...except that sometimes, it still does. Sad to say, we ended up not performing at Open Mic, due to a lot fo things culminating at once. I personally didn't feel prepared enough (having only practiced together three times) to get up on stage with such short notice, aside from the fact that I had an exam the next day. Miguel was still going to perform his rendition of Schindler's List, which sounded AMAZING when he was playing back in the dorm, but again schoolwork reared its ugly head, and that didn't happen either.
Hopefully, since this week is Humans vs. Zombies and we'll be leaving the dorm as little as possible, we'll be able to get some recordings up. The songs we were going to perform are Collide (which I know I promised but have yet to post), and Kiss Me (which is still gonna take some work as far as arranging).
On another note, I wanted to touch on the "nostalgia" of the young, as Sherry Turkle puts it. She talks about how this generation misses the time they never had with parents who are now always attached to their phones. They miss the times when you could just call someone up and talk, or the times when people would write proper letters to each other instead of just "poking" on Facebook to say, "hey, I'm thinking about you". The point is though, they miss all these things they never had. They long for how life "must have been" in their parents' days.
I remember when I was little, and getting a letter was such an exciting thing. I remember that I didn't start emailing people until middle school, and even then it was through my parents' account. And I do remember in middle school, when it was cool to just chat on the phone with a friend for hours, until mom yelled at you to stop tying up the phone lines. I was on the cusp of that transition.
The point of all this though, is that this type of "nostalgia" crops up in all fields.
As a biologist, I imagine the times when there were fewer regulations on the types of animals you could house. As a pre-health student, I miss the times when clinical trials were subjected to less rigorous standards.
As a guitarist, I miss the times when I could play a single song without my phone going off-- these are times I never had, but I still miss them. As a performer, I miss the times when you could just play with friends for the heck of it and not have to worry about a deadline. And not worry about being judged, for that matter. I imagine what it must be like to be able to sit around a campfire with your friends and just strum quietly in the background till someone recognizes the tune and everyone starts to sing along. I miss how music used to bring people together.
Why is this important though, if we miss all these things we never had? Well the point is, it doesn't matter what everyone around you is doing, and it doesn't matter how society is changing. All those little things? You can change them. When I'm playing, I can turn off my phone. I can knock on a friend's door and be like, hey, I'm kinda bored, lets go play for a bit.
No one's stopping you from writing letters or calling people or having proper alone time or proper friend time. It's all on you. Time to stop worrying about being judged, and go hang with the people who really matter to you.
Oh yeah, and don't forget to go outside every once in a while. No one likes that computer tan. Besides, it's nice to play in the sun.
-Kal
I lived in the time when we frequently sat outside by the fire and played guitars until we dropped into a tune. We had a group of 6 families or so who got together for every holiday and event. We all lived on organic farms in rural Michigan and I remember singing around the bonfire as some of the happiest moments of my life. My gift to the group was that I always knew all the lyrics to every song! Sniff, sniff. Weep, weep.
ReplyDelete