Time to ponder and plan one's progress and chart out the way forward is always a good thing. More often then not, we all need to take a step back and plan out the near future with regard to the bigger picture. And otherwise, some ongoing parts of your life wherein you want to progress and accomplish something, also require some careful attention.
As I sit here in Chesapeake, Virginia, on this computer, staring out the window at the lovely little locality where I'm staying, taking in the beauty and scenic serenity that comes with it, my mind and thoughts wander away and run, dance, examine and muse over the current state of certain activities and goings on in my life.
I'm here to renew some flight time on a different aircaft because our dear govt. and their errant Civil Aviation Directorate can't make up their minds between 4 and 6 cylinder aircraft and what not. I flew after 1 whole year with an ex USAF Jet transport pilot , who is now an instructor. I got the most brilliant crisp assessment from him, with positives and negatives in my flying. It turns out that my negatives lie in an area that needs a lot more on the go practice then anything else, briefings and pre-procedure. Flying, smoothness, aircraft control, touchdown, are all A-OK!!! and it feels great. And it also seems, that my patience has grown. As the Great Steven John Kipp once put it. 'Akshay, we don't land an aircraft, we set her up to land, and she lands herself, they're alive too y'know'.
So as i continue down my path to establish the Career Pilot objective and process, with planning and variables and all that goes hand in hand with that, there is that other, supremely important, driving force part of my life, that catches my attention. Music, all that it is, all that it represents, all that it brings about, all that it does for me, and all that it makes for me, and makes me.
So after all that debate, thought, wrestling in my head, conferring with myself, I hit upon a solution, which makes me grow 4-fold in the field, of course, effort, knowledge etc all being given quantities , qualities and present virtues.
1. Spook shall continue as my 'singer-songwriter'(yes yes i know i had various takes on the same) outlet with the wonderful 3 interpreting and putting out the stuff that i write. In a sense, my inputs of melody, lyric and composition provides the raw material for the 4 of us to mess with, re-interpret and throw out there. It becomes like sharing a drive for a particular target. The growth here is a response to stimulus in as many ways as possible. Being the songwriter, the singer as well as the vocalist and the ONLY guitar player in the band thus far, its up to me to fit every role as best and as comprehensively as I can, Doing several things at once, and growing from there, is musical multitasking, and is sort of a push in the forward direction.
2.Find a bass player who writes music, and can sing, and a drummer to back you both up. Following the Holy Trinity configuration of Rush, jam with them play with them. With the current tutelage in terms of composition, guitar playing and basic knowledge of the instrument, under Anurag Shanker, the focus is not to sing, not to necessarily purely compose, bunng, line driving, production guitar player(a cheap(read as very cheap) version of Alex Lifeson minus shredding ability) who makes stuff come alive and is the mainstay and support for the bass player whose focus is to put out those simple thumping bass lines, and sing.
3.Get in touch with a driving force kind of real guitar player who is capable of thinking riffs an arpeggios and compositions to drive a 'band'. My only contribution to the project should be limited to lyrics and melody, if at all. I wouldn't even mind being TOLD what to sing with putting my own spin on something that's given to me, and only doing it after it being approved. No playing an instrument and only focus on Vocals, to grow, mature, and be out there as a frontman.
4.The most challenging of them all. Explore my acoustic compositional side. Not necessarily resulting something that I will sing AND play. Write something, lyrical, melodic, or just a semi-complete instrument peace. Get in another guitar player, vocalist, lyricist et al, and have them give you their spin to a point on the piece. Have them sing it, have them work at it, while i oversee, produce the work in a sense...and be the overall master of puppets on the piece, tracks or whatever it does end up becoming.
Between no1.and no.4 there's got to be some inspiration from Steven Wilson somewhere.
These are the 4 roads forward, 4 paths, 4 projects, bands, or what you will. They touch on 4 aspects of Music as is related to me. I guess i want to go down this path because i know, that even when i'm a well paid senior pilot somewhere, I want to be considered an accomplished and knowledgeable musician, more then being considered just a good one.
