Jammin’ with the Angels

Sorry, still back at the beginning.

And God said, “Let us make man in our image, as our likeness. They shall rule over…”

The obvious question is; What’s this, let “us” make man?

According to Rashi, God is consulting with angels. I don’t pretend to really get what is meant by, angels, but they do seem to refer to forces that/who are instructed to carry out certain functions without a whole lot of free choice in the matter.

God, on the other hand, running the show, wouldn’t really need to have a consultation on how to do things.

But for some reason it is, “let us make man in our image and our likeness”.

For whatever reason, I thought of possibilities within the framework of playing music.

Someone writes a piece of classical music. There is a score for that piece and probable a conductor. And as a musician, my job is to follow the score as well as the conductor. I don’t have much room for personal interpretation. I’m there to follow the rules. I have a role. The composer and the conductor, to a lesser degree, are the ones with creative license.

I can also be the type of musician who is doing my own thing. I don’t have a pre-existing score to follow. I might be creating as I play. Something new might be emerging from me that maybe I’ll write down to save, as a composer would, and maybe not. But in this scenario, I’m a creator, not the one mechanically playing a role and following someone else’s rules.

There is a third type of playing.

Most music has a basic chord structure. These are intervals of time, filled with a basic group of notes, which fit within the overall key of the song. Think of notes as letters, chords as words, lines as sentences… within the paragraph of the song.

With jazz music, there is a set melody line that flows through the chord structure. After the melody line is played note for note as it was originally written, the musician then improvises within the chord structure that the composer organized.

This music does follow a set chord progression, and, because the musician is improvising in the moment, it is very alive, spontaneous and creative. The musician does have to know the melody, he or she does have to know, and follow the chord structure, and they need to listen to the other musicians who are also following the same chord structure. The musician has free choice, to be creative within the framework that the composer set out. This type of musician does not just do what he or she wants. And, he or she is also not the rule/role type of guy.

There needs to be a balance here…

Musicians can, after all, improvise right off the track. They can ignore the intention of the composer. They can forget where the melody began and where it’s going. They can ignore their own playing or the guy playing next to them. Allowing these musicians free choice does have its risks.

On the other hand to never stray from the original, written-down, song structure doesn’t do much for one’s creative juices. And I suppose that “works” and can be “nice”.

So that’s what I thought of when I was learning this; “let us make man in our image”.

That’s who we are.

We’re not here to be just angels.

We’re also not here to just do our own thing.

We do have to know the score.

But be creative.

And play.

Have a great Shabbos,

Simcha Frischling

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