I met Shola in my 3rd year back in school. i actually met him at the bookshop area, close to the Senate building, there every other night we would gather with some other musician friends and just savor the evening with some smooth jazz tunes (Oh, how I missed those days), some days we would play up until 12am, then return to class to study. I met Shola on one of such days. Shola was an exceptional singer and guitar player. Shola knew absolutely everything I hoped and wished I'd know, so I beckonned on him "Shola, please I want to understand this music thing well men", I would say and Shola would just laugh over it and keep playing. Sooner than later he became even more frequent at that spot than I was. Times he'd be the one to call "bruv where are you? We are at the location waiting for you" but such days I'd either be working on a class assignment or studying for a sudden test (SHUT GUN). As I got closer to Shola, I discovered Shola had a liken for ladies, he would always be found around ladies and ladies will always be found around Him too. Closer I got I also discovered Shola was also a school cab man. I saw so many sides to Shola, but the one shocked me the most was that when the convocation of the school held back then, Shola bagged a First Class (Hons). Questions came running through my mind, Did he buy the result? Did you use "Jazz" or Jazz? But wait, No!!! Shola hardly slept at nights, after playing, Shola would go to an unknown location which later was known and would study till day break. He was so good at nights that you'd think He is a vampire. My point now isn't that Shola got a first class even though there are so many lessons to learn from Shola, which I am still learning till date. But majorly the similarity between SHOLA and "So la". Shola as the name of a person and Sola as two different notes of the major scale in music.
You can and will never know the capacity and ability of a musical note if you don't get closer to it. It's beyond playing so many notes at a time but more about understanding the dynamics that surround the way the note is being played. Alot of times, I have composed, written, recorded and performed music pieces and given some else to score and most of the time they come and tell me with all confidence that it's so easy and they have scored it exactly. But when I hear them play it, I discover so many dynamic errors and flaws, they argue and argue and finally I point them to it. "What happened to your vibrato, your slur, your mezzo, your staccato, your portamento, your legato, your hammer on". They are always dazed. From now on,when you listen to music as a musician who wants to score or represent a piece exactly, listen for details and one of the ways to achieve this is by listening severally, don't just listen passively, listen actively also. We are growing, we will grow.
