labels - help or hinder

I've nearly completed the sift, sort and dispose sequence in the my CD collection there are over 120 CD in the dispose. Just people I'm never really going to listen to yet in my keep boxes are close to 300 CDs, excluding the 100 or so still on shelves. I started trying to make up playlists so that I can categorize them for playing and reasons for playing. Trying work out what category to file some of my stuff is really difficult. I got scared when I found some of my stuff was described as shoegaze! Is that a musical style? I'm happier with the label of postrock but what does it really mean.

I have bands such as Sigur Rós, Labradford, Japancakes, Channel Light Vessel etc. They are a rock version (or postrock version) of Philip Glass a classical minimalist composer. The music is extremely repetitive with slight variation and modulations. It is these changes which create the interest as the patterns change and morph. Add to the fact the speeds are slower and there is a lot of reverb to create a huge ambiance, we are talking about a genre nesting between chill, minimalism and meditation.

The Bible talks about vain repetition in praying and perhaps this also applies to worship but the issue is this. Whether the nuanced changes and variations create something which rather than being vain is a gentle route lifting us to the ecstatic moment where everything disappears and God is God. The liturgical chants of the Orthodox churches and liturgical monasticism especially made popular in Taizé provides this. I remember a teenager saying once of her first Taizé worship experience, who needs drugs, when there is this experience.

But there is a dark side. Friday I was reading about the Danger Mouse/SparkleHorse project Dark Night of The Soul. I've been aware of Danger Mouse in looking at concepts of copyright in the remix culture and the "Grey Album" a remix of the Beatles White Album and the Jay-Z's Black Album. He is part of the better known Gnarls Barkley.

Well Dark Night was first delayed by legal wrangles but deeply marred by the suicides of co-creator Mark Linkous/Sparklehorse and contributor Vic Chesnutt. This recent album carries some heavy baggage which I hope to listen to soon. I wonder about whether a heavenward moment and a hellish moment are possible. Of course I think yes. In my sorting I had to decide whether to keep The Tear Garden's To Be An Angel Blind, The Crippled Soul Divide. I kept it because it is an authentic reflection of one side of human emotions, the darker side.

A lovely arrangement

I'm posting this here on my main blog because it lifted me when I watched it. Friday I went to the Music Garden and looked at the flowers and garden arrangment while listening to Bach unaccompanied cello suite 1. I realised that music can reinterpret an external experience in a different way. The music becomes a soundtrack and narrates experience into new and differing ways.

Videotape Radiohead

I've been absent from blogging for over a month which has been a signficant amount of time for me. The problem is dial-up and bad connectivity and time to change provider. Sorry I'll be remedying things.

Sometimes the people you hang out with are great and I'm really blessed. I've been playing my electric cello at CATM for services avbout once a month and I really enjoy working with the pastor Matthew who also is the music mover and shaker. Infact a great worship arts and video maker as well. He ended up in the Radiohead video last summer, the older guy with the beard.

What is this?

Welcome to Hatsune Miku. She isn't an anime character, nor is she a real singer. She is a Vocaloid voice created to run in a computer. However she sings in tune, in the right places. She's not a recording as such. She even sings with a Japanese English accent! Is this art? Does it have any claim for a place or is it simply a distraction as entertainment.

Getting it headed right

Last Sunday I got to play my new cello twice and I'm still reveling in the second opportunity. Piano, drums and me and 3 singers and it was fun and stretching. We, the musicians, were all older guys. The drummer played way back with Hugh and Fergus Marsh, both are deeply respected musicians in the local scene. Fergus used to tour with Bruce Cockburn in the eighties and I heard him play Chapman stick at that time.

I actually had fun Sunday afternoon. Because there was clear musical leadership from Matthew, even though rehearsal was only 40 minutes for 9 songs, we functioned truly as a band! In fact I was covering a variety of roles, bass, rhythm guitar, some soloing, pads etc. Interesting learning experience, I realized that I've forgotten my B major scale on the cello! (This is probably the dumbing down effect of a lot of worship bands and songs played in C and D.) I've borrowed from the public library 2 books on improvisation because I think I want to get serious again with music.

