It's tough to keep aware of the nuances of our situation.
Once a situation, skill, or routine becomes "normal", it's easy to lose sight of what about it would seem exotic to an outsider.
So it goes, routinely, in jiujitsu class, when a brown belt will remark, after I finally nail a move, "oooh - that was the detail you were struggling with? It never occurred to me that I'd need to highlight that."
And so it is with practice situations in big cities. "Lockouts".
I made today's lesson mostly in a fit of frustration.
I'd been talking with my perennial jam buddy about, some day, making a lesson about how musicians can be...predictably...terrible.
Petty with money.
Careless and disrespectful of other people's time, and their property.
Forgetful and unreliable.
So it goes with many-a-musician one runs across in the ubiquitous shared practice dungeons dotting NYC.
Most things in life - and most-everything in New York - has a taste of "love hate" to it.
Mostly we relish it. It's what keeps us from being "basic".
It's in that spirit that we'd occasionally quip, "musicians, amiright?"
But, a few times-a-year, it hits...I dunno...boiling point.
It was after one such week that I decided to make this week's lesson.
But I assumed it might resonate with a few hard-core folks who'd also lived through it.
I was wrong.
I was too deep in it to recognize the novelty. Since I published the video, it's gotten a ton of comments, many of them from people who had no idea this is what it's like in big cities.
"Now I understand your snare head."
"Now I understand your 'depressing' environs".
Sidebar - I LOVE my practice spot, the same way I love my family. It's got a window.
It's got a window.
Anyway, be it with city diehards, or suburbanites who never dreamed one might not have a house one can practice in...it looks like I've struck a chord.
Back next week with another LOW. See you then,
N