Innovators

Just off the top of my head, and limiting myself to examples from classic rock (still, sadly, my most cultivated musical garden), I can think of several significant ways in which musicians took conventional instruments or technologies, and used them in a radical way to produce effects that were novel, and intriguing.

I'm thinking of Tony Iommi, for instance, depressing the strings of his guitar just before they reach the tuning pegs, in order to generate an unprecedentedly deep tremolo on Iron Man. Or a young Eddie Van Halen, wondering what might happen if he tapped on the strings, instead of picking them, while also fingering them. (Click here for his middle-aged take on the technique). Or Eric Clapton turning up his amplifier so loud, while recording Layla with Derek and the Dominoes, that his guitar bled into the band's other mikes, resulting in a eerily drenched and suffused sound on the final recording. In each case, an apparent misuse of equipment, at least according to common notions, resulted in a new possibility.

Which is more or less what babies are doing, much of the time. In chewing on extension cords, or uprooting trash cans, or rubbing their food on the knees of their outfits, they violate many of our most basic conventions and expectations. It can be upsetting, to be sure, and I think every parent must feel a more or less constant instinct to right objects, to clean clothes, and to teach manners. But, before we get too worked up, or hopeless, perhaps it can help to think of babies not simply as uncouth agents of chaos, but also as small pioneers, or experimenters. I haven't yet taken to gnawing on plastic blocks, as Cleo does. But she's already helped me, in 9 months, see the world as a more dynamic place, full of possibilities far beyond those rendered familiar through practice. And while her efforts don't always end in results as lovely as Layla, they do thus often have an appeal all their own.