Matt just sent me links to "Worship team Hero" (see it here). What is really scary is the accuracy of how bland Christian worship has the potential to become.

75% of your vocalists must sing the melody. A maximum of two harmonies are allowed. These harmonies must be at 50% the volume of the melody. They must also be dragged out longer than the melody, to allow the congregation to hear them.

The accuracy is frightening.

Bonus points if everyone in your band (including vocalists) shows up on time. However, double MINUS those points because the sound techs are MIA. [translation missing in action]

Take the time to read the parody of "Worship Team Hero" - laugh and then cry for its accuracy.

Musicianship - insights from Nodame Cantabile

This is the cover of my very first book of cello exercises by Feuillard. I think I must have been 12 years old when I was working from it.

The last few weeks I've been around a chapel service each day (played 5 of those days) and also in services around a variety of places.

Euge started me thinking about these questions. What exactly is musicianship? and How does it play into public corporate worship?

I think the Japanese drama Nodame Cantabile has had much to help me refine my thinking. See my earlier posts (here) or use the Label Cloud on the right. Chiaki, the archetypical technician, has the skills and technique and the rigor to pursue the composer's intent mostly at all costs. Nodame, the freespirited interpreter, who plays how she feels and plays too freely so that she re-composes while playing from what she remembers hearing. Schubert sounds like Chopin! BUT Nodame has phenomenal technique! She can make a piano sing and still be messy.

There are two levels to musicianship in my mind, however neither are technical because you have to have physical technique before you can play competently. Musicianship is firstly studied craftsmanship - we need to understand in someway the musical context and construction of the piece or pieces we're working with. The harmonic construction and options available if improvising or changing chord structures. A "G" chord is not "G" chord on a guitar there are many different versions and inversions. We need read the dynamics and relative dynamics asked for in the getting louder and getting softer. This is Chiaki.

Musicianship also needs a soul or spirit. Metronome, drum machine or musical boxes are all mechanical in feeling, even with swing. Composers did not and do not mark everything performers need to know. There is breathing and phrasing. There is slowing down and speeding up. There are grace notes, for guitarists hammer-on and pull-offs. I read Bradley Lehman assert that "The reproduction and manipulation of other people's work is not expertise. It's consumerism." Certainly its not musicianship. In the days when I conducted a choir I talked a lot about milking a melody. Musicianship is to be able to take a melodic line and squeeze every ounce of emotional value from it and still stay in time! The chanteuse, the cantabile voice does that. This is Nodame!

Musicianship in public corporate worship goes a step further because it involves accompanying and conducting a congregation. There need to be musical cues to support singers, telling them when to come in and keep them in tune. Musicians have to support and give confidence to those singing. Often if one verse of a song goes badly the congregation loses confidence and sings halfheartedly. Carlin keeps reminding me of the importance of transcendence in worship and this brings in the relationship between texture/dynamics and the content and meanings of words. Sad, fearful, or repentant words tend to be quieter but more intense, happier, praiseful or confessional words louder and perhaps in major keys with very few thirds.

in the skies

What emotions are stirred in you watching and listening?
Why is the moon associated with mental illness?


