The mind has a mind of its own. That’s the first problem. It’s a committee meeting where everyone thinks they’re the chair. Some parts of you believe they’re refereeing traffic, but there’s no traffic, no whistle, no game. Whoever thinks they’re steering the car is headed straight for a lifelong disappointment, complete with seat warmers.

That’s why, in the weird and beautiful jungle of freely improvised music, melodicism ought to be treated as just as valid as screeching, banging, humming, or throwing a shoe into a cymbal. Somebody I used to hear at the Spadina Hotel, back when the wallpaper still believed in its job, was all about noise. They’d turn feedback into religion. We played together once, and when I started wandering toward something that sounded like a tune, they looked at me as if I’d farted in church. During the break, they explained, “That isn’t the correct way to play free.”

Correct. Way. To. Play. Free.
That’s when I realized freedom is one of those words people tattoo on themselves without reading the fine print.

I was reading the American news the other day. The Democrats proposed making Election Day a paid holiday so that every citizen, poor, tired, overworked, or otherwise, could actually vote. A nice idea, I thought. Civic participation. Democracy with a lowercase d.

But then the Senate Majority Leader, a man who earns two hundred thousand dollars a year for showing up roughly one hundred and thirty-eight days, got on television to announce that this was proof the Democrats didn’t understand how to govern. He said it with that look people get when they think their hypocrisy is invisible because they said it slowly and with conviction.

So there you have it.
The mind steering nothing.
The free musician following rules.
The lawmakers against voting.

Improvisation – the only honest art form left.