Genre du Jour

This guy rocks

Interesting set this Saturday morning. Thinking that a new direction, at least for a day, might offer a new challenge, I spun some hot jazz on the group. And why the heck not? After all we have played the classical, Beethoven and Rossini, the big bands featuring Count Basie and Buddy Rich, so the timing felt right for a visit to the masters of improvisation, those that I very well may appreciate the most, as 'pure' musicians. The Jazzmasters. Here is a sample. 

We have been conditioned , and I assume a lot of the credit for this on a local basis, to rely on standard 4/4 time as a musical accompaniment to our indoor cycling sessions. We all know and love the metronomic 4/4 time of classic rock n roll. It is so ingrained into our understanding of athletic syncopation that anything outside of it, say the fusion of Steely Dan or the improv made popular by jam bands from the Dead to Phish represents an interesting challenge to our accepted, default, cadence norms. What the heck do we do with this? If, as accepted, the goal is to seek the nebulous and mysterious place known as the groove zone, how does one absorb an intentional deviation of standard time signatures while searching for it? When 1-2-3-4 morphs, incredibly, into something resembling an intentional increase of beats within the measure, as 12/8 time does, how should that affect our search for dynamic flow? 

If one has grown so accustomed to a standard response to a standard rhythm, what happens, as it frequently does, when that beat goes rogue? Further, isn’t that the goal? To seek the magic and strive towards expressions previously considered taboo, for whatever pop culture reasons? 

I think it is. To seek the magic. 

What happens when the wind blows in your face as you struggle to find an uphill cadence appropriate for the climb? What is your response, as was so eloquently expressed to me yesterday by one of our riders on the road to adventure when one is blessed with a ‘kiss of a tailwind?’ 

It is always in our response. Good, bad, a kiss or a slap in the face, whatever gets tossed our way, in the cycle studio or out on the road, will eventually be resolved as a result of our response. Personally I am used to things not going exactly as I had initially planned. There are simply too many variables that are out of our control. What do we do with that?

Ii is all ultimately up to you. If it is important to you, get it done. Do not give up, give in, surrender or back down. When things are at their worst it is the time for us to do our best. Get used to this. It is as close to an absolute as we can find. Shit happens. Deal with the reality of your now and, simply, do what must be done. Find the groove. 

No matter the time signature or genre du jour.