Musician
Time
Theoretical
question: You're waiting for
your band to arrive so you
can all head out for a long
ride to a big show in a city
several hours away. The plan
was to meet at 6PM. It's now
6:30 and you've heard from
no one. Should you worry?
The
answer: Of course not! It's
only been half an hour. They're
right on time.... musician
time.
Musicians,
on the whole, seem to run
on a different schedule. It's
not so much that we're always
late, although it probably
seems that way if you're a
non-musician waiting for us
to show up somewhere. It's
more a matter of our entire
time reality being shifted
by 'x' number of minutes,
where 'x' is a constant number
unique to each individual
musician on any given day.
Say,
for example, that my current
'x' factor is 20 minutes.
If I have a three o'clock
appointment, no matter what
I do, I will arrive at 3:20.
Now here's the interesting
part: if I was scheduled to
leave the appointment by 4,
something will happen and
I won't leave until 4:20.
If I was then supposed to
play a gig at 6PM, I won't
start until 6:20. If I planned
to be home by 1AM, I'll get
there at 1:20. It works that
way all day - I am consistently
behind coming and going by
whatever the constant 'x'
is.
Of
course, like most constants
in a musician's life, it is
subject to frequent change.
One whole day might have a
constant of twenty minutes.
Other days might be 7. In
extreme cases, there are some
musicians whose 'x' factors
run in the hours. Those are
the ones who NEED to become
famous because, as everyone
knows, all famous people run
late.
The
biggest problem is dealing
with GROUPS of musicians.
By some strange phenomenon,
when you bring together a
group of musicians each with
their one 'x' factor, the
traditional laws of mathematics
don't apply. 'X' factors in
this situation behave in strange
ways.
Theoretically,
if you had three musicians,
one with an 'x' factor of
10, one with a factor of 15
and one with a factor of 20,
and you told them all to arrive
at 3PM, by 3:20PM you would
have them all, one having
arrived at 3:10, one at 3:15
and the last at 3:20.
Not
true. Although currently being
researched by a team of theoretical
mathematicians at Harvard,
the musicians will collectively
show up at 3:45, presumably
having run into each other
at a 7-Eleven while picking
up coffee and smokes. Not
only that, but they will have
to stop back at the same 7-Eleven
on the way TO the show because
although each made their purchases
separately, none of them thought
to get matches.
Only
a musician ALREADY arriving
half an hour late could say
in all seriousness "I would
have stopped to get THAT but
I didn't want to be late."
Put
a group of musicians into
a recording studio and THEN
you've got some serious time
shifting. Recording studios,
in general, are the black
holes of the musician's universe.
Time AND your record contract
advance get sucked into the
vortex of a recording studio
and before you know it, 18
hours fly by like it was the
time between meals. Well,
once you get them there.
Even
at the best studios, where
the musicians LIVE no more
that 50 yards from the studio,
getting enough of them together
in the same place long enough
to start work becomes a challenge.
'X' factors multiply and an
11 AM sharp start becomes
two of the musicians having
coffee. Noon a third wakes
up and grabs a breakfast while
the other two get stoned.
By 2PM, the producer is up
looking for coffee and breakfast
while the first two musicians
have gone for a walk. 4PM
finds the producer "heading"
to the studio after making
"just a few calls." At 5PM
he's ready, but no one has
seen the first two musicians
since breakfast and since
it's their parts that need
overdubs.... The third musician
goes to find them and the
first two show back up at
6:30PM... WITHOUT the third.
By 7PM, they're ready to record.
Meanwhile,
the Engineer and Assistant
Engineer who admittedly arrived
30 minutes late that morning
because of their OWN 'x' factors,
have been patiently waiting
all day.
So
when the band is half an hour
late showing up to head out
on that road trip, there's
no need to worry. Just blame
it on musician time. And don't
worry about the club either
- chances are they're used
to musicians and told you
to arrive an hour earlier
than they needed you.
Hey
- we're musicians. We're not
stupid.
This
column © 2001 Lee Totten
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