“Very good! Very, very good! First try. I’m shocked and a little bit jealous. I completely missed the hawk the first time I sent my intent bubble over to him. He had to change tree limbs just to catch it.”
My eyes opened on their own. Feeling a bit dazed, I shook my head as I listened to him, not knowing whether or not he was patronizing me. Whichever it was, it was working. I was amazed and elated about what I’d just accomplished.
After a moment of celebration, Michael walked up to me and looked me straight in the eyes. I couldn’t tell what color they were, but in the darkness of the room his eyes seemed to glow.
“Now,” he continued, “this is real serious stuff. You can treat it like a game when you are just beginning, but even then, your intent must be pure. Once you are confident with your abilities, the power increases. At that time, how you use it has a tremendous effect on all Life everywhere. Right now, you can treat it like a game, but know that it is not one.”
He gave me a few seconds to think about what he’d said before he leaned even closer to me and continued. I could feel his eyes searching my soul, looking to see if his words were taking root.
“You have no idea of the extent of this power,” he told me. “It can be used to heal yourself, someone else, or it can be used to . . .”
He looked across the room. I followed his gaze. There was a flower sitting in a vase on the kitchen table. One ray of sunlight snuck in through the window shade, illuminating a few of the petals. To my astonishment, as I was looking at it, the flower wilted. It literally fell over. I almost did the same. My mouth fell open in disbelief. I looked back at Michael. He was smiling. He winked at me and then glanced back at the flower. I looked again, and to my surprise, the flower was alive and perfectly healthy. I looked back at Michael not knowing what to think.
“You believe in that stuff?” he asked. His Cheshire-cat grin was in full effect.
I didn’t know what to believe. I stood there with my mouth wide open, glancing back and forth between him and the plant. He turned and walked toward the front door. As he opened it, he looked back at me, making a final statement.
“Meet me at the Grapevine Café at ten. Tonight we will turn all of it into Music.”
With a gentle pull of the door he was gone and I was left standing in the dark, contemplating yet again what was real and what was not.
The Grapevine Café is a small nightclub in Nashville located on Elliston Place. Elliston Place is a short street full of thriving businesses during the day and a very active nightlife scene. There are about three or four different bars and night-clubs on the small street.
The café only holds about one hundred and fifty people, but the large window just off the stage provides anyone standing outside a great view of the band. On that particular night, the street was packed with people trying to see and hear through the window. I didn’t know if Michael had arrived yet, and because of the long line of people, I didn’t think I would be able to get in to see if he was already inside.
As I approached the club I noticed someone in the crowd pointing at something. I turned to look and saw a strange sight. There was a man coming up the street wearing a black cape with blue lining, held together at the neck by a silver brooch. An American flag was wrapped around his head, and believe it or not, he was riding a skateboard.
As he approached, I thought about sneaking away so that no one would know that the guy was with me. From inside the door I heard someone shout, “Michael, your table is ready. They’re waiting for you.”
I ran up to meet him just as he entered the club. “He’s with me,” Michael shouted as we made our way through the crowded entrance. The look on the faces of the people trying to get in made me glad that I was with him even if he was wearing a cape.
The band was already playing. They sounded amazing. It wasn’t until we reached our table that I realized Sam was playing bass.
“I didn’t know they let ’em in so young,” I joked.
"There is no other player in town who can play like Sam, including you,” Michael replied.
It hurt, but it was true. I knew most of the players in town, and no one had a feel like Sam. He never sacrificed the groove in order to play a ‘lick’ and he always played with a smile on his face, as if he actually enjoyed it. That was impressive. (Do I need to remind you that Sam was only eleven?)
“Tonight is a special occasion,” Michael remarked. "These guys don’t play together that often. All the band members are at the top of their field, but it is the drummer who I want you to pay attention to tonight. There is no drummer in the world who can regulate the groove the way he does. He is also a master of space. Notice how he uses it to make what he does play stand out.”
“What’s his name?” I asked.
“Not important, just listen,” he answered.
Regulate the groove. That was another new concept. I didn’t know what it meant, but I was eager to find out.
We listened to the band jam for about forty-five minutes before I realized that the drummer had not taken a solo at all. He barely played any fills, and often left space at the end of phrases rather than fill them up with licks. The groove, I realized, was stronger and more consistent because of it. I could tell that the drummer had chops, but the fact that he wasn’t showing them off was impressive. Maybe that’s what Michael meant. I would love to play with that drummer.
