I hate fusion. Please proceed knowing that this is all opinion and that most of what I'm arguing is just personal taste regardless of how fervently I argue it. But yes. I hate fusion. The genre that is. Fusion is most often supposed to be what happens when you combine rock and jazz, however it could also be what happens when you combine latin and jazz, or caribbean and jazz. You get the idea. However, in my experience it's a bad thing. Also, one must understand that I don't have a huge musical background in fusion. I don't own any CDs. I guess what I'm really saying is that I remain unimpressed with what I've heard. If you read this and have some musical example that proves me wrong, let me hear it. I'd love to be proved wrong here. But in my experience, fusion ends up being the combination of the two and the result is the worst of both worlds. Actually it often goes beyond that and transcends the worst of both worlds into something that's neither jazz nor rock but rather some smooth jazzy, eighty's rock, cheese inspired genre.

First I must say that this is no insult to fusion musicians. They are all technically amazing. Which is kind of a shame in my eyes. I feel like jazz has lost some of its most amazing musicians to fusion. But one can be technically amazing and still miss the point of music. Fusion ends up being a big game of show off. Musical sensitivity is sacrificed to showing off. Every fusion guitar song has shredding in it. I realize that shredding is just amazing technically and all, but in the scope of your human emotions that you're trying to convey in music, is shredding on every song really truly reflective? There's no depth there. Musicality demands simplicity at times to contrast the complex. However, when musicians are throwing songs into random time signatures just for the hell of it, or just to show that they can, I can't respect that. In the end I think most of the music comes out pretty emotionless.

I'm not arguing that music always has to speak to people accessibly. Sometimes music is a very personal thing that only the writer or musician can understand. But even in the face of these two approaches, I don't find fusion to be reflective of either a populist musical approach or a personal one. Shredding on every song can't truly convey someone's inner emotions. Random time changes. Insane lead lines. You get what I'm trying to say? I just don't get it. The music isn't for the audience. It's not for the expression of the performer. Why is it being played? I don't understand.

My second beef is this: sound quality. I hate the guitar effects found in most fusion music. Most of the pedals are made by Peavey (and most of us musicians know that Peavey is the king of low end gear) or similar style companies. It's just tons of distortion and chorus or flange. To me it's not a naturally expressive tone. It's very 80's most of the time. What happen to nice overdrives or tube distortion? We don't find these nice tone colors often but rather, "gain at 11" distortions with tones of modulation effects over top of it.

Also, nowhere are electronic drums as popular as they are in fusion. I used to get Roland product DVD's all of the time and it's obvious that their big market for their V-drums is to fusion drummers. This is very telling to me. Also, the incorporation of smooth jazz like synth sounds really bugs me. I don't at all think that sounds should only occur naturally or anything like that. I love electronic music. But the smooth jazz element of fusion bugs me a lot. These soundscapes aren't creative sonic adventures but just some "fat" synth with lots of chorus over it. If you're really a talented keyboard player, fill that space with a rhodes or a piano. Why do you need thirty layers of synths on your keyboard sound to fill it out. I think fusion as it is today is driven by keyboard companies who have to put something on their keyboards. So they fill it with cheesy electronic pianos and fat pads. Then they endorse musicians who play this crap and put it on their product videos and there you go. Fusion occurs.

Well, I think that just about covers everything. So, prove me wrong. Play some fusion for me that not only leaves me thinking, "Damn, these guys are good!" but also makes me feel like some art has been expressed to me.  ¶ 3:27 AM 0 comments

 

Life has been good recently. Life is primarily good for me. But as I look back over the last few weeks, life has been particularly nice. Last weekend was the jazz band concert, which went well. I’d much rather play in small jazz band than big band, but I still had fun. It was a great night. There’s just something fun about that much power coming from that many people. It’s a very communal experience. The reason I prefer small jazz is that you have more control over where the music is going. When I lock in with a good drummer, I can go anywhere on bass and within a beat or two, he’s right there with me. And if I’m playing with Mike No-Eggs, then we just go the same places simultaneously. Yep. So, I feel more creative when I play small jazz. Most of the point of jazz is improv to me, so I think that the small jazz format is truer in that regard.

Then, immediately after my portion of the concert I drove over to Craig’s church where I played in the house band for their worship team all weekend for the young adults conference that they hosted. It was a very interesting experience. Jordan continues to question me on why I go to these things, and rightly so, because I always come home upset. Some things were really cool about the conference. A few comments and particularly John’s, the drummer, workshop were refreshing but beyond that, I once again felt like I was supporting the man.

