Chapter 39 True Wisdom in Laughter Part 5-9

I once taught a series of physics courses that Addison-Wesley was going to turn into a book.At lunch we were talking about what should be drawn on the cover of this book.I figured that since these lessons are a mix of the real physical world and math, the cover could use a drum as a backdrop with some mathematical graphics drawn on it - some circles, lines, etc., to represent the rest points when the drumhead vibrates.I think it's a good idea, especially since the issue of drumhead vibration is also discussed in the book. When the book came out, the cover was simply a big red patch, but somehow in the preface there was a picture of me playing the drums.I think they did it because they thought "the author wants a picture of drums in the book".

In short, everyone is curious, why is it in the preface to Feynman Lectures.Will there be a picture of me playing the drums?Because there are no mathematical graphics on the drums to express my ideas clearly (yes, I like drums, but that's another story). When I was in Los Alamos, the work was very stressful and there was no entertainment, no movie theaters or anything.But I found some of the drums they collected in the abandoned boys' school there-Los Alamos is located in New Mexico, where there are many Indian villages.So drumming became my pastime—sometimes by myself, sometimes with other people—just making random noises and playing whatever I wanted.I don't know any particular rhythm, but the rhythm of Indian drumming is quite simple.Those drums are nice and I had a great time playing them.

Sometimes I would take the drum to the distant forest, so as not to disturb others, I would find a stick to play the drum and sing there.I remember once walking around a tree, looking at the moon, playing drums, imagining myself as an Indian. One day a guy came up to me and asked, "Did you play drums in the woods around Thanksgiving?" "Yeah, I was the one fighting." "Oh, then my wife was right!" Then he told me this story: One night he heard a drum beating in the distance, so he went to ask a friend who lived upstairs, and his friend heard it too.Remember, these guys were all from the eastern United States and knew nothing about Indians.They thought it was very interesting: these Indians must be holding some celebration or something, so the two decided to run to see what was going on.

As they walked, the music got louder and louder, and they began to get nervous.Thinking that the Indians might send sentries to keep outsiders from interfering with their celebrations, they got down on their stomachs and crawled along the path until the drum beat was just behind the next hill.They climbed the hill, and were surprised to find that there was only one Indian there, performing his celebration alone—dancing around a tree, beating a drum with a stick, and chanting incantations aloud.The two backed away slowly, because they did not want to disturb him: the Indian looked as if he were casting some spell.

When they got home, they told their wives what they had seen, and they said, "Oh, that must be Feynman—he likes to play the drums." "Stop the bullshit!" they said. "Even Feynman couldn't be that crazy!" So for the next few weeks, they went around to find out who the Indian was.Some Indians from the nearby reservation had come to work in Los Alamos, one of them was an artisan in a technical camp; they asked him who he might have seen.The Indian asked many people, but none of the other Indians knew who it was; except one Indian, because no one could talk to him.

This Indian is very proud of his family: he has two big braids hanging down his back, his head is always held high, and he looks dignified wherever he goes. He is always alone and no one can follow him. He speaks.He was so majestic that no one dared to ask him anything.In the end, everyone agreed that it must be him. (When I found out they thought I might be such a typical, great Indian, I was so happy, it was such an honor.) And the guy who came to ask me was just thinking about it That's all--husbands always like to prove their wives wrong; but like many other husbands, he found that his wife guessed right.

My drumming is getting better and better, and sometimes I will play it at some parties.I don't really know what I'm playing, I just make random rhythmic sounds, but I'm kind of famous because of it. Everyone in Los Alamos knows that I love to play the drums. When the war was over and we were all going back to "civilization," the people in Los Alamos laughed at me and said I couldn't play the drums anymore because it was too loud.Also because I was about to become a dignified professor at Cornell University in Itsica, I sold the drums I bought during my stay in Los Alamos.

The following summer I had to go back to New Mexico to do some reporting and saw those drums again there.I couldn't take it anymore, so I went to buy another drum, and I thought, "I'm taking this drum home, just so I can look at it whenever I want." I live in a small apartment at Cornell.I put the drum there, purely for viewing purposes.But one day, my hands were really itchy, and I said to myself: "Well, I'll be very quiet..." I sat down, put the drum between my legs, and tapped it with my fingers: boo boo, boo doo, boo.Then I knocked a few more times, and the sound was louder-after all, this is a great temptation for me!I pushed a little harder, and finally the phone rang.

