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Obviously, the internet has closed the geographic gap, and we all get the memo about current trends more or less at the same time now. But we still pass around mannerisms, symbols, and styles from one side of our culture and globe to the other, adopting them at varying rates, and applying our own interpretations. The music and style of the 1960s in San Francisco was all about rebellion. In 1970s’ North Carolina, we were finally just conforming to what had already been established. We were saying, It’s okay. We get it now and we’ll get on board.
I try not to jump to conclusions about anything I feel I’ve seen or heard before. I try not to write off music my kids play me as “throwback” even if it closely resembles something that I thought was new when I was a kid. Sure, I want to put on the seventies’ English band the Jam and say, See! Your new little punk bands are just shiny versions of this! But I’d be wrong. To diminish the new as nothing more than a rehash is a mistake. I’m reminded of Gertrude Stein’s belief that “There is no such thing as repetition. Only insistence.” Meaning: You can do or say something a second and third time, but it will not be the same experience again. Because the first occurrence, utterance, or expression of an idea has now altered the environment. So you can’t repeat, not literally, but you can insist: A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose…The youth might co-opt a symbol, but it will likely have a different meaning the next time around, one that probably flies over the heads of the older generation. Hell, it was my generation who decided it would be fun if “bad” meant “good.” As in, “that’s one bad motherfucker.”
We pass the same symbols down from generation to generation, and they migrate from place to place, as the meaning morphs along the way. We’ve all witnessed the journey of an artistic innovation that originates with a hip-hop group, before the idea is eaten by the indie rockers five years later, soon to be aped and sanitized by the corporate rockers, and ultimately wrung of its irony by Christian bands, a year ahead of its hipster revival. What used to be an embarrassing hole in the jeans of someone who couldn’t afford new ones is now being marketed to rich people who are willing to pay big bucks for that hole. A hole is a hole is a hole is a hole.
I believe that when a piece of music (or any art) has been set free and released into the world, it doesn’t matter if it was dressed in bell-bottoms or a jumpsuit. If its aim is true, if its heart is in the right place, if it’s chock full of meaning, feeling, and intent, it might—just might—survive the journey over decades and cultural fault lines. Just not for the reasons anyone might have predicted. Writers, like parents, must accept that their creations will take on lives of their own.
BUT FOR THE GRACE OF MY MUSIC TEACHERS
A FEW YEARS AGO, I volunteered to be a substitute teacher for my kids’ seventh-grade music class. Just for a day. That’s all I had to do. I knew most of the kids in the class anyway. It should have been a breeze.
It wasn’t.
If I didn’t fully appreciate the public school music teachers of my youth before 11 A.M. that day, by noon I damn well did. As I stood before the class, a lifetime of experience performing in front of people went straight out the window. The forty-five-minute affair was absolutely exhausting. Kids, 1–Folds, 0. Animals, every one of them! I am no music teacher and I bow to each and every man and woman who is. I especially bow to the ones who can see that these children are not animals and recognize which ones could use a push, or a hand, like I did when I was younger.
Teaching school is by nature a one-size-fits-all sort of thing—that’s just necessity. It’s not “man-to-man defense,” as they say in basketball. It’s zone—there’s only one of you defending against God knows how many rat bags. What strikes me looking back at my own childhood is how many of my teachers still managed to take on each student one at a time. How many of them managed to make it feel like one-on-one. These teachers that knew my name out of a school full of kids recognized that I loved music, encouraged and inspired me, reprimanded me when necessary, and kept me on a path that led me to a career in music.
I don’t think most rock musicians appreciate the impact their music teachers had on their artistry. At least in my day, it just wasn’t cool for a rock star to shout out to his music teacher. Rockers were supposed to be completely self-taught, rolling out of bed one day with messy hair and a bong, and suddenly—boom—they were the shit. I tore through music magazines at the 7-Eleven when I was a teenager to see if Gene Simmons of Kiss might give me some clue as to how he became Gene Simmons, or, more important, how he became a musician. Did he attend band camp? I did—was that okay? Should I not admit that? Did he know what key “Calling Dr. Love” was in? I did! Was that okay?
Tenth-grade disciplinary slips (one of many). Apologies to my teachers.
I urge my recording-artist homies to have their own music-teacher appreciation week. Go to bat for the teachers, for their programs, their pay, and music education in general. Unless you really believe you learned nothing from them. In which case, go to bat for marijuana laws.
This is my thank-you to the music teachers who made a difference in my life. Not all of my teachers were good, of course, but we’ll ignore the handful of shitty and mean ones. To the shitty and mean ones, I’d say, “You know who you are,” but the problem is you probably don’t.
All of my K–6 teachers at Moore Laboratory School. The teachers at my elementary school would regularly give us a break from our studies to teach us how to clap in rhythm, showing us musical notes on the chalkboard. Even though they were just regular teachers, not music teachers, they would turn the classroom into a music lesson for a few minutes. For some of us, it taught us the joy of making music in unison with other kids. For others, it was just a brain rest, like playtime. And we all learned basic rhythmic notation:
Tah = half note (or, for us, long)
Tee = quarter note (or, for us, short)
The teacher would write the actual note, as a rhythm, on the chalkboard, along with “Tah” or “Tee.” We would clap along on the floor:
“Tah Tee-Tee / Tah Tah / Tee-Tee Tah / Tah Tah /”
That’s 4/4 time—always adds up. Easy. Great music program, seriously. It required no more than a floor to sit on and a chalkboard and, most important, a teacher who knew just enough music to lead it.
Mrs. Rushing, elementary school band teacher. My first school music teacher was Mrs. Rushing. She noticed that this skinny-ass kid was definitely in need of something to sink his teeth into. She pulled me aside in third grade and suggested I take up an instrument, even though band didn’t normally start until fifth grade. She encouraged me to study at home with a book she’d provided, and she said she’d check up on my progress periodically after school. If I practiced the whole year, I might be able to join the school concert band in fourth grade! She even drove me to the local music store with a broken snare drum, where I got to help the music-store man fix the instrument in the back room. The snare stayed at school, so I practiced at home with two sticks and a basketball. I got through a year’s worth of Mrs. Rushing’s tests in less than a month, came in one afternoon and performed a perfect buzz roll on the snare drum. She put me in the concert band in third grade. My other studies improved, and I felt way better about myself. Yay for Mrs. Rushing. She didn’t have to take the time to get a little jackass on track.