plays well with others

i'm sorry for not posting. i may have been too busy playing my drums.

will and i bought "rock band" for his xbox, and i've never enjoyed a video game like i enjoy this one. it's legit. it involves movement (more than just pushing buttons with your thumbs) and requires a bit of real musical skill. the drums are my favorite. i can feel the wheels in my brain turning as i struggle to stay steady and catch every note. when a song is finished i take a deep breath the way i do when i'm done with my part of an orchestral piece.

will's lack of ensemble playing becomes obvious when he plays. i can just imagine him in the violin section of the uw symphony, yelling "$%@!" and "this part is imPOSSIBLE!" it makes me laugh. he's very good at the guitar (real and rock band style), but when he begins making mistakes and the song continues to plug on without waiting for him, he responds like anyone else who hasn't had the rigorous (and often scary) ensemble experiences my musical friends and i have had. he swears and threatens to give up.

my ultra-frightening college symphony conductor threw his baton at people who missed notes, and sometimes he would make someone stand and play alone before unleashing the verbal equivelant of a public execution. i was truly afraid to miss notes.

by playing in orchestras and other groups, i learned that the wheels keep turning whether i've made all of my notes or not. i learned how to charge through difficult sections without breaking a sweat. this isn't to say i learned to play perfectly -- that was never me. i'll take passion and expression over technical perfection anyday. i learned instead how to properly play music with other people.

it reminds me of the countless number of college guys who decide one day that they want to be dave matthews so they pick up the guitar, thinking it surely couldn't take long to perfect a musical instrument. it's easy to listen to, why wouldn't it be easy to play? here is the result.

college guy - "you wanna hear hotel california?"
girl he's trying to impress - "sure, let's hear it."
college guys - plunk plunk DOINK ... "hold on," ... [pause] plunk ... "wait," ... plunk "hold on, let me start over."

somehow i don't think any of those college guys ever developed much of a following, and they certainly couldn't have played in a band. no good drummer or bassist is going to "hold on" while college dude struggles to find the right notes.

so, maybe rock band is a good game for them. and for anyone else willing to learn to "play well with others," and not just with onesself. it's definitely the game for me. i dig rock and i dig the drums and i dig a good challenge.