Just then, the guitar player started speaking into the microphone.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, I want to introduce to you a man, the baddest man in all the land. They call me ‘the teacher,’ but I’m gonna introduce to you the man that taught me all I know, plus some things I don’t know, not to mention a few things I shouldn’t know. Fresh off of his tour to Never Never Land, two stars to the right, the one and only, never lonely, bad to the bonely—Michael!”
The keyboardist played a fanfare as Michael jumped up onto the table, pulled his cape over the lower half of his face, and bowed down on one knee. He then quickly stood up, holding his cape wide open with both hands as if he were doing his best Batman impersonation. He was quite a spectacle. The crowd didn’t know what to think, and neither did I (although I secretly thought the cape was cool). He jumped down from the table grabbing my hand, and quickly walked to the stage, dragging me along with him. There was no time for me to think.
“What do you wanna do, Michael?” the guitarist asked.
“I want to sing ‘Mustang Sally’ in C,” Michael answered. “My friend here wants to play with your drummer. He claims to be a bass player.”
I could see Sam laughing as he took off his bass and handed it to me. It was too late for me to claim that I didn’t know the strange caped man, so I took the instrument and strapped it on.
As I stood there feeling the stares of the audience, a surge of nervousness and insecurity swept over me. I didn’t know what to do. I’d played that song hundreds of times before, but for some reason, that night, I was at a loss for notes.
Michael looked back at me. I was already sweating. How was I going to measure up to the little kid that had been playing all night? I looked at Sam. He flashed a reassuring smile.
Oh, yeah, smile, I remembered.
With four clicks of the drum sticks and no more time to think, the song began, sans bass. I was so wrapped up in my anxiety that I forgot to come in. Michael quickly came to my rescue.
“Hold on, hold on! I’m about to drive this thing, but I forgot to fasten my seatbelt.” As he pantomimed sitting in a car and fastening his belt, he turned around and winked at me. “Just make it groove,” he whispered.
We got off to a good start. I’d never heard Michael sing before. He was incredible. He was a cross between Otis Redding, James Brown, and Bob Dylan, if such a thing were possible. Between running through the audience, dancing, and doing the splits, his pitch never seemed to falter. He also made it a point to perform for the people looking in through the window. How he maneuvered his way around the small stage without breakin
g something or hurting himself was even more amazing.
After singing a few verses and choruses, Michael pointed at the guitarist, who proceeded to play the most amazing guitar solo I’d ever heard. His guitar screamed and squealed in ways that made the instrument seem alive.
Once he was done, the sax player took his turn. Much of his solo was accomplished while playing two saxophones at once. The keyboard player used a device that had a plastic tube attached. He held the end of the tube in his mouth which made his keyboard sound like it was speaking words. It was incredible. I’d never witnessed a group of musicians who possessed that much ability.
The solos were passed around to each musician until I noticed that it was now being passed to me. I was so wrapped up in each of the previous solos that I’d neglected to realize it would eventually be my turn. That actually was to my advantage. If I’d been thinking about a solo, I would’ve spent the whole song being nervous rather than enjoying myself. But now, my nerves were like a bomb about to go off. I could feel them taking over my whole body. Michael looked at me and took a deep breath. I took the hint and did the same.
Everyone stopped playing except for the drummer and me. I’ve always hated when that happens. All the other soloists get to play with the whole band while the bass player has to play with just the drummer. Well, he wasn’t “just a drummer. ” Playing with that guy was like lounging on a large plush sofa.
He was sitting behind the drums looking at me, waiting for me to begin. The groove that he laid down was so solid that it actually calmed me down a bit more, but I still didn’t know what to play. All I knew was that I was not gonna let an eleven-year-old kid get the best of me, at least not in public. I decided to play it all.
I started my solo with a flash, and the more I played, the more insecure I felt. I closed my eyes and tried to get deeper into the music. Everyone else had taken a lengthy solo, so I decided to take my time, saying everything I wanted to say. I used all of my techniques and played every note that I knew.
Opening my eyes, I looked at Sam; he was smiling. Remembering my lesson with him, I started smiling too. It worked a little. Michael was sitting next to him, whispering something into his ear. I knew they were talking about me. Trying not to let it get to me, I closed my eyes again.
That night, even though I was nervous, I played what I thought was one of my better solos. When I finished, the crowd went wild. I felt so good that I couldn’t keep myself from smiling. I tried to appear cool by stepping back and leaning against the speaker as if it was an everyday occurrence. I looked at the drummer, waiting to see how he was going to follow me.
