What's TRAA Mean, Anyway?

I guess I should explain what the title "Time Requires and Argument" is all about. It's all about the ride cymbal, my love of poetry, music, and Linux.

Now, I'm no computer guru. But one day, the sys/admin from my employer sat down at my machine to show me something. Of course, JP is a computer geek of the most hard-core, so he does everything in Linux. He is also a very fast typer. So he is showing me something, explaining it in the way that he has (read: technically correct, but in such a way that even true nerds don't catch on the first time around), when the computer throws this error message at him: "Time requires an argument." The phrase immediately stuck me. I filed it away along with all those other poetic phrases I will try to use someday.

But now, it means more to me than it did then. Then, it was just a phrase that had a ring to it. Now, I interpret the word Time in the musical sense. My philosophy as a drummer is that the beat (or time) of music doesn't have to be locked into x numbers of beats per minute for the entire length of the piece you are preforming. Instead, the time should be a little liquid. Bring it up in the solos, and back down again. Not a lot, and not enough to be noticeable to most people. But music can be so stale sometimes, preformed the same way, night after night, and the exact tempo as dialed into the metronome. Instead, let the music breathe, and ebb and flow. Fight with the time a little. Argue with it. Harness it, and let it ride, at the same time.