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Showing posts with label breath. Show all posts
Showing posts with label breath. Show all posts

Friday, August 16, 2013

Pathways

There is the desire to sound good.
The desire to control the expression
so the notes occur on an area that is
intellectually understood in advance.

Licks, grooves, scores, charts, notes etc.
Or as Milford Graves calls it
Standard Organized Music.

A conceptual framework somehow legitimizes
and proves knowledge of rhythm and melody,
an execution of a predetermined structure,
or an improvisation projected onto a predetermined structure.

It's like "Oh he is repeating himself therefore he knows."
It's safe. It's a form of GPS. It has its pleasure and limitations.
Groove. It's OK have structure sometimes but how deep are the roots?
If the roots are not deep "music" can become imprisonment.

The foundation is built upon breath and the feeling of the intention.
Fear and vanity keep people on the surface and afraid of violating the structure.
Conversely if you are at the center of the wheel you are omnipresent and timeless.
You are time, keeping it or not keeping it is redundant.
You can't reach the center without breath and relaxation.

Control without balance is FASCISM
Letting Go without balance is NIHILISM
and both together are TAOISM or SURFING

Lose Control in the name of gaining it.
Weave these domains together.
Sure practice MASTER Studies and Stick CONTROL
but then also get out the machete and do some bushwhacking.
How are we going to become strong and fearless if we only mow the lawns
and don't forge new neural pathways.

These new pathways come about by making music
at the level of silent intuition and openhearted innocence.
By stumbling into methods and sounds that are unknown
and possibly uncomfortable and awkward.

Falling and flying and failing.

The axiom in creative writing
"no surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader"
Lovemaking requires no GPS.













Saturday, February 25, 2012

Goldhamer

Of the things discussed after Animal's CD release party at the Beauty Shop with artist resident Laura Goldhamer
  • silent drumming
  • triggering lights vs. sounds
  • computer access to notes between the notes 
  • gear 
  • electronic music
  • the use of computer as a tool rather than an absolute
  • enslavement to the computer
  • freedom vs. structure 
  • digital vs. analog
  • the paralysis of the infinite
  • digital photography as it relates to automatic weaponry and sloppiness
  • t-switches in trains diesel engines and in audio equipment
  • sound healing with speaker-triggered drums
  • new age filtration
  • community vs. individualism
  • vesica piscus and the primal wound
  • sounding circles
  • group improvisation
  • improvisation
  • bow ties and the two ends of an infinity sign
  • looping
  • Zoe Keating
  • centrioles
  • mytosis
  • cell duplication
  • Harpoontang
  •  The Evangenitals
  • John Cage
  • Merce Cunningham
  • Apocalypso Tantric Boys Choir
  • Alvin Lucier
  • Steve Reich
  • Milford Graves as a law of nature and heartbeat master
  • free jazz as a permission-concept for all music vs. free jazz the genre
  • Marcel Duchamp's "I force myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste" as it relates to authentic genre hopping
  • contact mics
  • sub woofers
  • recording the sounds of brainwaves
  • oscillators and the patterns of frequency
  • Gary Synder's "Axe Handles" 
  • Billy Collins "Splitting Wood" 
  • star formation within circles and squares
  • centrisomes and moons
  • video feedback and the Lord
  • unity and diversity, not twoness
  • overhead projections, animation
  • digital projectors
  • the evolution of technology and photography equipment
  • quality
  • the infinite of digital photography vs. the finite of old school photography
  • hip hop
  • vulnerability and strength together within blossoming of expression
  • loop pedals used as a tool not as a parlor trick
  • white as an expression of all color combined
  • aperture and shutter speed in terms of video feedback
  • sonic installation
  • breath-ability of music
  • language and allowance of silence in conversation and music
  • volume pedals
  • art of live accompaniment vs. computer-centric accompaniment
  • allowance for variance in music
  • allowance for intuition and assessment of the present moment vs. re-creation of music
  • prayer through singing
  • truly being motivated by love and creating what you want in spite of all circumstance.

Needless to say I love Laura Goldhamer completely. 
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<3 p="">




Saturday, December 6, 2008

The Cross


Here is the formula for ecstatic drumming HORIZONTAL = VERTICAL.

Horizontal= Gear, books, lessons, teachers, knowledge, notes, gigs, concerts, connections, business, collaboration... all of the tangibles or externals of drumming.

Vertical= Heart, Emotions, ritual, spiritual energy, body, breath, silence between notes, awareness, consciousness, lifestyle, posture, yoga, meditation... all of the foundational internal elements that ground the Horizontal in depth of awareness.

So the formula (similar to Einstein's technology v. spiritual development of society) is that every step in the horizontal linear path of learning and knowledge should be complimented by a deepening of consciousness and spiritual grounding in the NOW.

Horizontal and vertical together make a cross. To me the Cross symbolizes freedom, paradox and the FOUR LIMBS of drumming.

The intersection of the Cross is the hub of silence, the fifth limb (Voice) THE HEART or better yet THE BALLS where all good drumming and breathing originates from and is sustained by.

These are the ruminations I came up with this morning as I played Teen Tal Kaida #1 continuously for an hour.

SING. DRUM. BE FREE :) consistently!