As always, thoughts, ideas, musings, planning, creation and recreation. Thank you for your time again.
cheers,
The Beast
As I sit here in Chesapeake, Virginia, on this computer, staring out the window at the lovely little locality where I'm staying, taking in the beauty and scenic serenity that comes with it, my mind and thoughts wander away and run, dance, examine and muse over the current state of certain activities and goings on in my life.
I'm here to renew some flight time on a different aircaft because our dear govt. and their errant Civil Aviation Directorate can't make up their minds between 4 and 6 cylinder aircraft and what not. I flew after 1 whole year with an ex USAF Jet transport pilot , who is now an instructor. I got the most brilliant crisp assessment from him, with positives and negatives in my flying. It turns out that my negatives lie in an area that needs a lot more on the go practice then anything else, briefings and pre-procedure. Flying, smoothness, aircraft control, touchdown, are all A-OK!!! and it feels great. And it also seems, that my patience has grown. As the Great Steven John Kipp once put it. 'Akshay, we don't land an aircraft, we set her up to land, and she lands herself, they're alive too y'know'.
So as i continue down my path to establish the Career Pilot objective and process, with planning and variables and all that goes hand in hand with that, there is that other, supremely important, driving force part of my life, that catches my attention. Music, all that it is, all that it represents, all that it brings about, all that it does for me, and all that it makes for me, and makes me.
So after all that debate, thought, wrestling in my head, conferring with myself, I hit upon a solution, which makes me grow 4-fold in the field, of course, effort, knowledge etc all being given quantities , qualities and present virtues.
1. Spook shall continue as my 'singer-songwriter'(yes yes i know i had various takes on the same) outlet with the wonderful 3 interpreting and putting out the stuff that i write. In a sense, my inputs of melody, lyric and composition provides the raw material for the 4 of us to mess with, re-interpret and throw out there. It becomes like sharing a drive for a particular target. The growth here is a response to stimulus in as many ways as possible. Being the songwriter, the singer as well as the vocalist and the ONLY guitar player in the band thus far, its up to me to fit every role as best and as comprehensively as I can, Doing several things at once, and growing from there, is musical multitasking, and is sort of a push in the forward direction.
2.Find a bass player who writes music, and can sing, and a drummer to back you both up. Following the Holy Trinity configuration of Rush, jam with them play with them. With the current tutelage in terms of composition, guitar playing and basic knowledge of the instrument, under Anurag Shanker, the focus is not to sing, not to necessarily purely compose, bunng, line driving, production guitar player(a cheap(read as very cheap) version of Alex Lifeson minus shredding ability) who makes stuff come alive and is the mainstay and support for the bass player whose focus is to put out those simple thumping bass lines, and sing.
3.Get in touch with a driving force kind of real guitar player who is capable of thinking riffs an arpeggios and compositions to drive a 'band'. My only contribution to the project should be limited to lyrics and melody, if at all. I wouldn't even mind being TOLD what to sing with putting my own spin on something that's given to me, and only doing it after it being approved. No playing an instrument and only focus on Vocals, to grow, mature, and be out there as a frontman.
4.The most challenging of them all. Explore my acoustic compositional side. Not necessarily resulting something that I will sing AND play. Write something, lyrical, melodic, or just a semi-complete instrument peace. Get in another guitar player, vocalist, lyricist et al, and have them give you their spin to a point on the piece. Have them sing it, have them work at it, while i oversee, produce the work in a sense...and be the overall master of puppets on the piece, tracks or whatever it does end up becoming.
Between no1.and no.4 there's got to be some inspiration from Steven Wilson somewhere.
These are the 4 roads forward, 4 paths, 4 projects, bands, or what you will. They touch on 4 aspects of Music as is related to me. I guess i want to go down this path because i know, that even when i'm a well paid senior pilot somewhere, I want to be considered an accomplished and knowledgeable musician, more then being considered just a good one.
As always, thoughts, ideas, musings, planning, creation and recreation. Thank you for your time again.
cheers,
The Beast
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