A Confession: Rhythm

Part of my New Year's resolution is to simplify my life. To that end, I've been trying to formulate a few watchwords that sum up what I'm trying to achieve with my little existence.

One of those words is rhythm. What I think that word captures is an idea of persistence, with variation. It's brings to mind this idea of "keeping on a path", without sounding tedious. Not only that, but it also evokes the notion of timing, where every action has its appropriate place. I'm not sure I've been heeding the rhythm of life, so to speak.  I'd like to start.

I am also paying attention to rhythm in a more literal sense. As you hopefully know, I write music, and when I do so, it is with a focus on rhythm... without any personal skills at keeping it.  That is, I quantize nearly everything. It's a crutch. I'd like to change that, so I'm starting to practice keeping rhythm and quantizing less. I've even started recording myself tapping out rhythms live.  (Though I admit, I've been looping those samples rather than playing long stretches!)

All of this talk is fancy padding around the admission that I've gone and done something... a little silly. You see, my son got a bunch of money for Christmas. While he initially wanted to spend this on a PSP, my wife and I convinced him that this was a bad idea (he already has a GameBoy, a DS, a Wii, a PC, and access to my PS3... he doesn't need another system). Recently, he's taken to playing Rock Band at his friend's house, and we thought it would be a better use of his money if he went and bought a copy of his own... then he'll be better when playing at the friends house, and so on.

Well... I upgraded his purchase from the basic set to the full band thing, so that it included the little drum set.

Yes, yes.  I have been playing Rock Band drums.  I admit it.

And, dammit, it's fun.

...And also?  Really hard.