What Would You Do?

This question sort of hearkens back to high school as well as a scene in Office Space. We all fill out these basic questionnaires to see what type of job will best suit us in the future. Essentially, it's answering the question: what would you do with your life if there were no financial repercussions, family obligations, or long term consequences of any kind? Every time I ask myself this, I come up with but a few answers: holing up and playing music all day or holing up and listening to music all day. As it stands, neither holds much weight in terms of real life possibility but I'll get back to that.

I am currently in a position broadcasting high school football games. Actually, the word "position" is giving the experience too much credit. I make enough money to put the required gas in my car to drive around the Bay Area to actually do these games, so it's not like there's financial gain. I guess it's no big deal. It's not like I've been making any money the last 9 months anyway. But I stroll up to the press box every Friday, wading through waves of annoying high school kids and parents in the 'burbs who think I am a child molester, and keep my mind busy by secretly hoping this isn't what my future consists of. By kickoff, I have spent a solid hour and a half gathering stats and information about both teams and the players on them. I am thankful to be doing color commentary, where my voice is only needed in long stretches during breaks in the action as opposed to play by play. I hate the sound of my voice but not as much as I hate researching these kids who are gunning for big colleges and possibly a future in the NFL. They don't know me. They don't even know I exist. This shit shouldn't bother me, but it does and that is the way a life in sports broadcasting is gone about unless you are working in Bristol, CT. It just feels weird to know so much about athletes when they are hardly, if at all, aware of me in any way. I work with a great play by play man who, like many I've met in these circles, truly wants to get ahead in this niche. He wants every connection, every in, every contact there is to be made along the way so he can forever be the guy who delivered play by play for a bunch of unsuspecting athletes whose focuses always seem to be on the game only. I'm not in that gung ho boat of broadcasting. I got a degree in this field to have a more applicable craft, but it doesn't feel all that natural to me. I am not like my play by play partner, who shows up to each football game to get more experience under his belt for a future career. I show up every Friday hoping to see a good football game, and so far I'd say 2 out of 6 this season have been fun to call. I definitely draw a parallel between these feelings and the musical endeavors I undertook in high school.

Before I got to high school, I simultaneously played oboe for 2 years and sang in a boys choir in middle school. These weren't my first school music groups, but they definitely came at a time when I was ready to take things more seriously. My main focus was on oboe, which I not only played every day after school but also took private lessons for on a biweekly basis. It felt pretty intense, but I like being able to say that at least for 2 years, I could read music accurately. My playing got decent praise from the band director, but the instrument I used was rented and by the time we packed up and moved across the country, the last thing on my mind was continuing oboe (or soccer for that matter).

High school brought a whole different experience into my musical understanding. There was a critical moment at the end of freshman year where I had to decide between trying out for the show choir called Chanteurs or putting my efforts more toward athletics. I felt I could improve my basketball game enough to make varsity and take track and field more seriously, but after a year of being in the classical choir, there were Chanteurs members trying to heavily recruit me. I was hesitant, because my dancing is decidedly average at best and Chanteurs used a lot of it. My voice was decent enough in a group setting, and maybe they felt they needed some bass backup. Their efforts paid off, as I tried out in the Spring of '97. I got in not realizing the commitment required to perform in this group, but it was all for a great memory now that I think about it again. My biggest regret is not stepping up my game in the dancing department. In the practice studio was a huge mirror which we used to practice our dance routine. All the focus was on smiles and smoothness and jazz hands, only I didn't look at myself in the mirror. I knew it was ugly, so instead of using the mirror to my advantage in order to improve, I just checked out the hot girls instead. Why lie? The only problem with that approach is that many of our performances were filmed for home viewing, and boy do I look stupid. It is so obvious how full of shit I am on those videos that I actually feel bad for the other members. If any members from my era come across this, I'm sorry about that. I was at my strongest on the ballads and songs which required no dancing. I looked like everyone else instead of the horrible dancing white guy with the bad haircut. And while I was at fault to a certain degree on that end, I didn't feel I was fully to blame. All the way through high school, every piece of music I performed was written, arranged, and created by someone else. The songs meant nothing to me, so how could I be expected to look like I was all about it? We'd get up there and sing religious songs during the holidays, and I was supposed to look like I was really feeling it. I wasn't religious back then, nor am I to this day. I was full of shit to a certain degree but not in those cases. I simply had no choice in the matter.

By the time I got to college, I was both weirded out by the fact that the main driving force in my life for the past 3 years was suddenly over and exhausted from it as well. Only after I stopped did I realize how intense the schedule was. I played intramural volleyball, snuck alcohol into dorm rooms, started playing bass guitar, and was introduced to music that didn't require sequin vests and session musicians. It is now making me think of that "what would you do" question. It is rooted in playing in some awesome bands throughout college and up until last year. As awesome as Chanteurs was in high school, it didn't provide enough creativity on our parts. We were given the music to sing and given the steps to dance. I'm not sure it could be any other way in that setting, but being part of the writing process is really what makes music special.

To answer that question, it has been suggested that I really take it up seriously and learn music from an institutional standpoint to step it up a notch. That is a good idea, but I feel what I want to play doesn't require all those resources to be lost. I am not classically trained nor do I have supreme chops, but I can write the type of music that I would hope to be known for. The whole idea of classical music is still quite strange to me. Here you have perhaps the most gifted musicians in the world playing music that was written for them instead of by them. I respect the hell out of their playing ability, but I seriously question if they are able to make it up themselves. Not only that but the audience they cater to confuses me. Over the summer, I went to a concert in the park with my family, in Arcadia of all places. I probably hadn't been there in 8 years, so that alone was strange. We get into the park and the music was great. Live classical music really is good stuff, but it received little more than golf claps. Then, they announced the show was over and as people started getting up to go, the orchestra began playing "We Are the Champions" by Queen. After a great set of classical music with so-so response, the crowd then came to life with a pop rock song and put their lighters in the air like it was 1976 all over again. It also reminds me of classically trained studio musicians, who spend their whole lives recording commercial jingles and hoping for big exposure breaks to come along, as in being in the background while Ashley Simpson does a song on Conan O'Brian. This is why I don't go to school for music. Being attached to what I'm writing is more important to me than being good at what I'm playing. I guess that's why I'm sitting here bitching about it as opposed to doing something about it. So basically, I've accomplished nothing other than some good writing time. Guess I'll take it.