Here’s something fun, try to explain what the phrase “in the pocket” means. The song selections in the pod show led up to a short discussion of what it means—which I didn’t get at all. I don’t think it matters for the ordinary listeners, although former music teachers like Big Mo obviously know what the term means. He taught music for years, has performed, and uses the lingo to explain what “in the pocket” is all about. It’s way over my head, but then I don’t need to know anything about it to enjoy music.
I tried to look up the meaning of the terms “in the pocket” on the web. I took a quick look at a website called Sage Audio. The title is “What is In-the-Pocket for Music?” I couldn’t find the author’s name because I didn’t see a byline. It’s very long and technical and seems geared for sound engineers. One sentence by the writer caught my attention under the heading “What is In-the-Pocket for Music in Detail”:
“It isn’t uncommon to hear a music term and wonder what it means exactly. Becoming well versed in music means understanding its discourse, which can certainly be easier said than done.”
Here’s how far out in left field I am. Depending on how I read that, I’d almost recast the last part of that sentence: “…which can certainly be easier done than said.” I realize the sense of it is that becoming adept in making music means understanding the lingo. I just don’t understand the lingo, which makes me wonder if musicians have some kind of inner body sense for timing in music as it’s performed which may not readily translate to language for the layperson.
I was like a lot of other students in junior high music class. We were pretty good at whispering or half-mumbling the songs we were supposed learn to sing out loud. That really annoyed the music teacher. I don’t know if Big Mo can relate to that or not. We were supposed to learn the song “Sloop John B.” I’m not sure if we were doing the Beach Boys version or the original “The John B. Sails.”
It hardly mattered. We sounded like we ate up all the corn and held it in our mouths while mumbling. We just stuck our hands in our pockets, moaned the words, and were never in the groove. I don’t think a metronome helped. In fact, I’m not sure there was a metronome.
I have to mention that I probably was too young to know that the song by Little Ed and the Blues Imperials, “Walking the Dog,” was about a kind of dance. I never danced although most of the dancing kids on American Bandstand had the same answer to Dick Clark’s question on what they liked about the song—it was always “the beat.” I guess they knew that meant the number was “in the pocket.”
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