OUR CULTURE
'Eating Music'
The sample real life story (a.k.a. memoir) and companion essay on this page highlight the impact of music. You can share a story about any form of art that has impacted your life or the industry you work in.
“To give life to beauty, the painter uses a whole range
of colors, musicians of sounds, the cook of tastes.
And it is indeed remarkable that there are
seven colors, seven musical notes, and seven tastes.”
-- Lucien Tendret
'BUT I NEED THE LOOT'
THEME: Art As Redemption
"Living alone with YoYo and Sol (cat friends), being of good health and comfortable at home, I have been able to write and research every day, five hours a day. Since February I’ve finished two feature scripts, and now I’m working on the content for this CATERING TO US site.
I’m sure I’m quite lonely and disoriented! But I don’t know it (or at least how bad) because of this intense focus I have maintained on my writing. The secret to this hypnotic focus? Music. I listen to Music non-stop while I write. It would be like cutting off Samson’s hair to cut off my Music!
The Music genre and volume varies according to what I’m writing. My current Music choices include: Folk Rock (Bob Dylan radio, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Woods Brothers); Retro Rock (including newer players Leon Bridges and Alabama Shakes); Meditative (classic jazz and Indian chill); Female Howlers and Hummers (like Phoebe Snow and Melody Gardot); Urban Truth (Fantastic Negrito and Gil Scott Heron); and Bouncy Early HipHop (Salt N Pepa and Nappy Roots).
What I have been listening to almost every day though (surprising myself) has been ‘The Complete Billie Holiday on Verve 1945-1959’. In addition to live performances it features outtakes from rehearsals and the banter between Billie Holiday, the band leader, and musicians. At one point she says to them, “I been with some pretty big shots, and man, they don’t no kind of way dig me. They don’t understand me and I don’t understand them. So we don’t get nowhere…..But I need the loot.”
That is what I have especially loved, her talking. Listening to Billie’s Holiday’s singing, how she can take a word and twist it three different ways on its way down, you know she’s been places and survived. But to hear her talk is to know how she thought, what made her laugh. Suddenly you see her in everyday life, and she’s like you. Yet from within she pulled out something so great and lasting! It’s a big inspiration to me."
-- Trayce
Story Category Essay
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The sample memoir above is followed
below by an essay about the Story Category.
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WHY?
'EATING MUSIC'
Why Single Out Music?
Music, like Food, is an essential part of everyday life (for most people). Now during the pandemic, with everything closed down, it’s the art form that feels most immediate in our lives.
Viewing a show on a screen goes to your head, maybe your heart. But listening to Music (you enjoy) goes to your body, like Food. Music creates energy, and if that complements the energy of the Food, it can only enhance the experience of eating the Food.
RESTAURANTS
automatically consider Music an essential part of their décor. Consultants help them pick the right Music that can change our perception of the taste of Food; make you eat more or less; and slow down or speed up chewing. If diners love your Music playlists that fondness spills over to how they regard your Food.
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Catered Events & Music
can be a very different animal according to the client’s taste (sometimes a turtle, sometimes a cheetah). Most Catered events (excluding business oriented conferences) prominently feature Music, be it recorded or live.
Catering floor staff live for Music to hum or sway to! The joy that good Music at an event adds to our steps is Priceless. Sometimes in the back of the house, stilling hearing the Music from the floor, we’ll break into group dance as we pass, and song if it’s one we know.
In NYC many artists from all disciplines supplement their income and studies thru Catering gigs. There is an especially high percentage of musicians and singers (and actors) opening wine bottles and lining up to serve out two plates at a time.
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There's Rhythm To Music
Rhythm To Food
Give two accomplished cooks the same ingredients, recipe, and oven -- their completed dishes can taste very different. Give two accomplished musicians the same instruments, sheet music, and stage -- and their performances can sound quite different. There’s always a personal style and unique discipline mixed in, especially when the chef or band leader is overseeing a collaborative effort with other performers.
Share your Story about how Music has touched your life, be it learning or performing or teaching or listening to. On the job or on the dance floor or on the mountain or resting on your bed. Or you can write about the impact another art form -- you define the art form -- had on you.