Just went the other day to a musical instruments store to check out the bass guitars. I was having fun over there – just sitting there, surrounded by plenty of guitars, observing different features of various models, testing the guitars by playing some standard tunes – it was wonderful.
After spending may be about 20 minutes in the above fashion, there walked a boy with his father in the store. This boy must be some 18-19 years old or may be in the early 20's, with his father being may be in his late 40’s. Initially both of them were checking out some mikes and amplifiers. The father was singing some short & random lines to check the quality of the sound equipment. Well, I was sort of in the mood of some blues and kept on playing whatever I was playing on the bass guitar.
But guess what, that boy turned out to be a quite good pianist. He simply started playing some blues/jazz tune on a keyboard kept nearby. Now suddenly my mental sensors started becoming more and more alert. Well, I was sitting in a way where my back was towards him, but I started to play the bass notes which were either more or less close to what he was playing or sort of in harmony with his tune.
Two minutes passed like this and I gave a quick glance behind to know what exactly was going on. As expected, even he had realized that we both were jamming with each other without even mentioning the musical ideas verbally. We continued to jam for may be 5-10 minutes more or so, and finished that spontaneous piece of blues/jazz music on a correct beat, quite coordinated with each other.
To others, that may have been just some usual checking of musical instruments. But I think we both felt the kind of non-verbal connection only two musicians can feel. It was something like we were saying to each other: “Not bad, huh! You are quite alright too. Well, nice to meet you.” Moments like these, it just feels so damn wonderful to be a musician! I am sure you all must have had such incidences with respect to your own passions some time or the other.
I went about my usual business as soon as I got out of the shop. But it feels nice to meet some random fellow musician like that boy and have a tiny & impromptu musical concert in front of an audience of about 3-4 friends.
Well, now that’s not too bad, is it? :)
Excellent post Alok. Unfortunately I cannot relate to it in the same way you did, but I get it.
ReplyDeleteYou've described it pretty well.
Good to see the musician living on and loving it. Keep it up. Up there in D major. :)
ReplyDelete