Last weekend, we had a lot of events going on around and on campus. It was definitely a crazy week for Puget Sound students and I'm sure everyone had a great time doing whatever they ended up doing. For me, it was especially busy. On Friday afternoon, Lamppost Revival came to Puget Sound and performed in Marshall Hall during lunch. I think I mentioned in an older post that I had been working with my friend Carlton, who had worked on the band's CD, to get Lamppost Revival to come Puget Sound. We were successful in those efforts and were able to have the band perform twice on campus! They received a great response from the students and were able to sell several CDs and pins after their first performance here. After their show, my friends Shelby and Jovia and I were able to sit down and have lunch with Carlton and the band. Jovia is actually the reason I know Carlton, they're friends from back home [Alaska] and he came to visit her last year sometime and he stayed in our room - Jovia, Shelby and I were all roommates last year. So, anyway, I got to talk to the band and get to know them a little bit, which was really awesome. They're all cool kids from Western Washington and they definitely have talent.
The next day, I spent the majority of my time helping to set up for Casino Night. Casino Night is the biggest event that RSA puts on every year. We get donations from local businesses to raffle off as prizes, have live entertainment, snacks and drinks, and [of course] some gambling; but not real gambling. Basically, it's just a fun night to hang out with friends and play some card games in a cool environment. Also, all the money we raise goes to a charity: Kids Can Do! This charity has a pretty large presence on campus, with a lot of students who are active mentors for the kids. Lamppost Revival also played at Casino Night and got a great response, again. I'm really glad they came out to do these two shows on campus, it definitely made the night a lot more fun than it would have been without them and Puget Sound really did enjoy them. I also know that they played another show at a hookah lounge in downtown and I heard that went pretty well, too. So, overall, they're trip down here was a success and I'm glad.
Here are a few photos from the night
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| Lamppost Revival and me! |
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| Lamppost performing at Casino Night |
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| People gambling |
The night of Casino Night was the same night that Victor Wooten came to campus. If you don't know, Victor Wooten is an amazing five-time Grammy award winning musician from Tennessee. I got to meet him this past summer at my internship with the Ojai Music Festival and I had him sign my copy of his book: The Music Lesson. I haven't read it yet, but I'm really looking forward to being able to actually do that. Except apparently it's lost somewhere because no one back home can find it where I'm sure I left it...anyway. I actually ended up leaving Casino Night for about an hour and a half to go see Victor Wooten perform. He performed in Kilworth Chapel with the Jazz Band.
The whole thing was amazing. There really aren't words that can justifiably describe the experience of being there and seeing him and listening to him play the bass. Everything about it was just so awesome. Everyone could tell how much he loved music, how much he could physically feel the music, and how talented he is by listening to and watching him play. It really was an experience unlike any other I've ever had. He was so inspiring and the music was beautiful. I remember sitting there and wanting to cry at some points because of how amazing everything was and I just could not believe it.
The name of this post refers to something that Victor Wooten said. Throughout the concert, he would talk and at one point, he started talking about music and how it is formally taught in schools. Before giving his opinion, he told us all to "take it as a spice, nothing more and nothing less." Meaning, in our spice cabinets, we all have many different spices that we use at different times. Now, he wanted to give us another spice that we might want to use, but we don't have to use it. It's just something to have, a thought to have, just in case we might want to access and use it someday. Then, he proceeded with his point. He talked about how the formalization of teaching music gets in the way of actually learning how to play music. We [students, professors, performers, etc.] get caught up in the logistics of music, we think too much about music theory and not enough about music performance. We care too much about following the rules and teaching the proper notes to play and the correct chord progressions. Instead, we should give instruments to students and simply tell them "play". Have them play whatever sounds right to them, let musicians do what they feel is correct and make good music. He demonstrated this by having a girl join him on stage. She was a random girl whom he chose from the audience after asking everyone who had never played an instrument before to raise their hand. She had not ever played an instrument, never received any sort of training in music, and certainly was not expecting to be dragged up to the stage in front of the large audience. Then, he gave her his bass, told her where to put her fingers, and told her to play. He had the drummer and keyboardist from the Jazz Band play along with a simple rhythm and melody and basically told the girl to have at it. Granted, she didn't play anything particularly spectacular, but she did play and she played well. She knew when to go up a major third and then back down to the root by simply listening to the rest of the music; she created her own repeated rhythm. It was pretty amazing to see this happen, to see someone with absolutely no formal background in music, play an instrument so easily. I think Victor Wooten is right. I think all the strict rules and guidelines and theories are what hold people back in music. I think that, where music is concerned, naivety is the best option. I'd rather not have to think about which chord should come next in the progression if it's following the 'correct' rules. I don't think musicians should have to base their music on strict music theory methods in order for it to be accepted as well-written. I think this is what holds back so many people when it comes to music and I think this is what turned me off from studying music so much. It loses its fun when it becomes like this. It loses its character. I wish someone had told me when I was younger "play" or "sing" without giving me something to actually follow. I think I would be a more confident singer, a more talented musician, with a freer mindset when it comes to music.
Here are some picture from Victor Wooten's concert, they're all done by my friend, Gregory Nissen who is an amazing photographer and you should check out all his other stuff by following that link.
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| Victor Wooten and the girl he brought on stage |
Here's a link to Lamppost Revival's facebook page. Enjoy!
Edit: Just some more wise words from Victor Wooten:
“Progress is like climbing a mountain; if you get halfway and look up, you’ll think ‘man I’ve got so far to go’, you have to look down and think ‘wow, look at how far I’ve come.' The joy is in the struggle."
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