Tonight, October 8, I’ll play on the party bus for the art walk in downtown LA. That’s at 8pm.
Tomorrow I’ll do happy hour at Cinema Bar, basically 7-8:30. With luck I’ll have a cool drummer girl playing along on tin can and wooden spoons.
I have also picked up a regular gig at the hospital. It’s a profound experience. Here’s an email I got from an organizer:
The kids are mainly non-responsive. They have been born with birth defects or have been in a horrific accident. A lot of the kids are in bed in a fetal position, but a lot are able to sit in wheelchairs. Studies have shown that music touches these children in a way that we cannot monitor or we hope that is does. When you see the smiles on their faces you will know that you are reaching them. It is a hard place at first, but once you see what you are providing them, you will love it.
I admire that you took on this hospital gig. Lately I see folks use the word “privilege” in regard to linguistic bias. A study about chess “privileges” attack and risk-taking over sound positional play, for example. A recent article in a magazine talks about how schools now “privilege’ math and science.
I think lately about a different set of privileges than the ones in those examples. I think how we ‘privilege’ the concert experience and the paying customer. This is natural, as money is a reasonable basis of valuation in a culture which ascribes material goods to those who can generate money.
Yet there is something important, I think, in sharing music outside this “money” thing. I think you’ve hit on part of that importance here, with this volunteer work.
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