University Times
March 30, 2009
Page 3
Chrisʼ Corner You can ask any musician’s and they will confirm what I am about to tell you. Sometimes, when you are playing music with a group of musicians you reach a point: it’s a feeling, really when everything hits just right. It’s an ecstatic moment when the individual training of each member comes together. And, for a moment, you forget the technical aspects of what you’re doing and you feel your way into the music. Great feeling! Many musicians call it, “hitting a groove.” If you know people who play, ask them about it. You’ll see the smile slowly creep across their face. They’ll use some inadequate words, as I have, to try to describe the emotion. But you might get lucky and feel some of the energy escape from these
Hitting a groove
people. For the non-musician, the best description of the moment I’ve ever heard is in a Paul Simon song, “Late in the Evening,” when Paul (yep, we’re on a first name basis!) sings, “When I came back to the room, everybody just seemed to move and I turned my amp up loud and began to play. It was late in the evening and I blew that room away.” It doesn’t matter whether you’re playing with the Boston Symphony, the Notre Dame Marching Band, REM or a garage band. The feeling is the same. I’m lucky enough to know about this emotion because I had a brief career (if you can call it that) as a drummer of a band called Miss-try. Yeah, we took a considerable amount of kidding about our
name – it was indeed a MYSTERY why we thought we could be a band. I had about as much rhythm as a pile of gravel. But I was the drummer, the rhythmic soul of the band. Needless to say, the band did a lot of soul searching and frequently came up empty -handed. But every once in a while, we ‘d be playing somewhere and we’d hit that groove. And we were no longer five goofy gals from Iowa. Instead, we were musical goddesses, capable of touching people’s hearts and souls with our music. Great feeling! So, why have I gone to all of this trouble to tell you about a feeling that only a musician can feel? Well, because I’ve managed to find a way to experience that feeling outside of music and I think
Dean Chris Corsello
others can, too. Mine comes when I’m working – I guess that’s why I do what I do. It’s happened here at UMPI. Not every day, of course, but often enough that it’s recognizable. All of us lead hectic lives. Sometimes things don’t go as well as we would like – sometimes, we even have what we would call a crisis. It’s not always important what those difficulties are, but what’s happened during them and trying to resolve them. A group of individuals gather their collective training, experience and knowledge and respond and react to each other’s moves in a rhythmic style. Each member has an instrumental (get it?) part to play in resolving the issue. Somewhere in the middle of the issue, I get that feeling.
Everyone knows what everyone else is supposed to be doing. There are moments when an individual rises in a solo effort and we each appropriately play our supporting role. And, as a group, we “hit a groove.” Great feeling! It’s not easy to build a community and work with individuals until you can hit that groove. As a group, that groove allows us to touch the hearts and souls of those who need it. It’s been happening this year. Students, staff and faculty coming together, raising issues, working collaboratively to resolve them – this is hitting a groove. If you haven’t experienced it, I can assure you, it’s a great feeling! In the spirit of the story…ROCK ON!