, and other locally popular groups in smaller venues like the Missouri-based rockabilly band, the Morells. I was listening to jazz too, particularly John McLaughlin’s fusion group Shakti, which led me to Indian Classical music and listening and following the Grateful Dead which guided me to more American roots music, mixed with improvisation. Though I had a played in a high school rock band doing Allman Brothers tunes, privately, everyday, I was working on acoustic guitar.
After obtaining a higher degree, I settled in New Zealand, and became reacquainted with Bluegrass and old time Americana, and contemporaneously, Hindustani classical music, by meeting folks with similar interests. I was playing occasional gigs of both genres, which was quite exciting though a bit schizophrenic, and at some point I left both musical pursuits for two very different reasons.
I love Bluegrass, the instrumentation, the lyrics, and the bounding energy shared between audience and performers. It was great fun to prepare near-formulaic licks and play fills between and under vocal lines. However, I felt that the neatly packed solos constrained the creative process and that seeking new melodic or rhythmic patterns had to be done prior to live performance, for me anyway. That said, the songs handed down by the bluegrass sages are heartfelt, and perhaps long improvisations mask the mood of the songwriters and their lyrics. Because I couldn’t see myself performing 3-minute songs, I left the Bluegrass scene.
Though Hindustani music has a structured performance practice, one could create new musical structures, albeit conforming to set sections dominated by a scale (rag) and its nuanced note sequences. Once the principles of the rag are understood, you can create new ideas and patterns that would have emotional resonance. The same is true of Jazz. Indian players must expose the essence of the rag, and at first, focus slowly on each note and their orderings without meter. A set melody is played once a rhythm cycle is laid down, though melody line this may only be played once. Change in beat and or speed can also occur later in the piece, but then ultimately, at the instruction of the lead player, the composition moves into a final section, ending at top speed. Analogous things happen in orchestral music. I never felt out of place playing ragas with my Indian buddies, but I thought I couldn’t pass myself off as a player, even a mediocre one, because I wasn’t trained classically. Though I relate deeply to the music, I couldn’t understand Hindi or other Indian languages so I had no lyrical reference to root me like those of a Hank Williams song. So I left that scene too.
Where the Lyrics Come From
As a kid, I had written what I thought were sort of cheesy love songs for girlfriends, and that’s pretty cool, but I was ashamed that I couldn’t really write a great love song like Nike Cave’s Into My Arms. Luke Hurley, New Zealand’s world famous busker, says, and it’s true, that love is the greatest muse. But, Freud said second to sex human existence is defined by death and our response to it. Maybe because I have a natural affinity for observing nature, I respond more emotionally to wider panoramas the world offers, tragic or otherwise.
When the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami hit, ripping lives and livelihoods apart over vast oceanic distances, apart from making donations, my only deep comfort was to write a song about it. The larger event led to an individualistic response, which was a sort of creative accident that didn’t seem deliberate at the time, a kind of improvisation or spontaneity of written word. Lyrics with a larger context that included direct or ad hoc references were a new thing for me and I realized that this narrative form was more interesting and challenging to write than those deterministic love songs of the distant past.
Stumbling onto this creative activity was fateful and liberating, because the automatic method of songwriting facilitated the use of short and extended formats so that subject and sonic possibilities were infinite. My method to songwriting, which may not be the best for other writers, was flexible and allowed for emotive free jams that could be incorporated to certain songs, while other tunes could be composed as short deliveries. Word, melody, harmony, and rhythm form a sort of creative web, each part working together seamlessly, informing each, without locking into a genre. Now I experiment within this framework, without, I think, losing my historical links to old time Americana and musical forms elsewhere.
And, importantly, the concerts could be varied like a giant folk music salad, with a unique flavor composed of bluegrass, country – blues, and other vernacular music; spiced-up as needed with Hindustani, Jazz, and other influences, either during the performance or staged beforehand. Musicians have been borrowing from other cultures since time immemorial, and a certain amount of flexibility and spontaneity makes the scene more enjoyable for the audience and performers.
OTAGOLANDS 