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Category: Jason’s Journal Entries

  • “Did you draw those yourself?”

    “Did you draw those yourself?”

    I’ve been looking into some of my limiting beliefs about both my ability to create art and about how we all create art in general. This memory – a mix of good and bad feelings – is prominent enough that I think about it often.

    In the 3rd grade I read a book called Dominic, by William Steig. I don’t remember much about it, except that I really, really liked it.  Turns out, it’s a book about a dog who kind of hits the road. That the book resonated so much is interesting in and of itself, considering how my life has taken shape.

    We made diorama for the book we were reading.  It was during this process that my dad showed me how I could draw a graph over a drawing and then draw the same graph on another piece of paper and use it to copy the original.  

    I drew a bunch of the books’ characters that way and handed in my diorama. I was thrilled that I could replicate the characters in a way that made the diorama look like a pop-up version of the book.

    I remember very strongly that the teacher asked, “Did you draw those yourself?”  I remember that she seemed skeptical when I answered yes; like she thought I was lying. I don’t want this to be the story of an evil adult squashing my creativity.  I liked this teacher, and she liked me. Looking back, I assume she was surprised at what I had made because I had probably never made something that looked like that before.  

    Why does this memory, of all the moments, stick so strongly in my mind? It’s strong enough that I’ve thought about it many, many times over 35 years. This memory has affected choices I’ve made a beliefs I have about what tools I am “allowed” to use when I create art and how much I can say that a piece of work is mine. That, “Yes, I made this.”

    How will this story change now that I’ve brought it out into the light?

  • Cheers to the Sound Engineers!

    Cheers to the Sound Engineers!

    I spent the day working on “social distance sound”; both my own and others’. I run in a community of educators and teachers who, like many people in the country, have been thrown into a world of having to have what amounts to a television studio in their apartments. We’re all grabbing all the equipment we’ve gathered over the years and we’re trying to make a go of it as best as we can. It’s been a couple weeks of experimenting with mic placement, charging and recharging our phones, moving lamps around our apartments, turning off radiators and covering windows with bedsheets to gain some control of the audio and visual of online music education and concerts.

    All this work has got my mind on all of the sound engineers that I’ve worked with over the years, including one in particular; my friend Dave Unger.

    About four years into our journey, the Young Stracke All-Stars (my youth folk band) was really cookin’ and we started to get some high profile gigs. And the people that were asking us to play, wanted to hear our music! We’d spent four years cutting our teeth playing small venues like the Lincoln Restaurant where we didn’t need amplification.

    But, with the introduction of better gigs came the need to use a sound system properly.

    With that in mind the great Chicago sound engineer ,Dave Unger, to lend us a hand. I made a vocabulary list (with a crossword puzzle!) and some drawings, the band invited some friends and Dave spent the afternoon helping us understand how mics, amplifiers and mixing boards work.

    Live Sound for Young Musicians Workshop – Apri 22, 2012

    It was a very fruitful day! Over the next 7 years of the band’s travels we never had another proper Live Sound workshop, the band members who received this training were able to train the following generation. And those members were able to pass it along to the next members and on we went!

    So, I write all of this just to say cheers to Dave and cheers to all the sound engineers who also got the rug pulled out from under them in this challenging situation. Us musicians already knew that you had a big job and a lot of expertise and now it’s even more clear. We’re stuck at home without you, and our sound suffers for it. I think I can speak for pretty much every musician I know when I say that we’ll all be too happy to put some of this work back in your capable hands.

  • Why do you play video games? Why do you play music? Why make art?

    Why do you play video games? Why do you play music? Why make art?

    Imaginary World Podcast is one of my very favorite podcasts.

    This week’s episode, Fighting a Virtual Pandemic (embedded at the bottom), is all our actual pandemic as it relates to a video game called World of Warcraft.

    I don’t really play video games, but I still find the episodes about video games so interesting.

    There is a moment at about 17:80 when the interviewee, Virginia Wilkerson, talks about the different reasons people play video games. She says,

    People live life for different reasons and people play video games for many different reasons. I’m sort of like a skill and achievement-based player. I want to be the best in my class that I can be. And then there are people who play purely for social reasons that aren’t interested in going to the high level raids and really maxing out their characters. And then you have a small subset of people who play just for the economics of the auction house in World of Warcraft. And then you have lots of people who play for the roll playing. Like it’s Dungeons and Dragons or something similar to that.