"Hello?" "I'm the landlady. Are you playing the drums?" "Yes, quite right—" "It sounds very good. Can I go to your place and listen to it clearly?" From then on, every time I started playing the drums, the landlady would come running.I was free again, and I've been playing the drums a lot ever since, and I couldn't be happier. Around the same time, I met a lady from the Belgian Congo who sent me some records of folk music.Such records were rare at the time and were all drumming from the watusi and other African tribes.I really admire those Watusi drummers and try to imitate their style of play a lot - I can't play like it, I just want it to sound like it - but I've also invented a lot of other rhythms because of it.

One night, it was already late at night, and there were not many people in the activity center. I picked up a trash can and turned it over and banged it.A guy downstairs came up and said, "Hey! You can play the drums!" It turned out he was a great drummer, and he later taught me samba. There was a guy in the music department who had a great collection of African music, and I used to go over to his house to play drums.He recorded the drums for me, and at parties he threw, he played a game he called "African or Itserja?"He would play some drums, and the others would guess whether the music was "Made in Africa" ​​or "Isaiga?" So I knew I must have learned a lot about imitating African music back then.

After Caltech, I used to hang out in the Sunset District a lot.Once, an Algerian drum ensemble came to a nightclub.The leader of the team was a big man named Yukonu.They only played percussion, and the performance was fantastic.Their deputy leader treated me very well and invited me to perform with them on stage.So I went on stage to play with them. I asked Yugonu if he would accept students, and he said yes; so I went to the place where Yugonu lived—near Century Avenue, where the riot happened later—to learn how to play drums with him.Our class was very unproductive: he was constantly procrastinating, talking to other people, and being interrupted by various things.But when it goes well, I learn a lot and it's exciting. At the dance near Eugonu's house, few white people attended, but in fact, the atmosphere at that time was more relaxed than it is today.Once they held a drumming competition, and the rankings they got were not very good.They said my drums were "too intellectual" while theirs were more rhythmic. Once, I got a serious phone call. "Hello." "My name is Trowbridge, and I'm the principal of the Polytechnic." The Polytechnic is a small private school across the street from Caltech.Torubridge continued in his formal voice, "Here is your friend who wants to talk to you." "Ok." "Hello, Dick." It's Yogonu!It turned out that the principal of the polytechnic school was just pretending, he was not so serious, in fact he was very humorous.Yukonu is visiting the school, playing music for the students, and he wants me to come and perform on stage with him.So we played drums together for these kids: I played the samba (drums are kept in my office), and he played his tanba. Yokonu often visits schools to teach students about djembe, their meaning, and African music.He was charming, smiling, and a nice, nice guy.And he played the drums so well, he made a record. He was studying medicine at the time, and he went back to Algeria at the beginning of the war (or before?); I don't know what happened to him. After Eugonu left, I didn't play drums much, except for the occasional performance or two at parties.I was having dinner at Robert Leighton's house once, and his kid Reeve and another friend asked me if I wanted to play the drums.I thought they wanted me to play a solo, so I said no.But they started knocking on the wooden table at home, and my hands were itchy; I also brought a wooden table, and the three of us played with these small wooden tables for a long time, making many very interesting sounds. Both Reeve and his friend Rutisosha loved playing the drums, and we started getting together every week to unwind and work out some rhythms and rhymes.The two of them were really musicians, Reeve playing the piano and Ruti Sosa the cello.I can only knock something with a sense of rhythm, I don't know any music at all, I just knock according to the notes.But we made up a lot of nice rhythms and performed them in some middle schools.We also accompanied their dance classes at a nearby university. I did this when I was working in Bloomhaven.It's fun.We called ourselves the "Three Quarks Band" - just from the name alone, you knew what year it was. Once, when I went to Vancouver to speak to students, they held a party in a basement and invited a rock band to perform.The band was pretty good, and there happened to be an extra neckbell in there, so they encouraged me to try it.Since their music is very rhythmic and the bells are just a supporting role, I would never mess with their music.I really had a lot of fun afterwards! After the party, the host told me that the bandleader said, "Whoa, who's that guy who came here to play the neckbell? He can really make a nice beat with that thing! Oh, yes, this party is for Which big man organized it? He never came to participate, and I don't know who it is!" There is a theater troupe at Caltech, some members are students of the school; others are from outside the school.When they come across some minor roles, like a policeman going to arrest a prisoner, they'll get some professors to play them.It was just for fun—the professor came running, arrested some people, and went off. A few years ago, they were doing "Boys and Girls," and there was a scene where the hero takes the heroine