Each morning I pull my bike through the door, park it against the wall next to the surprisingly healthy house plant and make my way up the elderly wooden steps. They creak and grumble under my feet in protest of my waking them up so early. I open the door, followed by the window, to let some early morning air stir the lethargic pot of the TLO studio.
Backpack emptied, computer removed and then… ear buds out. As I sit at my desk to begin the days tasks, the music from the gym below somehow slithers through the pores of the wooden floor and breaches the solitude of the room. But not all the music… just the bass. No lyrics, no synthesizers, no annoying 32nd note computerized high hats that the kids love so much nowadays… just the bass tones. The kick drum rhythm and the bass… the rhythm section. What gets through the floor boards, the walls, the insulation and the soundproofing is… the bass, the foundation upon which the song is resting on.
The “truth” of the music is in the rhythm section. Any musician will tell you that if your rhythm section sucks, then so does your band. It doesn’t matter how good your guitar player is or if your singer can do all kinds of runs, if your rhythm ain’t there… nope. We’re no different. Our rhythm section is our truth, what’s deep down underneath. You could feel awful deep down inside and put on a big smile but your “bass” will still bleed though the floor. “Put on a brave face” may be your awesome “guitar player” but if your bass is still unhappy or scared it will still be heard through the walls. Sometimes we can’t change our bass notes and that’s fine. They’re not all gonna be #1 with a bullet. We gotta let the song play though sometimes. But… sometimes we can change our rhythm section.
We can change our bass tone, the one that everyone hears through the walls we put up. My bass notes like to change to anger sometimes and I can feel them pulsating with that “four on the floor” pounding like a freaking old school ecstasy rave in my heart, glow sticks and all( my skin just crawled a little). Yeah, yeah I know, a yoga teacher who get’s angry more than he’d like?… impossible! Clutch the pearls! (I’m working on it) I’ve begun the practice of changing that “tone” immediately when I feel it now. I change the default bass tone to an alternative. From the Rage Rave© to Kenny G. The second I feel the rave beat start to fire up I change the bass tone to kindness and let the tranquil tones of Kenny’s sax be heard out in the street. It’s not always an easy task but 100% of the time it feels better than the rave.
Other people can feel us. It doesn’t have to be about what we say all the time because that’s heard, the bass is felt. Deaf people can still feel the bass. We all have a rhythm section deep inside playing our truth. So if you want to be heard in a different way… change your bass. The neighbors may stop complaining.