    Here description of the 4 reasons people play video games caught my attention.

    1. Skill and Achievement
    2. Social
    3. Money
    4. Role Playing/Character (which I would call emotion)

    I see those four facets in my own reasons for playing music. It made me pause and think about how I relate to those aspects of playing.

    • For skill and achievement, I do like to do my best, and be known as someone with a high level of skill. But, I don’t go out of my way to be the best player or something. I play to my abilities and standards, and I don’t worry about music else.
    • I do play music for the social interactions to be sure. I think that is why I excelled within a musical community like the Old Town School of Folk Music, which puts a high value on the social aspect of music.
    • I’ve built a career out of teaching music, so I can’t escape the financial aspect of it. Getting paid to make music allows me to make more music.
    • And, I do think that I have a character when I’m playing. I LOVE to be on stage and I love to put my limited acting range into the music I play. For me, this is where the emotion of my music comes out. I don’t have a character in the way that David Bowie or Bruce Springsteen have, but it’s there. It may be subtle, but know I’m a different person off stage than I am on.

    If I had to put a number on these aspects of my interest in music it would be something like 30% skill, 30% social, 15% money, 25% character.

    Those numbers are very different than my drawing work. That is more like 50% skill, 25% social, 5% money, 20% emotion.

    What about you? Why do you do things like play music or video games? Or dance, draw, play sports, write poetry, ride a skateboard? I would be interested in knowing. I’ll leave the comments open. Thank you for sharing.

  • How I Learn Old Time Tunes – Learning to Play the Tune, Nancy, from a Recording by Jonas Friddle

    How I Learn Old Time Tunes – Learning to Play the Tune, Nancy, from a Recording by Jonas Friddle

    For someone who is relatively new at playing music, learning a new tune, or a bunch of new tunes can be overwhelming.

    Because of this, I thought I would share my process for learning tunes. Maybe you’ll find it helpful to see how I do it. In this video I learn the tune Nancy on my harmonica. I learn an arrangement from my good friend, Jonas Friddle. I highly recommend checking out more of his music at jonasfriddle.com

    Enter your email address here to receive a free .pdf that accompanies this video essay.

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  • Stuff I Keep Track Of – Totals for 2019

    I keep track of several things during the year.  Here are the final numbers.  A brief description of what these numbers mean and their relationship to last year follows.

    The Chalkboards

    I keep track of this stuff on a chalkboard.  In the past, I’ve used a HUGE chalkboard which took up most of one of the walls in my apartment.  Now, I’m couch surfing for the foreseeable future, so I’m using a much, much smaller chalkboard.

    About 50% of what is on the board is inspired by Being Boss and they’re Chalk Board Method and podcast.  Check it out.

    The Numbers

    Drawing Days* = 303 days = 83% of possible days (a 32% increase from last year)

    Workouts** = 170 days = 47% of possible days (4% decrease from last year)

    Skateboarding Days*** = 56 = 15% of possible days (First year of data collection)

    Some Background

    Drawing Days – This was a HUGE increase over last year.  The feels great.  In particular, I was pushed forward in the last quarter of the month by a former student who had a concert when he reached 1,000 straight days of practicing his violin.  I’m currently on 74 straight days of drawing.

    Workouts – This is the first thing I ever kept track of my workouts since November of 2014.  This year was really tough for two reasons; 1) I quit my job and moved out of state and 2) I broke my elbow in a skateboard accident.

    The job quitting and moving things threw me off my gameplan in a major way that I was not expecting.  I just didn’t have the mental energy to get myself to the gym.  There was one month were I didn’t go to the gym almost at all.  But, I needed to find a way to steady my mind.  So, I started counting meditation sessions as “workouts.”  This is not a solution that I want to maintain for the long-term, but in the short term, I’m satisfied with this solution.

    Another thing that made the workouts category interesting is that I broke my elbow on July 31.  My workouts, which we already in trouble, took a big hit with that.  I did go to physical therapy three times a week and I had about 12 exercises that I needed to do six times a day, so I did count each physical therapy day as a workout and each day I did my elbow exercises as a workout.  That really saved my totals in the fall.

    Skateboarding Days – I was already well behind in my skateboarding goals for the year, but the broken elbow REALLY destroyed my yearly total.  I’m only been back on the board 3 times since it happened.

