Musicians Are Weird

I spend most of my time with non-musicians these days so it occurs to me from time to time just how weird musicians are, compared to non-musicians at least. A friend and neighbor called me asking to borrow a hammer the other day and when she came over for it I said, "now you have to sing the song!" She gave me the oddest look: "song?" "Yes, you have to sing "If I had a hammer."

And aren't those the weirdest lyrics? Hammer out love? But yes, that is the first thing that comes to my mind if someone wants to borrow a hammer. Musicians are weird.

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I got to thinking this because of this item over at Slipped Disc:

Classical percussionist Alan Drever-Smith, from Kingston upon Hull, called the taxman. Like everyone else, he was left listening to the music.

For forty minutes.

‘Spent so long on hold today that I transcribed it before they picked up,’ he wrote.

Now he’s famous. More than 800 people have shared Alan’s transcription and the Telegraph have picked up the story.

Maybe he’ll get a tax rebate.

Here is the transcription:

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How do musicians get in touch with their feelings? It's easy. As we always have music churning around somewhere in our brains we just have to listen. If I find myself humming "Everything Is Beautiful" then I am probably in a good mood:

Humming "Don't Let Me Down" is a whole different story:

Your milage may vary.

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The "musicians are weird" story may help to explain why conversations with percussionists and drummers are so unfulfilling. Now, unfortunately I can't find the right clip, so this will have to do:

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Perhaps the best satire on musicians and their quirks is the movie Spinal Tap. Here is the famous scene where Nigel explains why he has an amp that goes to 11:

Musicians and Telephones

Musicians have an unusual relationship with telephones, one that I first noticed early on when I was a classical guitar student. The first teacher I had who was a real classical guitarist was a Dutch fellow who lived in Vancouver but had studied in Spain. Whenever I would call him on the phone, he would answer very curtly: "Hello?" I wish I had a good orthography for it! Just think of the tone of voice of someone in a bad mood. As soon as I identified myself his demeanor would change completely: "oh, hi Bryan" and he would be quite cheerful. It wasn't me he hated, it was the telephone, or rather, the interruption caused by the telephone.

When you call a musician on the phone there is about a 30% chance that they are practicing and will find the interruption to be very annoying. Hence the brusque way of answering the phone. I have been known to shout out a string of curses upon hearing the phone ring. I then suppress this and try and answer in a pleasant manner. I read a study done by a British university a while ago that stated that if you are working in an interrupt-driven environment it is actually worse than being under the influence of marijuana--that is, you lose about ten points off your IQ.

Classical musicians are one of those groups whose work can only be done in a certain environment: one that is utterly silent and free of interruption. You have to be able to concentrate for fairly long spans of time, typically thirty to fifty minutes. You also need to take occasional breaks. For this reason, in order to work at your maximum potential, you need the whole day to practice for perhaps five hours. Scholars and scientists have similar requirements. I recall Jordan Peterson mentioning in a video that he could only read for two or two and a half hours at a time. Of course he is not reading a newspaper or magazine: he is probably reading Nietzsche or Jung.

Doing any of this kind of work: tight focus on the sound, phrasing and articulation of the piece you are practicing, or close attention to not only what the writer is saying, but what might be implied, all this demands total concentration. At first you might not be able to keep it up for more than ten minutes at a time. If your attention is wandering, it is best to stop and take a break. But over time you can increase it to twenty minutes, thirty minutes, perhaps even an hour. After all, there are classical compositions that are twenty or thirty minutes long for guitar and even an hour long for piano.

So the next time you phone a musician and he seems to answer a bit curtly, just bear in mind that he might have been playing Bach...