connections...

learning a new language is wierd.

you start out great...everything is new--every conversation that you have is fun...it is like a game. you have something that they dont--information to process, a need, a question; and they try to pry it from the depths of your mind.

you think you are speaking french because they speak back to you...


and then you get real.


you realize that mostly everything you say is with a foreign accent. a heavy foreign accent. it is like a sickness--you can not communicate with anyone without a "quoi" or a "eh" or them trying to speak english to you. yesterday, i hit this point. the point where it felt like i was hitting my head against a concrete wall countless times.

but then i realized

speaking a new language...learning a new language...becoming fluent in a foreign language...

is like learning how to improv in jazz.

for years you sit in your classroom, learning how to play your instrument. in the beginning, you wonder why on earth do i need to know how to play an a#min scale (for the musicians out there...i am laughing at the concept of a#...i know my music, dont worry). why you need to learn the different frames, modes, tendencies, and other things is confusing, i mean, you will never need to use it in the real world...

until you are on the stage...with your first solo in hand, with something that looks like egyptian heiroglyphics in front of you. you hit the brick wall that is music theory. and you suck it up. but dont worry...

it happens to everybody.

going along with the metaphor...

i have done my scales countless times. i have transcribed charlie parker, coltrane, watrous, miles davis. i have listened until my eardrums have bled...

and each try i dont succeed, i become one try closer to succeeding....


it seems as if the pattern of infusion within a culture is...two steps forward, on step back...

two steps closer to being a frenchie...

one step back to being un "ah mere i kayne"


aller prochain,

Spence