Chapter 16: A Change of Approach?

Posted by admin on April 23rd, 2010 | 1 Comment »

My very close friend Itay gave me some feedback about this blog and real time story.  This is what he said: “I read chapter one and to be completely honest I was looking to get more of you and I got a manual. I want to hear more about your feelings, fears, thoughts, and challenges and how you overcome them. I want to hear how you evolve. When you complete the journey, you can write a manual.”  Of course my quick reaction was to defend myself and tell him that he only read the first chapter and I already WAS doing that.  This is what he said: “I’d market it as a journal not a manual, I’d also void 1. 2. or any structure that makes it look like a manual. I think you analyze and explain too much. As an example in your paragraph about the reasons you were nervous (Chapter 3). You also mention there that “It was my first gig with my new friend Arthur, a truly remarkable bassist and music business veteran” – I want to hear more about his this guy and how you met and why you chose each other and what is your commitment to each other rather. I care less about why you were nervous.”

SO, I have thought about what he said I realize that I’ve been keeping the “ends” to much in my mind while trying to write about the “means” as they are happening.  In trying to position myself as an authority, I have neglected to truly share myself and how deep and profound this process is for me of truly going for my dreams, taking all the neccesary steps and believing in myself 100%.  This will now function as a real time “journal” of how I am making it, day by day in this business and how I am working towards my vision of being a world-renown artist.

Here is what is up for me right now:  I just added two back up singers to our “act.”  The first is my amazingly talented girlfriend Sally Swallow and the other, my friend and the equally amazing Keesha Gumbs.  We have been re-arranging some of my songs with background harmonies and let me tell you, it sounds fucking amazing.  I know that I am more in love with my music than anybody, but seriously…fucking amazing.

Arthur, Dan and I had an electric trio gig at a German drinking hole in Queens called the Wunderbar.  I wasn’t expecting too much in terms of the gig, just a good opportunity to practice and have a good time and it was our most fun show yet.  There were a number of college students in the bar and both Dan and I were nervous that they wouldn’t dig the music, but they got SO down…dancing, singing along to the cover songs we played.  It made me very excited and pretty much reinforced all the things that we have been working on in terms of making our music funky and accessable to a younger audience.

I’m a very happy man today and beyond pumped for our first NYC show as a full band.  We are going to dress up it up!

-Zach

Chapter 8: I Couldn’t Stop Smiling If I Tried

Posted by admin on March 17th, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Before I knew anything about altered scales, how to play Donna Lee, or that Stravinsky was going to become my favorite composer, I knew how to play a couple chords on the guitar. I was 15 years old and my buddy knew how to play the drums. We went into the band room at my high school and “jammed” for the first time in my life.  Then, jamming consisted of me playing the four or five chords that I knew in a-rhythmic cacophony, but still indeed music to my 15 year old ears as this was the first time I’d ever felt “it.” You what what I’m talking about. “It.” When all the hairs stand up on the back of your neck and goosebumps cover your body, when you are flushed red with joy and can’t keep your mouth from smiling because music just does that to you.

Flash forward 10 years and thousands of hours of practice later; jamming has become something totally different. There is knowledge now, what notes sound good with what chords and musical decisions to be made about playing “in” or playing “out.” Unfortunately there are also ego decisions about “showing off,” proving myself to others by showing that I know “this or that set of changes” etc.  These EGO based-decisions have absolutely no place in music and yet they somehow, with the attainment of knowledge crept in the back door to make sure I was doing it “right.”

This is ironic no? When I first picked up the guitar I thought to myself “I can’t wait to be GOOD,” and yet, even though I wasn’t good at all then, the bliss of music was right at my fingertips.  Then, with each hour of practice, the more “good” I became, the more it seemed that “good” escaped me, not because I wasn’t becoming good, if not great…but because my standard of what to expect of myself, but more so, what my EGO said to me was “respectable” in the eyes of others continued to grow and grow.  And this is where the poison lies.

I am now a professional, studied music in college, have put in more than my 10,000 hrs of practice and know how to play and sing the shit out of my instruments, and the truth is that bliss never left my fingertips since that first day of “jamming.”  It was me that left bliss’s side. It was my EGO that forgot what this whole trip is about.

I am remembering now.