Finger Picked

So the house was full - the entirety of the (immediate) family was home. Some were talking, some were helping to prepare a meal. In fact, we had all just lent a hand to bring supper together. As part of a new family tradition, for the last three years we've done handmade pierogies for a post-Christmas dinner. It's a fairly time consuming process, because once the dough and filling has been created, each pierogi has to be made from scratch. So we all help out over the various stages to make a delicious and wonderfully artery-clogging meal. It's quickly turning into a favourite tradition of mine.

Anyways, after I had spent a shift stuffing these mini Ukrainian dumplings I went to the living room to relax by messing around on my mandolin for a bit. Truth be told, ever since I started keeping my ukulele in the studio with me at school, my fingers get kind of itchy for strings to pick. I started playing some rather simple chords, G, D and C in various orders, and practicing my picking. I would play the D and then A strings a couple times, then go up to E and climb back down. That turns into D A D A D A E A over and over again, switching chords every one or two times. Then I complicated it a bit further by alternating between the G and D strings. That turned into G A D A G A D A G A E A D. It caused a rather backfire in my brain, muscles, and various neurons in between, but I finally got it working.

So I played for a bit, pretty pleased with the melody that came floating out as a result of all this utter chaos of internal co-ordination that I had somehow figured out. I tell ya - sometimes operating muscles can be a lot more difficult then you'd think, considering you use the same ones every day without much complaint. You try to make things a tiny bit more interesting, and you suddenly become very conscious of the connection between body and mind, and how one has to trust the other. And as weird as that sounds, it's true. Muscles trusting the brain seems pretty straightforward. "Hey, finger muscles, I need to to move like x so I can accomplish y." The real frightening bit is when it changes to "Ok guys, I told you what I need you to do and how to do it. I'll let you do your thing now." This is the part where you know what you want to do, but you can't quite get it to work quite right. So you think, yeah, I got this figured out, I just need to stop over-thinking and do it. You relax and let your muscles take over. And at first, it's like watching a herd of penguins in those massive sumo suits trying to practice synchronized swimming. Lots of flailing around, making funny noises, and things moving much slower and retarded than you know they should be capable of. But eventually the penguins squirm their way out of the overly-padded suits and do what they do. And when that happens... Music. It's a good feeling.

This post wasn't meant to be about music or the challenges of learning to play an instrument, so I'm going to do a bit of course-correction here.

I was sitting in the chair, plucking away this new melody I'd stumbled upon. And I got to the point where my hands could take over and I could look around. What I saw was the living room being lit by the warm glow of the Christmas tree. Next to it in the reclining chair was my father, who was reading. On the couch was one of my sisters, who was snuggling with her boyfriend. And down at the center of the floor, was my new baby niece who was bundled up and sleeping while her parents were in the next room. And something... Clicked. Something felt right, and it was almost as if the music I was playing had somehow become the gateway to me seeing a larger picture. For appreciating that particular, beautiful moment for what it was. With a clear dark sky outside, upbeat conversation and laughter around the corner, and the smell of frying sausage dancing through the house that smelled of old wood and dust.

It was... Perfect. That's all there is to it. Being exactly where you are and being aware of everything going on around you. Looking at the old man resting in his home, his daughter that is starting her search for her companion, and the sleeping child that's just starting her own journey through life. Circle of life, blah blah blah. Still, it was a pretty profound slice of time to find yourself in. Felt like the curtain had been pulled back another couple inches on this thing that we all experience between birth and death.

And as a musician (of sorts), I found it amazing how the little tune I was plucking was the keystone for this massive experience that happened within the tiny confines of my own mind and no one else. I don't know how to explain it. It's like being hypnotized by your own process of creating something. Not the end result so much as the experience of bringing it to life. And at the same time, it was like taking a step back, looking at the scene before me, and choosing a soundtrack to fit, where that soundtrack is exactly the music I was unfurling. Most of the people that read this (all two of them) will probably think that I'm high or full of crap or stupid or all of the above.  I'm pretty sure I'm not.

It was just a really nice 10 minutes of being alive.
-Cril

Crilix - Sleeping J