Resonance

That's a bit of a catch-all word for me. I guess that's my way of saying I think I use it too much.

I use it to say that something has meaning to me, that it in some way moves me. With my musical bent and all, the fact that it's analogous to "vibration" makes it useful.

***

The 80s offended me. I'm chuckling as I write this.

From age 12, whether things were good or bad, I played guitar. I had lessons here and there, figured stuff out on my own, whether intentionally or by accident. Then, like now, I didn't have much use for television. More often than not I'd be in my bedroom, making every sound I could conjure on whatever guitar I happened to have in my hands at the time. A stepdad taught me E major, A major, and B seventh, three of the most basic rock 'n' roll/blues chords. To this day that B seventh is a bitch to play, so I substitute a B ninth, which has a jazzier feel and is easier with this crooked ring finger.

But as often as not, what comforted me about the instrument was the resonance. I'd often play an electric guitar unplugged (though not often enough for my long-suffering father and sister). I could feel the notes on and in me. I'd hammer out a chord I knew and experiment with putting my fingers in new places, feeling the mood each one conjured.

So yeah, suddenly popular music tried to give up on the guitar. Here I was embracing this very physical, still-organic way of producing music (amplified or not), and all the Flock of Haircuts bands started basing their music on synthesizers. The nerve! The sounds weren't from vibrating sources at all, but microchips. All of the feeling was missing.

Music saved me. The music I crafted with my hands was my therapy. I'd grown up with sounds and tones from CCR, BB King, Led Zeppelin, Simon and Garfunkel. It hurt when popular music abandoned me. I had to dig deeper to seek out sounds within which I could breathe, relax.

***

We're mostly made of water, right? I guess this is common knowledge. Or maybe it's urban myth. I bet it's pretty accurate.

A few years ago a shrink dragged out this photo book. A Japanese scholar had studied the way music affects water particles.

The shrink showed me the photos, blown-up images of how the particles resonated in reaction to different types of music. Most types were pleasing to the eye in some way, with patterns or symmetry or some other detectable grace.

Then she showed me the photo of the water particles in obvious disarray, moving in no discernible pattern. They were blurred, almost damaged-looking. Compared to the particles in the other photos, they looked downright awful.

This was heavy metal.

I'd told her how I liked to go to loud, angry concerts, even alone, and just absorb the bigness of it all, just lose myself in the bombast and the volume.

Look at what you're doing to yourself, she told me. Her point was that resonance of that sort can't be good for me.

***

I've got this book on my shelf called Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion by Carol Tavris. It was the recommendation of another shrink. And it's all about how there is a place for anger, and how there are certainly healthy, valid, useful ways of expressing it.

I think that sometimes the music of my choice is one of those ways. Pictures be damned, it resonates with me in a pleasing way.

***

I used to be bad about getting into trouble when I was by myself. Like any young man, I certainly pulled any number of boneheaded stunts with my buddies, okay. But it was by myself when I'd follow some whim I might not even bring up in the company of the guys. I'd go into the worst dives of all sorts by myself. More than once I ended up in altercations in those places, getting out by sheer force of attitude or luck. Bouncers, invasive strangers, poison girls.

And it's like I'd feel this vibration in me when I was alone. I'd feel some sense of possibility, though too often I steered towards misbehaving. I lived, I learned.

I still feel it. I feel it when I'm in the library. Is that strange? All of that possibility almost overwhelms me. Think an electric guitar has a profound effect? I'd like to see an image of how merely standing in a library resonates with me. That may not make a damn bit of sense.

I don't do those bad things anymore. Last summer in Austin, I swam alone in a pool at night, feeling that sense of... something. Feeling that desire. I knew that voice. I recognized what it was, but I just swam, back and forth, watching the night sky and letting the possibilities run through my mind. But that was all.

And here I am today, alone in the house as MOBB has taken the kids to Corsicana to my mother-in-law's.

(It's 90 minutes by broom... I love that joke).

Wolfboy will stay the week there.

I have the day to myself, and the moment they left I felt it.

Go!

Do!

Move!

Don't!

Up!

Engage!

Disengage!



I picked up my acoustic guitar and picked a few tunes, feeling the resonance of the mohagany against me, losing myself in the sounds and the words. The songs I play the most have some lyrical meaning to me:

A friend of the devil is a friend of mine

or

I know you've been wondering what's gonna happen. Times like these are blood and metal

or

There's nothing unwavering as a woman, when she's already made up her mind

... and so on.

So I played, and let the strings vibrate, feeling the sounds as well as hearing them. I'd put a finger here or there, thinking about what the sounds meant.

And the sounds led me here, and from here I will stand and greet the day. I will behave, and I will revel in the sunshine, and in the meaning I find today, even if, after all of this, I have not found the words for it.