to a nightclub in Havana.The director thought it would be great if he could ask me to play the samba drummer in a nightclub. I went to the first rehearsal, and the female director pointed to the conductor and said: "Jack will show you the sheet music." It freaked me out, I never knew how to read music.I thought I'd just go up on stage and just bang the drums. Jack sits at the piano and he points to the sheet music and says, "Okay, you start here, see, you play like this. Then I play den, den, den" -- and he plays a few notes on the piano.Turning to the next page, he said: "Next you play this part, and then we pause together and let them talk, here" —he turned a few more pages and said, "You play this part at last." The "music scores" he showed me were a lot of strangely shaped "×" Sandwiched between horizontal and straight lines.He kept telling me these things, thinking I was a musician: but it was impossible for me to remember them. Luckily, I was sick the next day and couldn't go to the second rehearsal, so I asked Reeve to go for me.Since he's a musician, he'll know exactly what that's about.Reeve came back and said, "That's not too bad. You can't go wrong at the beginning because you're the one who starts the beat and the rest of the band waits for your beat to pick up, but after that it's free to play as you please. There's a We have to stop for them to speak the dialogue, but I think we can use the command gesture to know when to stop." Before that I convinced the director to let Reeve join, so we would be on stage at the same time.He played tampa and I played samba drums - that would take a lot of stress out of me.Reeve told me how to play it, and the beat was only about 20 or 30 beats in total, but it couldn't be wrong.I've never played the drums without going wrong, it was very difficult for me.Reeve patiently explained: "Left hand, right hand, left hand twice, right hand again..." I practiced very hard, and finally, slowly, I began to grasp the beat.It took me ages - many days - to get it right. We went back to rehearsal a few weeks later and found out there was a new drummer there—the original drummer quit.We introduced ourselves: "Hey, we were playing the drums on stage in the Havana scene." "Oh, hey, let me find it..." He turned to the page, took out the drumsticks and said, "Oh, this game starts with you, so..." The sticks beat on the drum, ping, ping , Ping plus ping, ping, ping, playing fast, eyes are looking at the score!I was completely overwhelmed.It took me 4 days to get the tempo right and he just hit it off! In short, after practicing and practicing, I finally fully grasped the rhythm and acted in the play.The show was very successful.Everyone saw a professor performing samba drums on stage, and they all thought it was very interesting, and the music wasn't too bad; but the opening part, the part that couldn't be wrong, was really difficult. In the scene at the nightclub in Havana, some of the students were going to do a dance and needed someone to choreograph.So the director got someone's wife from Caltech to choreograph and teach the boys to dance; she was a choreographer at Universal and loved our drumming.When the troupe finished, she asked if we would like to come to San Francisco to accompany a ballet company. "what?" Yes, she was moving to San Francisco to choreograph for them at a small local ballet school.She had an idea to make up a ballet with only percussion music in the background.She wanted us to come to her house before she moved, and call her all the beats we knew, and she would find inspiration from them to make up a story that matched the beat. Reeve was a bit reluctant, but I encouraged him to join him in this new experience. The only thing I insist on is that she don't tell anyone that I'm a physics professor, Nobel laureate or whatever crap.I don't want, like Samuel Johnson said, if you see a dog walking on its hind legs, the remarkable thing is not that it walks well, but that it walks that way.I don't want me to play drums as a physics professor. She wants to tell people that we are the musicians she found in Los Angeles, and now they come to play drums for them. We went to her house and performed all the rhythms we had studied. She took a lot of notes, and the same night, she thought of the story and said, "Okay, I want 52 times this, 40 times that, this is more or less..." We went home and made a tape the next night at Reeve's house. We beat all the beats for a few minutes, and then Reeve used the tape recorder to edit to get to the length she requested.She took a copy to San Francisco and began training the dancers there. During the same period, we will practice according to the drum music recorded on the tape: 52 times this, 40 knots this, and so on.The drums we improvised (and edited) back then are now learned exactly.We're going to imitate our own ghost tapes! The biggest problem is still counting beats.I used to think Reeve knew how to count because he was a musician; but we also found something funny. The "acting part" of our heads that beats the drums is also the "talking part" that counts, so we can't count while beating!However, when we went to San Francisco for our first rehearsal practice, we found that we could just watch the dancers move instead of counting the beats in our heads. Since we were pretending to be professional musicians, several funny things happened.For example, there's a scene where a beggar is sifting sand on a Caribbean beach where some of the dames are already there.The music that the choreographer used to accompany the scene was played on a drum that Reeve and his dad had made years ago.Originally, we couldn't make any nice drum sound