Has anyone seen a movie called "Whiplash”? (Spoiler alert,avoid reading this further if you hadn’t watched it already.) It's a movie about a maniacal jazz music teacher and his students. Well, it's about the teacher tormenting one particular student whose passion and ambition he preys on. The old devil and his disciple theme, only it takes place in a modern classroom of a fictional college Jazz department. For readers information, like the young drummer in the movie, I, too, got bitten by the "jazz” bug during college. More like a wasp, because I couldn't pull out the sting for years to come. I used to listen to jazz CDs for hours on end and transcribed solos note by note. I wasn’t even an instrumentalist! I did it because it was something every Jazz players had done, or so was I told by my teachers.
Suppose two musicians agree on playing a tune at 60 beats per minute. Does that mean those two will play the tune exactly the same way? The answer is no. Because each of us feels time differently depending on the mood, physical condition, heart rate, or interpretation of the style of music. Even within a same genre, each song conveys different feeling, it is hard to reach a consensus regarding time. Compare playing So What by Miles Davis at 60 beats per minute, then try Basin Street Blues at the same tempo. Keeping time is a very elusive act. It's like a wild beast which tries to run away from you at any given moment.
Back to the movie. Yelling at the poor student and traumatizing him for not knowing how to keep time was pure evil, and clever. Because he succeeded in making the student believe in the presence of Time Absolute. After he believed it, then the teacher himself was able to submit the student to the tyranny of Teacher Absolute, i.e. God. Whoever controls time (or creates the illusion of absolute time), controls the mind.
Let's not believe in gods, readers. Let's not create human gods because some of them will use their power to squander tender buds of genuine talents. Only believe in goodness music can bring. Believe that awesomeness arrives in its own due time.
Some of the mean antics the teacher in the movie used are, for the record, grossly exaggerated for theatrical impact. In my school, nobody smacked student’s face or cussed at them like he was a marine sergeant. (Oh, spoiler again, sorry…) Having said that, certain things that went on in the movie were so close to what I've experienced that gave me chills. The examples: common practices of ruining a wholesome relationship for the sake of musical ambition; thinking practicing 12 hours a day will make you become the next Charlie Parker; inability to distinguish abuse of a heartless impostor from a sincere advise of a genuine teacher. The list goes on. Sadly, music department (or any other academic department) can be an incubator for misguided egos unless common sense (or instinct for self-preservation) wins over before the young psyche gets altered for worse irrevocably.
I couldn’t help feeling amused about the interesting tool the evil teacher used to torment the young man: time. The teacher smacks across the student's face, and yells "Are you a rusher or a dragger?!" He is referring to the manner of his handling a tempo. Everybody knows that mastering time is absolutely a prerequisite for drummers. However, very few people realize that there is no such thing as absolute time.
Suppose two musicians agree on playing a tune at 60 beats per minute. Does that mean those two will play the tune exactly the same way? The answer is no. Because each of us feels time differently depending on the mood, physical condition, heart rate, or interpretation of the style of music. Even within a same genre, each song conveys different feeling, it is hard to reach a consensus regarding time. Compare playing So What by Miles Davis at 60 beats per minute, then try Basin Street Blues at the same tempo. Keeping time is a very elusive act. It's like a wild beast which tries to run away from you at any given moment.
One thing I discovered though, is that one must realize at some point the importance of playing space between notes. Imagine tossing a ball up in the air. You want to catch it and keep tossing it up again and again. You will look up and wait for the ball to come down. Instead of waiting for it to come back to where your hand is, if you jumped up and went after the ball while it's still in the air, you are a "rusher." If you waited too long and the ball fell down on the ground, you would be a "dragger.” On the other hand, If you are "in the pocket" of time, you will look like you are in your element no matter what kind of ball (music) you are playing.
Back to the movie. Yelling at the poor student and traumatizing him for not knowing how to keep time was pure evil, and clever. Because he succeeded in making the student believe in the presence of Time Absolute. After he believed it, then the teacher himself was able to submit the student to the tyranny of Teacher Absolute, i.e. God. Whoever controls time (or creates the illusion of absolute time), controls the mind.
Let's not believe in gods, readers. Let's not create human gods because some of them will use their power to squander tender buds of genuine talents. Only believe in goodness music can bring. Believe that awesomeness arrives in its own due time.