(I shot this feb 2oth on a cold bitter night)

Yet another blog

I've started another blog where I'm starting to think about my musical influences and to place music that is significant or stuff I'm listening to at the moment. (it's here)

As part of my Ignatian reflections, which are part of my spiritual practices, I have been re-examining the past and this second blog is just a good way to do this in respect of music.

perfection and maturity

As we acquire more knowledge, things do not become more comprehensible but more mysterious. Albert Schweitzer

This last week I've been thinking about the sermon on the mount a lot. Partly because of a sermon last week, and Bible study during the week and today's message. As an ethic, Matthew 5 was declared an impossible value system by the great Albert Schweitzer. A philosopher and recognized and published theologian, accomplished organist, and Bach scholar, Schweitzer still seemed to attempt to live the ethic however impossible it was by being a humanitarian doctor in Gabon, in Africa. I was fortunate to read a book about him when I was a teenager about his life in Gabon as doctor, but he gave up many things including being a recorded organist. (listen to him play here) What made him give up the comforts of Europe and acclaim and recognition to go to a tiny little mission hospital. It has taken me a long while to truly understand it. Today a momentary conversation helped me grasp that it isn't a matter of motivation rather something where if you don't do it - you know somethings wrong or missing with your life.

In Matthew 5:48 the Greek, teleios, τελειος, which we translate as perfect has a greater nuance. I have been drawn, since my early days of studying Koine Greek, to the understanding and translation as of being mature or full-grown. This removes the perfectionist problems and presents things with more a holiness as goal. For me, humans are works in progress moving forwards we hope and pray. Life is not about acquiring more knowledge whether facts and information, or even more experiences , but rather to be more astounded by more and more mystery and wonder. If you can accept it, i.e. it is comprehensible then perhaps it doesn't have mystery and wonder that it needs.

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matt 5:48

seems like more than you can manage

At the moment, life feels borderline of what I can manage. I'm trying to squeeze in at least 2 visits a week to my Auntie Mary's - bringing groceries, encouraging her to eat and do her own physio. This is on top of my Dmin studies, spiritual direction, student ministry, and campus chaplain responsibilities. Yet I'm still feeling some real satisfaction and real sense of the guiding hand of God. Both Bible studies yesterday seemed to be exactly for them: they scratched where they were all itching.

But at the moment I have a deep desire to make music again and I long to play the cello and am looking forward to an opportunity for a Good Friday service. Music has incredible power to touch and reach parts of the human psyche. It has that power to create community and bind people together when used well.

unexpected memories

Roy Wood of ELO and Wizard fame is a multi-instrumentalist and one of the reasons ELO ended up with 2 cellists. But he left ELO and moved on very early in ELO's success leaving it to Jeff Lynne but leaving his mark.

This last week has been really full even though looking at my daytimer there seems to be a lot of white space. But if I pause and reflect I am drawn back to my lost loves and unreturned love. Last weekend I was talking with some of the students about long distance relationships and the pain and disappointments, the stresses and strains. In this moment I remember Moulann's beautiful but too short ballad Where did Forever Go (listen to it here)

tell me why you left me
because deep inside you know you’re still in love
maybe things would work
if you told me what you were thinking of
and how could you just leave me
crying all alone in my bed
holding on to words that i wish you’d never said
you said that you would always care
you said that you would always be there

where did forever go?
i really need to know
how you make me fall to my knees by bringing back all those memories
when did all the promises end?
will I find the strength to love again?
how could you take my soul and break my heart in two
don’t you know I gave myself to you?

and though you may have cared
you were never there

....
tell me why you left me
why did you leave me?

Music, emotions, and thinking

Data from Startrek: The Next Generation. Could he truly play music? Music requires technical ability, emotional interpretation and therefore emotional content, and yet also cognitive engagement to understand the world of the composer and composer's intent.

I've become quite fan of Nodame Cantabile because of its authenticity towards music and display of a deeper understanding of the relationship between interpretation, technique and musicianship. But I've also realized more and more that imagination as inspiration is also required. Otherwise things become mechanical reproduction. Sometimes worship sadly ends up here, lacking the spirit part of inspiration!

As a romantic at heart, somehow I don't think the experiencing of life, love, music and spirituality can truly be separated. Whether the highs or the lows of life, I never want to stop feeling them.