from this drum, but later we found that if two people sat on the chairs facing each other, sandwiched this "strange drum" between our knees, and each of them quickly used two drums. Tap "must hit, must hit, must hit, must hit" with your fingers, and the other person presses hard on different places on the drum surface with both hands to change the tune of the drum.Now it makes all kinds of interesting sounds of "Bo Da, Bo Da, Bi Da, Bi Da, Bo Da, Bo Da, Ba Da, Ba Da". The dancer who played the role of the beggar wanted the ups and downs of the drum to match her dance (this part of our tape was randomly recorded), so she wanted to explain her movement to us: "First, I do this movement 4 times. , then I bent down to sift the sand, 8 beats; then I stood up and turned around like this." I knew very well that I couldn't follow what she was saying, so I interrupted her and said, "Just dance well, I will cooperate fight." "You don't want to know how I'm going to dance? Look, when I'm done with the second sand sifting part, I'm going to dance like this for 8 beats." It didn't work, I couldn't remember anything, and I was about to interrupt her again when suddenly Remember this question: I wouldn't look like a real musician then! Fortunately, Reeve covered it up very well for me. He said: "Mr. Feynman has his own way when encountering this kind of situation. He likes to be very direct and intuitive while watching you dance and creating motion. Let us Try it that way first, if you are not satisfied, we will modify it." She's a first-rate dancer, and you can literally feel what she's going to do next.If she's bending over to dig into the sand, she prepares for the digging, and every movement is smooth, steady, and predictable.So in fact, it is quite easy to make the sound of "Bizzi, Bishushu, Boda or Bida" according to her movements, and she is very satisfied.So we took a very dangerous time and almost broke through the moment. The ballet performance was very successful. Although the audience was not large, all the audience who came to see it liked it very much. Went to San Francisco for rehearsals, and until the show, we weren't all that confident in the whole idea.I mean, we thought the choreographer was nuts: first of all, the whole dance was just percussion, and second, he thought we were qualified to score ballets and paid us, which is crazy!For me, who has never received any cultural influence, I finally became a professional musician of the ballet company. It is really a great achievement in my life! At first, we also thought that she couldn't find a dancer willing to dance to our drum (in fact, a big star from Brazil - she is the wife of the Portuguese consul - didn't think the dance was worth her dancing).But the other dancers seemed to like our drumming very much. When I played for them in the first rehearsal, I felt very happy.When they actually heard our drums (before they all just played our tapes on a small cassette player), the joy was genuine and it gave me a boost of confidence.And from the audience's comments, we know that we are a big success. The choreographer wanted to do another dance with our drums in the spring, so we repeated each step.We recorded more beats and she made up another story, this time set in Africa.I talked to Prof. Munger from Caltech, learned some real African words, sang it at the beginning of the dance (jahua-banuma-jahua-woo etc.) and I keep practicing until everything is perfect. Later, we went to San Francisco to rehearse a few times.When we first arrived, we found out they were faulty.They don't know how to get some beautiful ivory, they paper it so ugly; some dancers look embarrassed when they dance in front of these ivory. We're not offering any fixes, just taking a wait-and-see attitude and seeing how the following weekend plays out.On the other hand, I went to visit Werner Erhard, whom I met at a conference he hosted.I was sitting in his beautiful house, listening to him explain some philosophical concepts, and suddenly, I was hypnotized. "What happened?" he said. My eyes popped out and I called out, "Ivory!" Right behind him on the floor, there lay some huge, heavy, beautiful tusks! He lent us the ivory and they looked great on stage (the ballet dancers all breathed a sigh of relief) - real giant ivory, thanks Elkh. Our choreographer moved to the east coast and performed this Caribbean ballet there.We later heard that she had entered a choreography competition with this ballet against people from all over the United States, and she had won first or second place.Inspired by this success, she entered another competition - this time in Paris, with choreographers from around the world.She recorded our drum music in San Francisco with high-quality recording technology and brought it to France to train some local dancers to dance a short part of it. This is how she participated in the competition. She performed well and made it all the way to the final round, leaving only two troupes competing: one from Latvia, with orthodox dancers dancing standard ballet, plus very beautiful classical music; In the "Army Army" of the United States, there are only two motley troops recruited in France in the regiment, and the soundtrack is only our drums. The audience loved her group, but they weren't competing for the favourite, and the judges decided the Latvian had won.Afterwards, she went to ask the judges what was wrong with her choreography. "Ma'am, the soundtrack is not ideal. It is not deep enough, and the ups and downs and strengths are not well controlled..." And so we finally figured out: when we meet people in Paris who are really literate and know how to play drums, we've been duped!