Looking calm and cool, he just sat there chewing bubble gum with his head bobbing up and down. He didn’t appear concerned with me at all. The groove he was laying down was the heaviest and most solid I’d ever heard. Basically, he kept doing what he’d been doing the whole song.
After about eight measures or so of intense grooving, he stopped playing. He just completely stopped. His head was still bobbing up and down with the groove. I looked at Michael and Sam. Their heads, along with every head in the audience, were bobbing up and down.
I was amazed that even though no one was playing the drums—or any other instruments, for that matter—the groove was still there. The whole room could feel it. It was as solid as it’d been all along. The fact that he’d laid down such a strong groove for so long allowed us all to continue feeling it.
After about four measures, he hit the splash cymbal one time. He then proceeded to sit there, in silence, bobbing his head and chewing his gum for another four measures. After that, he was done. That was his solo. He simply returned to playing the same groove he’d been playing before. It was remarkable.
I was blown away. It was the most amazing solo I could remember hearing, ever! Even the thought of approaching a solo that way was pure genius. His solo said more than the rest of ours combined, and he did it by saying nothing. I could hear Isis’s voice ringing in my head repeating the number zero over and over. I was finally starting to understand that principle a little bit more.
The drummer had created space in a way that allowed the few beats he did play a chance to really be heard. He did it in a way that forced us, the listeners, to hear them. And we heard them completely. It allowed us to appreciate each drumbeat wholly. I was getting it, and it excited me. This drummer is a genius. I knew I had more to learn about using space, and I looked forward to finishing the song so I could talk to Michael about it.
When it was over we shook hands with the band members and I gladly handed the bass back to Sam. I was eager to get off the stage so I could ask Michael what had happened. I wanted to know exactly how the drummer had done what he’d done. I understood it on a surface level, but I knew there was something deeper going on, something I was missing.
Back at the table, Michael told me to keep listening. He said that I could ask the drummer myself after the gig was over, so that’s exactly what I did.
At the end of the night, after all the equipment was packed away, Michael and I sat with the drummer and talked for awhile. Sam couldn’t stick around because he had school the next morning. There were many things I wanted to know about space and how to use it. I asked the drummer if he would talk about it for a few minutes before he left.
“Michael should be talking instead of me,” he answered. “He showed me the way into this world. I just explored it and learned to use it in my own way.”
“Well you sure are doing a great job,” I told him. “What you did tonight was unbelievable.”
"Thank you,” was his modest response.
“Can you help me understand space the way that you do?” I asked.
“Start by first understanding rests,” he replied. “Rest is related to space, but not as broad. Your solo tonight was really good, but you rushed at the end of almost every phrase. You were not in the right space. You played as if you had something to prove. That caused you to rush. You were so anxious to play the next group of notes that you neglected to play the rests. You didn’t give the notes their full Life, their full amount of air. In simpler terms, you played the notes but not the rests. If you don’t play the rests, give them the same attention that you give the notes, you’ll rush, simple as that.”
“I never thought about that,” I commented.
“I could tell. Most people don’t,” he replied.
He was being completely frank with me, but I didn’t mind.
“When we first take lessons as kids,” he continued, “we learn how to read Music and we learn what rests are, but we rarely learn how to really play them. And we are never taught how to use them. We know how to use notes to produce desired results, but we are never taught how to use rests that way. If we pay attention to the rests and really learn how to use them, we find that they can speak louder and deeper than notes.”
“Louder and deeper than notes? What does that mean?” I asked.
“If you’re performing for a noisy audience, and you want them to stop talking and start listening to you, what do you do?” he asked.
“Play louder I guess.”
“Wouldn’t that just make them talk louder?” he asked.
“I guess it would. Maybe I should play quieter to make them listen.”
“Right, or stop playing altogether. Think about it. A baby will sleep through any noise that’s going on as long as it is constant, but if the noise stops, the baby will wake up. Why? Because he’s been deeply touched by loud silence.” He made a light tapping gesture on the table.
“Oh yeah,” I said, not realizing how I could have forgotten. “I saw Michael stop a guy from talking just by using dynamics, and that guy was all the way across the room.”
The drummer smiled at Michael and remarked, “Still doing tricks, huh Michael?”
“I always did love a good parlor trick,” Michael answered with his usual smile.
“Michael could stop a guy in Cincinnati from talking if he wanted to,” the drummer added bef
ore continuing. “Listen to all the background noise that’s going on right now.”
The Music Lesson Page 21