    Now that I’ve moved to a part of the country with so much snow (Marquette, MI) I wonder how I can get those numbers back up.  There is a skate park here, but it’s covered by a 1 1/2 feet of snow at the moment and my understanding is that it will stay that way for the next three to four months.  I had an advantage in Chicago in that, while it may have been cold, in February I could usually find a tennis court or stretch of blacktop in Winnemac Park that didn’t have snow or ice on it.  In that way I could skate most of the winter.

    Goals for 2020

    Drawing Days – I will be very disappointed if I don’t make it 365 days this year.  I have expanded the range of “drawing” a little bit.  I’ve decided to include painting and what I’m going to call “intentional photography”.  That is photos that I take during an intentional trip to make art.  Not photography that I happen to take while I am doing something else.  Those can be art, too, but I want to make a discussion between the two so I don’t get lazy.

    Goal – 365 days

    Worksout Days – I’m not sure what to do about this yet.  I no longer belong to a gym, which is disappointing, but I’m still too unsettled by this move.  Hoping to get back to a gym, soon.  I don’t NEED a gym, but I find it very helpful to stay motivated.

    Goal – 365 workouts with 100 of them needing me to go to a gym or some similar place

    Stakeboarding Days – this is trashed right now.  My board is in storage and there is no indoor skateboard less that an 6-hour drive away.  I’m not sure what to do about that.

    Goal – 24 days?  That’s one day a week, every week during the warm months.  I think that’s a good goal.  

     

    * Drawing day = any day that I draw.  It can be for as little as 30 seconds.

    ** Workout day = any day that I workout.  It can include meditation, physical therapy or yoga.  As little as 30 counts

    ***Skateboarding = any day that I get on the board.  Time at the gym working specifically on balance, on a balance board or the flat part of a half-Bosu Ball counts as a skateboarding day.  In that way, a workout day and a skateboarding day can be the result of the same activity.

  • Some of Jason’s Thoughts about the Grateful Dead

    The summer/fall of 2019 has been a time of great upheaval in my life.  I was glad to have a set of music together to help process these experiences.

    On Sept. 24, 2019, I presented a set of music by the songwriting duo of Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter at the Grafton Pub, in Chicago, IL.

    This is a live recording of essay I read at the top of the show.  The text of the essay follows.

    [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/706146877″ params=”color=#ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”300″ iframe=”true” /]

     

    Sept. 24, 2019

    Some of Jason’s Thoughts about the Grateful Dead

    By Jason McInnes

    Hi everyone.  Thanks for coming out to the Grafton.  And thank you for to the Pickin’ Bubs for inviting me.  I am very honored to play for you. I’ve made a lot of music in this room.  I basically learned to play back here. And I bet that I’ve become friends with many of you back here.

    This set of songs is a bit of a musical essay for me.  It’s about a collection of songs, a group of musicians and some of the energy that brought me to this show.  

    First a recap.  If we do already know each other, you probably know that it’s been a wild few months for me.  Recently, I resigned from the Old Town School of Folk Music, ending a 17 year career there. Peggy invited me to play tonight as a sort of parting gig, because I figured I’d be moving out of Chicago.  That may still happen, but for now, I’m still here. What will the future bring? It’s hard to know.  

    Do I have to know?  Good question and it’s one that I’m trying to get to a clearer answer to, partially through the work of this very gig.  Robert Hunter wrote, “Recall the days still left to come.” So here I am, recalling the old days, hoping that their memory weaves a magic spell that conjures up some powerful new days.  

    Robert Hunter also wrote of a road.  “No simple highway.” I’m on the highway, I suppose.  And the path of that road is for my steps alone. But, while my steps are alone, I know that I am not alone.  

    Which brings me to another event that pulls us together tonight.  About two months ago, I fell off my skateboard on a literal path, as opposed to the metaphorical path, and ended up with a broken elbow.  I took about 6 weeks off from guitar playing and I’m not fully recovered. That is one of the reasons that you hear this wonderful backing band tonight.  They’re here to help me out.  

    Please make them feel welcome.  Lindsay Weinberg, Jonas Friddle, John Mead and Andrew Wilkins.   

    Back to my point at hand.  Physical and metaphysical metamorphosis.   I’ve had a lot of time to look back on life.  “How did I end up here? I didn’t even know this was a destination!”  The story of what has brought me here has many strands, but I want to focus on only one tonight.  

