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Hypnosis
W. Vaughn McCall
Physicians and music are eternal partners. The choice of instruments and musical styles may change, but the attraction does not. My choice is bass guitar. As a psychiatrist, I know that choices are rarely random. Bass guitar was an ‘over-determined’ choice. ‘Over determined’ describes the confluence of several potentially unrelated motivations that lead to a single result. The selection of bass guitar was probably driven by three factors. First, although bass guitar is often viewed as a “background” instrument, I felt the bass had the potential to be the glue that connects the harmonic structure of the lead instruments to the rhythm of the percussion, and in that respect it could lead the musical direction. Second, although I secretly wished to be a lead guitarist (doesn’t everyone?), I was not born with the chops (i.e., not skilled enough). Third, bass players are always in need, making it easy to join a band.
Piano lessons began at 7 years old, guitar lessons at 12 years old. I joined my first band as an organist at age 13 (remember In-a-Gadda-da-Vida?) and got my first bass at age 14. I have been playing bass in garage rock, funk and fusion bands for the last 35 years. I now play with The Pedestrians which you can check out at the following link:
http://www.myspace.com/pedestrianswinstonsalem
What is my present motivation for continuing with this? One explanation is that it is a great way to forget about everything else for a few minutes. If you are trying to stay on beat with the drummer and be responsive to the guitar player, you can’t be thinking about tomorrow’s patient schedule. The demands of Hypnosis are a case in point.
I wrote Hypnosis when I was 22 years old, between college and medical school while playing with friends Peter Wood on guitar, Jay Miller on sax, and John Teunis on drums. |
Although we mostly performed original vocal rock and roll songs, Hypnosis was a fusion instrumental, and an exercise in endurance. It has three parts. The first part is not musical in the usual sense, and is intended to sound like a sleeping machine slowly waking up, stretching, and ultimately exploding into an atonal frenzy. The second part gives the piece its name, demanding machine-like precision and speed on the part of the bass guitar, and intended to evoke a feeling of mechanical-hypnosis. While the bass moves drone-like through this section, the other instruments add syncopated accents, followed by a simple lilting melody. The final part (repeated twice) is in 7/4 time-signature to briefly throw the hypnotic groove off-kilter. It ends with the guitar joining the bass in the hypnotic ride.
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I have attached the only recording of Hypnosis, recorded in 1980 in a dormitory bar on the Duke campus. The recording is crude, crowd sounds are evident, and it is played imperfectly. Still, I am not sure I could play it now at the same pace. A music file of this performance is attached below, warts and all. I hope you enjoy it, and hope you find your own way to get hypnotized when you are not doctoring.  |
 Click to hear " Hypnosis". |
P.S. Turn up the bass! |