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| bats bum |
I'm cheating just a little bit today. To be honest with you (which I do try to be, even though I'm not entirely sure who you are, or why you're interested), I didn't actually take this photo. But it was taken today, (by Anna) so I think it's close enough for jazz...
Speaking of which (ok, I know we weren't really speaking of jazz, but please bear with me on this, it could be worth it...), there's a saying amongst students of jazz, particularly those who play guitar;
"Whichever note you play, you're only 1 fret away from a good one."
For instance, if you are in the Key of C major (for simplicity's sake), then all of the notes are drawn from the C major scale, which consists of;
C D EF G A BC
The spaces represent the notes that sit between the scale tones.
The idea is that as a guitarist, if you just put your finger on any fret on any string and play the note, it won't always be one of the concordant, pleasant sounding notes. Five of the twelve possible notes you can play will sound discordant, and unpleasant - the traditional "bum note".
Guitarists are very afraid of bum notes!
But if you look at the spaces in the scale above, you'll notice that whichever one you pick, the note either side is "good" - it's a scale tone.
Practically, this means that if you hit a bum note, then you can immediately slide either up or down one fret, and the note you thus land on will be good.
Psychologically, this can be quite a liberating trick.
Much of musical performance is in the mind, as is true of sports, and also climbing.
There's a formula that describes this quite succinctly (which, going by past record, is pretty much definitely more than I'm going to be able to manage...);
p = P - i
where p = performance, P = Potential, and i = interference.
This is saying that your actual performance (musical, sporting or otherwise) will be equal to your best possible performance, minus anything that is preventing you from performing at your peak. Much of this interference is internal - the voice in your head.
Your potential might be level ten, but your internal voice whispers in your ear about how it's that difficult bit coming up, or the lights are bright, or reminding you that there are lots of people watching, and essentially talks you down to performing at a level six.
The instinctive and most obvious approach to improving performance is to improve potential - if I train or practice so that my potential is now level eleven, then my performance could rise to a level seven!
However, logic dictates that I could take a more subtle, effective approach - reduce the interference, and maybe perform at a level eight or nine - without improving my potential at all!
This little phrase functions in this way - it helps to quieten the anxious voice in your head that prevents the music from flowing properly...reducing interference, and consequently boosting performance. It gives the player the confidence to take risks, to worry less about hitting a bum note, knowing there's always an easy escape route...
However, I actually prefer a more-accurate-but-marginally-more-cynical version of the phrase;
"Whichever note you play, you're only one fret away from another one!"
None of which helps this poor little dessicated bat. He's a young pup, and was probably out learning to fly. He ended up popping his clogs (with his backwards feet), probably as a result of losing his mother, or her failing him in some way, before he was old enough to support himself.
And it seems like his grave (between the ceiling joists in a pub in Leicestershire) was nice and dry and ensured that he hasn't decayed since he died.
I did a bat survey at this pub with Anna last Summer (do you see what I did last Summer, again?), and once the bats started to emerge from the roost at around 10 in the evening, there was a steady stream of them leaving for quite a while. We were trying to count them, and reckoned around 150 flew past us.
That was my best bat survey experience...usually, they're a bit dull, to be honest...
Sorry, babe...but this one was good!
:-)
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