HELLOOOOOOOOOO!
It's been a while since I last posted anything, but with me, this seems to be a pattern, so let's all live with it, OK? Grrrrrrreat!
I've just had the weirdest dream. I was playing in a band at an important concert and the band comprised old school friends, none of whom are particularly musical. Our performance was due to take place in my old school hall. We had two halls at school. Park Hall, which was posh, and Hertford Hall, which was rather gloomy and had definitely seen better days. This concert was in Hertford Hall. The band decided to play a cover of Herbie Hancock's Chameleon. Now I love the original Headhunters version. It's a timeless performance of a great piece of music and as such, an oft covered track. Walk into any jazz club worth their salt and the chances are you'll hear it performed at some point during the course of an evening. Unfortunately, though it's usually played with great enthusiasm, the interpretations can be dreadful. Disastrous. Despicable! See what I'm doing there, gettin' alliterative and all that!
In the dream, I'd clearly been drafted to play with the band against my better judgement, but had gone along with it anyway - they were friends after all. The hall was packed with an assortment of parents, well wishers, and for reasons perhaps unknown to anyone other than himself, Herbie Hancock. So no pressure then.
Just before we started to play, I asked the key of the song and was told C#. I was playing keyboards and it has to be said, this isn't the easiest of keys for a pianist, but then, I've played keyboard instruments of one sort or another pretty much most of my thirty nine years on this planet. C# is no biggie.
We started to play and...it was just TERRIBLE. The tune was far too fast, so any sense of groove was quickly lost. Also, the keyboard I was playing only had thirty six keys and where I'd started playing the riff was at too high a register. This meant I was splitting an iconic musical motif across two octaves. The first half was played high up on the keyboard, the second half lower down as I had run out of notes in the first register, thus dividing the riff and rendering it a dilute and unrecognisable shadow of its former self. After struggling gamely along for two minutes, I did the most sensible thing I could. I stopped the band and walked off stage.
So I awoke this morning in somewhat agitated state and felt compelled to come and relay this to you. And what does it all mean? A dream theorist would no doubt have a field day, but I think it just means I hate not being prepared for a performance. That, and the fact that there are just too many bad versions of Chameleon being played around the world every day. To remind us all of how it should be done, I'll leave the last word to Herbie.
Nice!
a l e x m o k e