Here’s how I ascertain the value these things; were there any lives changed? I know from experience, the answer to that question; No. I went to tons of conferences when I was in youth group and all of the kids would get really fired up when they came home and then would shortly sputter out. One may argue that someone said something at the conference that made a lasting impact on someone there and there would be no way I’d know about it. Well, to me it’s a matter of efficiency. Should we put on huge expensive conferences for one little comment that might affect one person’s life? Is that the most valuable use of our time? Could not such a comment come about in everyday life with our friends? Shouldn’t we be making valuable comments every day of our life and asking challenging questions of the ones we love? It doesn’t take a conference.

Second question: What changes, if any would be occurring in these people? I know, from experience, answers to this question as well. People walk away from these things, more sure that they are going to heaven, more sure that God loves them, and more eager to “evangelize.” This to me is a sad thing. I’ve ranted tons about my problems with heaven being someone’s joy. Second, if it takes a conference to find out that God loves you, that’s pathetic. Take a minute and go look at a tree leaf. If you are not totally convinced after observing said leaf that God loves you and you call yourself a Christian, then you need to do some serious personal reflection.

The church has desensitized people to truth and beauty. I was at said conference and we were setting up gear here and there and the powers that be played Rita Springer through the system while were just waiting around. Now, Rita Springer has her place and can be very affective, but when you constantly bombard yourself with spiritually deep songs, one becomes completely anesthetized to good worship songs (and yes, I still do like a few worship songs). The church complains so much about the mass media anesthetizing us to violence and harsh language when really we do the same thing. And I’m not saying that we aren’t constantly surrounded with beautiful and wonderful things and that God isn’t constantly around us, but when we are constantly fed commercially produced versions of the experience and don’t take the time and discipline to be able to find the beauty ourselves all of the time, then we become blind to it. For crying out loud, they were showing clips from the Passion of the Christ on the screens during the music. First of all, I’ve been very clear about how I feel about that film so it kind of personally offends me that that was even up there, but beyond that it’s just making people blind to God. I really believe that.

So, I sound so negative eh? What would I like to see from a conference like this? If someone could put a conference together that actually taught people to love each other better, that would be amazing, and that would be the will of God. Teaching love is doing the work of God. There are so many things in this world and inside our own American, and Church cultures that are so unloving that we should not stand up for, and those things are not homosexuality and premarital sex. The more the church fights that battle the more they will be seen by the world as the judgmental people they are.

Anyway. I love my brother, Dwayne, Craig, and the Miller family. So it was good to see them. Seeing them all made it worth it. And I got to make some good music. And these things stir me up. It’s obvious that I still care about the church, I just don’t give a shit about the institution, and so I keep going back and pleading my case.  ¶ 2:13 AM 3 comments

 

This weekend was choir tour. I had an anonymous request to update so here it goes. We went to four churches on tour. It was a lot of fun. The churches were in New Cumberland, Middletown, Mercersburg, and Reading respectively. Each church was really unique. The Reading church was rather dark and comforting and had a really cool carving of the last supper at the front of the sanctuary. The Mercersburg place was very New England and colonial. Square interior without the huge tall ceiling, just simple, and very purple in its color scheme. But I think my favorite unique thing about a church was in Middletown I think. Behind the front door of the santuary there was this peice of driftwood in the shape of a cross. It was only one peice, not two stuck together. Just amazing. I sat there on the front row for like 10 minutes just letting it's natural beauty kind of sink in. I did that several times on choir tour. Just sat in the sanctuary, did some deep breathing and relaxed. Tour also reminded me of how much I love singing. It makes me want to find a community group to sing in after school. Chamber choir today gave me the same feelings. We did this chant base rennaisance peice. Kind of made me want to become a monk and sing all day long. If there are monks who do that. And I don't know how keen I'd be on the whole vow of chastity thing.

Last weekend was good too. It was easter break and the family went down to North Carolina to visit Kiwi. I got to meet her boyfriend. He was really cool. I had a really fun time. Although, I'm sure it's just because she's my sister but I don't know if I'll ever be used to her holding some guy's hand or cuddling with someone. It was just kind of awkward. But she seems really happy and he's a cool guy. He's a cheerleader, which if you know my sister is halarious. I also got to have a really good talk with dad the day before I came home before break. We haven't had a heart to heart in a long time.

This coming weekend is our jazz band concert as well as me playing the conference at Craig's church with Ben and Dwayne as well. I miss them a lot and it'll be great to be with them. Should be fun.  ¶ 11:43 PM 1 comments