Out in the cold, you forget what it’s like to be hot

February 12, 2008

Welcome, new visitor! My name is Ari, the man behind Aries9. Here I share my thoughts on music and life, so you can get to know me and my music. Thanks for visiting!

This weekend, my family and I attended the Family Day at Minneapolis Institute of Arts. It was a very well-put-together event by an apparently extremely well-run institution. A huge, gorgeous museum, a home to hundreds of valuable pieces, free and open to public everyday. I’d like to get acquainted with the member of the board.

But I digress. The Family Day’s theme was Africa, and they hosted several sessions on related topics. We attended one on African dance (from West Africa — I always feel so bad about calling anything generically “African.” Africa is big and diverse. Calling everything African is like calling me Asian.) And I had a very short glimpse of a session on African drumming. Thanks to my daughter’s short attention span, I had to make exit from that session shortly after it began.

But seeing those beautiful African drums lined up on stage, and hit hard with young and energetic hands, was an inspirational experience. I grew up in Brazil, and once attended the Carnival in Rio — where hundreds of drums march down the street, where the beats engulf you and jitter you in places inside that’s never vibrated like that, ever before or after. Drums are a force of energy. No recording can reproduce that sense of being hit by sound waves. I’ve always been very interested in percussion instruments. I’d love to pick up a djembe and take lessons.

Another experience I recalled was my brief stint in a band, where we had three djembe players instead of a regular drummer. Those drums have a huge range — it can be a kick, snare, hi-hat and cymbals, all in one instrument, and can be just as loud, too.

But more than that, it was the first time I’ve seen any live music in a long time. I think I saw live music once all of last year. Needless to say, I never performed live — probably the first year since age 19 when I didn’t play any gigs. My son was born a year ago, and having two kids really knocked us out. I should at least pat myself on the back for finishing and putting my record out.

Five minutes of live African drums were all it took to re-ignite the fire that’s been smoldering inside. I love this thing! I can’t wait to make more music, to do it with others who enjoy it.

These last few weeks have been challenging for me, the music-lover. I’m sandwiched between new and rewarding day job as a web developer and being in demand as a husband and father. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. Between those two things, my music has to settle for the distant third position.

But I’m constantly wrestling with this question — why should I go on trying to make music? I have a good job and a happy family. Isn’t that good enough? Taking care of those two roles is not easy, but I can tell you that they’re comfortable shoes to wear. Nobody expects a bookish 30-something Asian with two kids to be a heavy rock guitar player. And I am an excellent father and competent technology professional. Many others are happy with just those things, why not me?

Well, those drums are the reason why.

Five minutes of nothing else can shake me up like that. I’ve always been a terrible audience member, because as soon as I like what I hear, all I can think about is: I want to play. I got so energized from hearing those drums in person, that my mind immediately wandered toward the vision of learning to play those drums myself, incorporating them into music I make in the future, and to collaborating with others who play those instruments well.

Some people are passionate listeners of music. I am not, actually. I am a passionate maker of music. I listen, sure, but what I enjoy the most is making it. Writing, performing, recording — that is my peak experience. I’ve been away from it now, and yes, I can be marginally happy without it. But once you know where your peak is, it’s only natural that you desire it above all else.

Discovering that peak is half the battle, so I am grateful. But still, I haven’t given myself a permission — at least not fully enough — to do it as much as I desire to. I’ve spent all my life removing my road blocks. It just feels like in the transition of the last few month, I re-stacked some of them back up.

I’ve got to remove them, urgently. The world is a poorer place because this constituent is not contributing the positive energy that he can create during his peak. I’m doing nobody a service with my marginal happiness, when I can be bursting out to seams with joy and energy.

It’s time to put some gas into this car. It’s not old or dying, not yet.

Filed under: Ari, Reflections |