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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
reasons I have heard from pros-why they play music
reasons I have heard from pros-why they play music
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waltertore
2472 posts
Aug 11, 2012
2:08 PM
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Over the past 40 years I have been around many successful pro musicians. I often get into conversations about - why did you get into music? I was continually amazed with the reasons they started with compared to where they were as we spoke.
I play music because I have to or die. This hasn't changed since I first had the urge to play an instrument. I have stories in me that need to come out. To deny this is not in my wiring. There is no wordly temptation to let others shape/dictate my sound because then it would die and so would I. To change it, compromise it, modify it to make more money/fame, please others, change it out of fears of losing what I have, to get women/ego strokes, and other worldly gains, never has entered my music. Yet the higher up I got on the music fame ladder the more compromise became a given. It was such a given that I often felt like we were not of the same universe even though we played the same instruments. If I change what wants to come out I will die. How could one kill themselves I often wondered as I heard others stories that included all the above reasons. I make no judgements. It simply has confused me all these years. I don't fit in the scene and probably never will and I am finally realizing how lucky I am not to be normal, to have found a career that allows me to do my music just as it wants to come out. Walter
here are some songs from today:
take me anyway you want
livin on the lovin side
they say the world is ending in 2012
a taste of fall
enjoying being right here
why do you play music
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walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year.
" life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
4,000+ of my songs
continuous streaming - 200 most current songs
my videos
Last Edited by on Aug 11, 2012 5:51 PM
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waltertore
2473 posts
Aug 11, 2012
6:58 PM
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here is a one mic recording of the 1 man band with a 1940 national steel guitar, harp, vocals, drums. Walter
the river told me to die
hungry lonesome and alone
tears before getting out of bed
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walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year.
" life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
4,000+ of my songs
continuous streaming - 200 most current songs
my videos
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waltertore
2475 posts
Aug 12, 2012
2:56 PM
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Peace in the moment I contemplated on today. See the joys and dreams not the fears and regrets! Here are some songs. Walter
the head battles the soul
money and time worries
searching for that wishing well
dusty roads
photographs
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walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year.
" life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
4,000+ of my songs
continuous streaming - 200 most current songs
my videos
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waltertore
2477 posts
Aug 12, 2012
6:09 PM
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I felt the sad spirits tonight. The ones that lead frustrated lives. I sang to them from the moon as they looked at it and cried. Walter
singing from the moon
will you ever understand me
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walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year.
" life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
4,000+ of my songs
continuous streaming - 200 most current songs
my videos
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kudzurunner
3427 posts
Aug 12, 2012
7:00 PM
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I play music for a range of reasons. I like the ritual of preparing myself for gigs, both local and road gigs. I like the sense of anticipation that comes from knowing I'll be in the spotlight. I like the challenge of working through my repertoire in the woodshed, taping myself, and discriminating between stuff that's really working, stuff that's sort of working, stuff that isn't quite working, and stuff that falls flat.
I like the sound of the harp through the right amps--which is to say, any of the amps I've ended up accumulating and the mic I've long used--and I'm always surprised by how things don't quite come together when I first set up my percussion rig and amps and start back in after a break. Things don't quite flow. But then, after ten or fifteen minutes, they're flowing again. I like dwelling in that mystery. I never get tired of that mystery.
For years I was part of a duo and the other guy was carrying the primary responsibility for feeling the crowd and figuring out what song came next. We never used written-out set lists. I still don't. Now I'm playing solo and I'm paying a whole new set of dues. I'm learning how to adapt my repertoire for the crowd that I actually find myself in front of. I love that challenge. I'm always learning something new about what works and what doesn't.
I like the surprise of playing live gigs in close quarters and having somebody come out of the audience and become part of the show. At the Blue Front tavern in Steelton, PA, a black guy about my age came through the front door and starting really getting into what I was doing. He started dancing--bounce-down-to-the-floor dancing--and shouting. Later he shouted "I'm from Mississippi and you can PLAY!" or something to that effect, and I kept on with a second song, "Superstition," which is a great groove for somebody who wants to show off to the music. He danced like a hyperactive male stripper. (At one point he said something like "If I wasn't here, I'd be stripping.") Point is, that happened fifteen minutes into my first set and it carried me right into the first set break. He made the show. He sanctified it and made live music LIVE. People forget how exciting live music, on-the-spot interaction supercharged by musical spirits, can be.
I rarely play these days because I have to--although for many years I very much did do that. I play because I like the sound, I like the professional challenge, and because when I do play music live, or even just practice hard for twenty minutes, I have a lot more energy of a certain kind. Music making rouses and lifts the spirit.
Last Edited by on Aug 12, 2012 7:03 PM
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jeremy
2 posts
Aug 14, 2012
7:36 AM
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@kudzurunner: "I'm learning how to adapt my repertoire for the crowd that I actually find myself in front of. I love that challenge."
Adam, this may sound like a very tenuous connection, but I recently heard an interview with an early member of AC/DC, and he was talking about how the real engine of the band was rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young. And one of the principal reasons for this was his ability in a live gig to read the crowd and select the right song for the moment. I guess that's what a good club DJ does too.
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