I’ll make time.
What a notion for us tiny gods!
What a promise!
To plop a raindrop in the sea,
call it a contribution.
Those moments of oneness
are when time is no longer
a rushing river, rather
more a lake or ocean.
Aspiring to music,
I carve time into chunks.
Capture. Control.
Shake them around a bit.
Drop some Detroit Swing.
Only making noise that is
tantamount to silence,
tantamount to streams.
Memory is
a triumph against time.
Or, depending, a reminder
time is at all.
Recently I said “I’ll make time” aloud to someone and, only in hindsight, was taken aback by the magnitude of the phrase. It’s so casual, yet such an ambitious thing to assume … that one could ever make time.
This, naturally, got me spiraling on the subject of time. I’ve been grappling more and more with the notions of linear time and cyclical time. How cyclical time tends to be more associated with things like regenerative action and sustainability and linear time is more associated with progress and, likely, western thought. “Make time” definitely falls into the latter.
Also, read a book called Uncommon Measure by aspiring violinist turned author Natalie Hodges (good summary of some highlights on The Marginalian, formerly Brainpickings). This book plays with the idea of how music relates to, notates and bottles time. Some beautiful thoughts in there!
Here’s an example of some Detroit Swing (or drunk funk) - it’s a beat production style largely made popular by a producer named J-Dilla and emphasizes swinging certain beats and not others which results in this kind of interesting feel of warped time. Forwards and backwards at the same … time. (Ugh.)
BONUS: One of my favorite podcast moments is where the drummer Questlove shows how he did learned this style of drumming for D’Angelo. Give it a listen if you have 5-ish minutes. Start around minute 1:30 to … save time. (AHH it’s everywhere!)