Erase Hate

This may look like an ordinary fence to anybody. Sure the ribbons and flowers signify a tragedy there…maybe a car crash.

But it wasn’t a car crash.

And yes, someone died here.

And his name was Matthew Shepherd.

This picture, this fence is a universal picture now for change. A boy died there because he was gay. He was brutally beaten because he was gay. He was tied to the poles because he was gay. He was left to die there because he was gay.

This political issue of Gay Rights is very important to me. He’s not the only one to die this way. There is no enforcement of hate crime laws. If there was, why are we still suffering. We. Yes, we. We deserve rights like any normal citizen of this country. I deserve the right to marry, I deserve the right to live in safety like everyone else. Why do I? I bleed, I sneeze, I talk, I walk, I yell, I breathe just like any person of a different race, religion, sexual orientation, and gender. I swear I don’t bleed a different color. I swear I don’t breathe water. I swear that I hurt like everyone, physically and mentally. Medical examinations prove to show that I am human. Why should I be denied a basic human right?

It’s scary, running your whole life. Away from hatred. Away from this:

A little extreme I know. I understand not everyone accepts the way I live and love. It’s just like how we don’t accept certain forms of punishment, how we don’t accept certain taboos. I find it hilarious that there is this huge movement to stop Gay Marriage. Gays will harm the sacredness of marriage. Well, what about all the divorces that happen every year and the number of times people re-marry? Doesn’t that suck away the sacredness of marriage too? It seems to me that is essentially hurting marriage.

People are dying and getting hurt everyday. And it sucks. It sucks to hear from my friends “Oh so and so just got hit by the homophobes. He’s in the hospital.”

Erase Hate. Just erase hate. Hate over race. Hate over gender. Hate over culture. Hate over sexual orientation. Just erase it. I don’t want my kids to grow up, getting beaten up by their peers because they have two mommies. I don’t want kids to grow up like I did, being held to a fence, or running for their lives.

I’m done running. There has to be change. We need to change the world together. You don’t have to agree with my life, but we all must agree on Human Rights. Human Rights. Not just gay rights, not just black rights, not just gender rights…but Human Rights. After all…we all breathe air, and bleed red, and live and die just like everyone else.

Gimme some more of those Green Onions

I’m one of those crazy cats that downloads multiple versions of the same song. I do indeed in my iTunes have several versions of “Watermelon Man” a song that my High School Band and Jazz Band loved to play ( Actually, my jazz group almost got kicked out of an event for that song…it was too “loud.”), two versions of Janis Joplin of “Piece of My Heart” both performed by Janis herself and Melissa Etheridge, about 5 versions of “Chameleon” my personal favorite being by Buddy Rich, 6 versions of Thelonious Monk’s “Round Midnight” which is my personal favorite jazz piece to play, two versions of “Harlem Nocturne” and the song that I am currently listening to: “Green Onions” played by King Curtis on sax.

Now, this song Green Onions holds a very dear space in my heart. It was the first jazz song that I not only learned to play…but feel. It has a very bluesy feel to it. Booker T wrote it, but the version that King Curtis plays is the way we played it when I was a freshman in High School. This song expanded my playing abilities. Here I was at the ripe age of 14, trumpet in hand…completely lost in the up beats of the song. Do you know how hard it was going from playing down beats to playing before the beat? Then the soloing! These cats I played with could play! Maybe I was just awe struck, maybe I was too young, maybe I was just so damn confused…but something inside of me stirred. Sure, the first time I played the piece I totally destroyed the 4th trumpet part. Annoyed looks came my way, I felt embarrassed but soon that feeling, you know that bluesy, jazzy feeling bit me. And it bit me hard. So hard that after 4 years in that Jazz Band, I begged to perform the piece in my final year. I wanted to go out, knowing that I improved on what I was in freshman year.

I will always love “Green Onions” because in a way, it gave me my first break in jazz music. I can honestly remember, standing on stage for my first Jazz Band gig. I was so small, the smallest trumpet player there. I was this scrawny little girl, barely 5’2 standing next to cats who were taller, bigger, and could blow better on any piece of music. My best friend in that band happened to be a 6 foot tall trombone playing girl, so you could just imagine the size difference when we stood next to each other, analyzing music. I can clearly remember her telling me

“MB, just relax…let it take care of you.” I can also remember her saying

“You got any problems with the rhythms you just come to me…let me take care of you.”

With these words of wisdom of my tall, trombone blasting Kate, I let the music take care of me. I let “Green Onions” take care of me. So now you had this scrawny, barely 5’2 trumpet playing girl bobbing and dancing to the music on the platforms that we trumpet cats had to stand on. Once I let Christina on guitar lead me with her up beats, I was a jazz playing, non stopping trumpet playing gal. And I haven’t stop to this very day.

So yes, I’m one of those crazy cats who downloads several versions of a song because I want to learn, and I want to compare. And I’m always looking for that version that brings me back to my early days of playing, to the days of my freshman Jazz Band. Those cats were the meanest playing cats I’ve met in my life. And King Curtis’ “Green Onions” never fails to bring me back, smiling like a scrawny, barely 5’2 trumpet playing cat.

My Pet Peeve

I hate how music is being taught nowadays. Children aren’t being taught the proper way to tune their instruments and it’s annoying. These kids get up there twice a year to perform for their parents and parents have to sit there through a painful experience of screeching out of tune music. The chords clash horribly even if the kids are hitting the right notes. I mean Hot Cross Buns which the first song any young musician learns is 3 notes. But those notes all sound different because they’re not in tune. Being in tune is probably the basic key to playing music. Any one of us has sat at a play or performance, completely excited and the moment the person opened up their mouth…it came out flat or sharp…leaving us cringing in our seats! I just had that experience while attending Les Miserables, which happens to be my favorite musical of all time. The woman who played Fatine completely destroyed the song. She sounded like a frog gasping for air as she tried to hit the high notes that resulted in being completely out of tune.

Music teachers are not teaching properly. The first lesson after learning the first scale should be proper tuning. Once the child has the sounds of a scale in his/her mind, the teacher must hammer those sounds…tones…intervals…whatever you choose to call them…into the child’s head so they become close friends with them. There are tuners under 25 dollars at any given music store that are used to aide any musician in learning the proper tone to tune their instruments. Then there is the metronome. One thing I wish I learned to use as a child musician. The metronome is a tool used by any musician…even dancers to keep the time or beat if you prefer. Again, you can find them anywhere under 20 bucks. There are the fancy old ones where the stick moves back and forth and there are modern ones where you press a button and the pace is set for your practicing pleasure. The next thing that makes all of us cringe after hearing an out of tune instrument is one that is constantly behind or ahead of the rest of the band. These tuners may be seen as the cure all to tuning, and then you get those naggers who say “But now they won’t learn how to tune by ear.” Well after working with my tuner for the past 5 years I can pretty much identify the tones I need to tune my guitar and trumpet. Tuning by ear is needed in a symphonic/jazz ensemble. A person you know who is perfectly in tune (or a tuned piano is the alternative tuning device) plays a note and everyone in the band tunes along with it…playing their home note and fiddling with parts on their instrument until they are satisfied that their instrument sounds like the tuning note. Between my handy dandy tune and years of an ensemble setting, I cured my lack of tuning knowledge in my early years.

Now…how about…teaching kids to play in tune and time at a very young age?? It’s like teaching a child a different language. We as children as smarter than as we age…because our brains are putty made to mold and squish. We pick up things quicker in our youth. So if we taught tuning and playing in time in the first year of playing instead of just…bypassing it until high school we may just be onto something.