    I attended my first Grateful Dead concert on August 1, 1994.  Aug. 1 was Jerry’s birthday by chance. I did not enjoy the show.  “Why aren’t they playing any of the songs I know from the classic rock radio station?  What’s with the 20 minute drum solo in the middle of the set?” What was this I was listening to?  

    But I could tell that something was up, something I desperately wanted to be in on, but I just couldn’t grasp.  But I self-identiefied as a “classic rocker” and I was determined to enjoy the experience, so I went back again the next year.  Nope. Try as I might, I just didn’t get it.  

    Jerry died on August 9, 1995.  I was rolling dough and listening to the radio at Pretzel Time; my job at the mall.  WDET DJ Martin Bandyke broke the news and then the opening notes of Uncle John’s Band took flight.  I burst into tears.

    I really freaked me out!  Why did I start crying? Why did I care so much?  At this point, Jerry was far from being a hero of mine and, in fact, and I had just heard him play a few weeks back and didn’t particularly enjoy the experience.  What had happened to me? I was a little dazed for the rest of my shift and, when it was over, I walked over to the tape store at the mall. I bought a tape of the only Dead album they had; American Beauty.  I popped it into the car stereo on the way home, still very confused as to what had happened.

    Life went on.  I move to Chicago to attend a music conservatory.  Two weeks into my new life I freaked out and I dropped out of college.  I didn’t really play music for about 5 years, outside of noodling around in my bedroom; stumbling through a few tired classic rock riffs and the intos to Blackbird and Brown-Eyed Girl.  I did notice that I started to pick up the chords to some of those Dead tunes on American Beauty; a first memory of learning a song by ear.

    In the summer of 2001, through a combination of many people, coincidences and a feeling that a depression was taking over my life, I enrolled in classes at the Old Town School of Folk Music; my first music classes since I dropped out of college.  Class taught by this unkept guy Steve, with baggy jeans and a white pony tail. He talked about music more like a spiritual advisor than any music teacher I’d ever had. He gave us all these wild handouts, explaining the cosmic aspects of music theory and songs seemed to magically tumble from his fingertips at the mere mention of a title or theme.  

    I was only a couple weeks into class when, during a discussion, Steve mentioned the Grateful Dead song Tennessee Jed.  This time, without thinking, the riff of the song tumbled from my fingers.  He heard it, stopped the lecture and looked at me.  Squinted his eyes, gave me a mischievous grin and a head nod and turned back to the class.  There was something magical in that smile. What did he know about me that I didn’t know about myself?  Looking back I feel like that smile was a silent, “Welcome. You are with your people, now. You’re gonna be ok.”  

    My money for lessons at OTS quickly ran out and I took the winter, spring and summer off from classes.  Then in August of 2002, I caught a ride to East Troy, WI for the Grateful Dead Family Reunion. Two days of music and camping.  I was very short on money and only had a ticket for day one. Without even asking, the fates stepped in and miracled me a ticket to Day 2.  

     I was up early on Day 2 and while I searched for a tent selling coffee, and I could tell that something was different.  I felt so awake and so . . . present. I was me and I was here. We got to the show and it was like I was hearing this all for the first time.    I was standing on the hill, feeling as good as I ever had in my entire life and the music and the people where a swirl around me. Day 2 – This time I was ready to receive the message.  An inner voice seemed to whisper, “Maybe you could feel like this all the time, like for the rest of your life.”  

     “Oh,” I thought.  “Maybe I could.”

    Set Two was finishing up and the people next to me started to pack up, gathering theirr cups and shaking out their blanket. “No!” I though. “Don’t clean up!  I want it to be like this forever!” I didn’t want to return to Chicago for the unfulfilling post-college life I had been living. Life was going by and it was not going so well.  I want to stay like this!  

    And Robert Hunter’s lyrics were telling me, “The wheel is turning and you can’t slow down.  Can’t let go and you can’t hold on. You can’t go back and you can’t stand still. If the thunder don’t get you then the lightning will.” 

    If the thunder don’t get you then the lightning will, huh?  So, I went back to chicago and quit my job. “What are you going to do?” the office manager asked me. “I think I want to teach music,” I said.  It’s funny to think about now because I barely played the guitar and had never taught anyone anything. Two months later I took a job working in the music shop at the Old Town School and you all know a lot of my history with the School since then.  

