Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Effort


"...'Cause I’m a cowboy, on a steel horse I ride, and I’m wanted…wanted, dead or alive…I’ve seen a million faces, and I’ve rocked them all."
In a famous monster ballad from the eighties, Bon Jovi declares rock n’roll triumph. In a moment of time, he was the king of a legion of fans.
But it’s the slightly high pitch voice of a little boy who’s singing today, the old song brought to his attention by music-oriented video games. He’s open enough to sing in front of his older brother and thankfully the judges of American Idol aren’t there to comment on the vocals; but I was…and it was horrible.
To be able to put every ounce of attention, emotion, and effort into every note of a song creates MUSIC. I saw a little boy slouched on the couch, holding the microphone up on his stomach, reading the lyrics off the TV screen, and that’s how it sounded.
He sounded dead, flat, and uninspired. It was as much effort as he might spend kicking off his muddy boots.
As my beautiful friend says, "anything worth doing, is worth doing right." This goes for singing karaoke, washing dishes, brushing your teeth or a thousand other activities. To do anything well, one must put in effort.
The result will probably not be perfection, but it will be a thousand times better than with none. Glasses will be clearer, teeth will be cleaner and notes will have a better chance of being hit. Intention is good, it’s a first step, the boy wanted to sing; but intention needs to be followed by effort, it’s what carries intent into a state of action.
Heart-full action can be felt, it has a quality that is alive, vibrating and full of energy.

1 comment:

William said...

I didn't know that was Bon Jovi, was guessing Beck. I knew there was something wrong with pop music recently , couldn't (didn't want to) put my finger on it.

nice garden , nice wrinting

cheers

-s14