Living Life on the Off-Beat

Last night I had the opportunity to listen to a talented jazz trio. I know, not everyone appreciates jazz, but I have learned to love it! Three gentlemen played the piano, stand-up bass and electric guitar. Listening to them play I was impressed by how the notes they were playing seemed to dance around one another. Their emphasis on the off-beats and their complex harmonies had the audience toe-tapping and head-bobbing throughout the evening. 

Now reflecting on their music, I see comparisons to the human experience. Perhaps we live our lives like musicians playing our notes together. Some choose to play in rhyme and in time with one another, never varying to harmonize, build to a crescendo or still to a hush. The songs they create are melodic with predictable points of arrival and there is seldom any discord for the notes that are played are all the same. In life, they choose the safe and predictable. In groups they seem like a row of suburban houses – cookie cutter; no one home daring to sport bright paint. They sport the same tastes in clothes, cars and politics. They paint by number and color in the lines. 

Others seem to live life on the off-beat. They play both to blend and to harmonize and sometimes they seem to pick the notes from thin air. Their time signatures vary and they bounce their music back and forth between others to share their solo talent. Sometimes their tunes carry a temporary dissonance, but in coming together new chords are formed and the whole of the song is definitely greater than the sum of its parts. In life, they bring their own unique ideas, thoughts and beliefs to the picture. They own their religion and politics, and challenge others with fresh approaches. 

Not everyone likes the improvisation of jazz. Not everyone is comfortable with the off-beat. Someone wrote on Quora.com. “My mind is wired for order, symmetry, balance, and anticipated repetition. When I listen to jazz, it violates all of those things…. It makes me uncomfortable and nervous.” So perhaps, it’s only some of us who crave to hear notes, not played directly but inferred. And perhaps in living life on the off-beat we make others uncomfortable and nervous – I’m not sure. I only feel certain it is my path to play this way.