    A lot has changed from the Pretzel Time summer and the hill in East Troy, WI seems very far away.  I fell in with a few people at OTS pretty quickly, including the Pickin’ Bubs and a guy named Mark Dvorak who helped me carve quite a path.  I met two incredible people with a lot of fire and a lot of great music, Jonas Friddle and Maria McCullough, and we build a kingdom of youth musicians.  Miki Greenberg put me in his band and awaken a bunch of creativity in me. The hall of OTS brought the most incredible musicians my way and my taste has grown a lot over the past 17 years. Like I said, there’s a lot of strands to this story.  This is only one of the strands. It’s a strand about one band and a set of songs, the way I see myself and all of you in these songs and how much I love these songs and all of you. Thanks for being a part of this. We’ll see you on the bus.  

  • A New Understanding of Fear

    “If you go ahead, if you keep on running, wherever you run you will meet danger and evil, for it drives you, it chooses your way.  You must choose. You must seek what seeks you. You must hunt the hunter.” – Ogion the mage to Geb from Ursula Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea

    I have a new understanding of fear.  A new fear of mortality. It’s happened because of a few aspects of my life have come together over the past month or so

    IMG_8398

    Last week I was in the hospital for a prolonged bout of atrial fibrillation (a-fib); a heart condition I’ve had since I was about 16.  I have grown up with a-fib and I thought I knew how to manage it.  I was wrong. Basically, for 28 hours, my heart was beating at a pace like I was jogging the whole time.  I spent two nights in the hospital which was a new experience for me. I’d like to never go back. Now, I’m living with the fact that I could have an a-fib episode at any moment, and that if it did happen again, it could lead to a stroke, or it could damage my heart to be beating that quickly for that long.  Maybe I would end up back in the hospital.

    [wpvideo qvf7zmHz]

    In addition, about a month ago I went to spend the weekend at Fargo Skate Park in De Kalb, IL. for what I called “Skateboard Immersion Camp.”  I had two days of nothing to do but skate for eight hours a day. I was pushing myself way past the limits of my ability and While I was doing that I crashed A LOT.  Over and over and over.

    [wpvideo 2G4MFKwD]

    It was what I was there to do. But then, after returning to Chicago, I kind of couldn’t skate for about a month. I had some busted up ribs. I was bloodied and bruised and my legs were weak from strained muscles that had never worked this hard.  

    That was in late April.  I just got back on the board this week.

    IMG_8397

    I got on my board for the first time and I immediately stepped off.  I was scared. I had never been scared this scared. This 9 months of learning to skateboard I’ve had some falls, but never like I did at Fargo Skate park.  And, before my time in the hospital I had no idea what it would be like in the hospital. I had an attitude of, “Well, if I have to go to the hospital, then that’s life.  I’ll manage.”

    Now, when I get on my board I think, “Now be careful.  You don’t want to end up with busted up ribs, struggling to breath, like you did after Fargo,” and “Be careful.  If you really hurt yourself you’re going back to the hospital. And you know what you think of that.”

    It’s fear of pain.  Fear of missing work.  Fear of hospital bills.  Fear of looking foolish; of seeming reckless.  Now I know about the pain; when it hurts to take a breath, sneeze or get up from bed.  I know about being in the hospital, connected to a million tubes, unable to go to the bathroom without asking someone to help me, lying there alone, too much energy to sleep, but too tired to do much of thing else.  I do not want to go back.

    The first time I got back on my board, I returned to the tennis court where I practice my drag stops and basic pushing, I actually had a small panic attack.  I couldn’t do it. My body was ready to skate but my mind wouldn’t allow it. I went home almost immediately.

    It’s been four days since I’ve gotten back on my board.  I broke down and bought some new pads and I’ve been wearing my helmet more.  I’ve gone to the skatepark three times. I’ve working on my ollie, my drag stop and my kick turn to fakie.  I bit it hard for the first time since Fargo today; crashing as I was practicing my drag stop. The hesitation I was hoping to lose over the spring has actually gained power, but I’d dedicated.  I want to skate this thing.

    I have a new fear.  I’m learning to hold it and be honest, “You are correct.  This is scary and things could go badly.” But, I’m not going to let that fear overtake me.  I’m going to learn to move past it.

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