Ten hours straight

Well I've had my first square meal since Monday, vegetable. chicken and rice cooked in a soup stock with creamed corn (3 cereal bowls full). Before that I had 5 bowls of chicken congee over 4 hours. Things have now changed considering in the last 3 days I'd consumed 2 slices of dry toast, one can of Campbells vegetable soup, a cereal bar, a packet of seaweed, and half a litre of concentrated Ribena (in hot drinks). Still it's good to start kicking again and I'm 6 pounds lighter than Monday.

Why the strange diet today? Well I've just completed 10 hours of video editing. I reviewed 5.5 hours of tape and chose the clips and then edited them to my sound score I'd created, mangled, assemble and put together. I am frequently amazed how things come together. word, images, and music. Given that the limits of my technology and software forces me to imagine a visual sequence, somehow put together something that matches that approximately in audio and then merge the two together using the score and video soundtracks. It is a process impossible to be analytical, it is only something you can feel and intuit. During the 10 hours I only stopped to pick up a bowl of food or move laundry on but kept at it, eating when I felt hungry, which was most of the day!

The fruit of my labour is 6 minutes 33 seconds of video for my international students event over Christmas. Perhaps you see that my personality type is INFJ thats J with a big "J". Even with bppv, some messed up blood sugar, and some problems regulating body temperature, I have to reach that blissful feeling of completing something, at least one small step. There are many more steps, and hurdles to jump but there is a good sense of moving again.

However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace. Acts 20:24

The Atheist Christmas Carol

I've just come across Vienna Teng a beautiful voice. Is this really an atheist Christmas carol? You judge!



It's the season of grace coming out of the void
Where a man is saved by a voice in the distance
It's the season of possible miracle cures
Where hope is currency and death is not the last unknown
Where time begins to fade
And age is welcome home

It's the season of eyes meeting over the noise
And holding fast with sharp realization
It's the season of cold making warmth a divine intervention
You are safe here you know now

Don't forget
Don't forget I love
I love
I love you

It's the season of scars and of wounds in the heart
Of feeling the full weight of our burdens
It's the season of bowing our heads in the wind
And knowing we are not alone in fear
Not alone in the dark

Cold Fairyland

This is part of Cold Fairyland in Shanghai. (Myspace here)

I have a great interest in fusion music especially where it seeks for a true integration of style. I'm not a fan of the "12 girl band " perhaps because I don't see a real authenticity or true integrity of the music styles or traditions.

However Cold Fairyland who have captured my ears, bring lyrical beauty and authenticity for their music. Of course I'm biased cos I like cello integration and alternative. Their last cd Seeds on the Ground is very reflective. Listen to Dead Children in Newspaper at their myspace website I think you'll find something odd and strangely attractive.

How I wish this were the true nature of worship music for the church, something mysterious and serious, something closer to reality, an awesome God in the truest sense of the word.

Running out of time

Why do I feel like I running out of time? the clock is ticking and I feel so left behind... Moulann

I love an old song called Stressed Out by Moulann (myspace) (listen to the song), whose music my friend Matt played to me quite a few years ago. I have two opposite behaviour patterns when I'm all stressed out. One is to become super organized and prepare things way in advance i.e. I confront and control the objects causing stress. The other is total avoidance until the deadlines create desperation, i.e. I become a victim of the stress. I've reached a point at the moment where I'm in avoidance which if you know me is very rare. But I have a number of people I'm worried about including my Auntie Mary, plus I have a horrible schedule until after Christmas. I need a number of miracles.

The problem as I know is placing my trust correctly and releasing the worries. I've scarcely played my cello in a while and am not giving enough time to praying. Praying is a real tension about trusting God will deliver and my own responsibility of human action of doing something to bring things about.

Our Study in Romans last night just brought all that home to a reality. Why am I blogging so much about this? Perhaps I've got to get playing/praying...

See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame. Romans 9:33

what I've been listening to

A lot of people interpret what they think God says. But the only time God actually speaks for himself is in the books of the prophets. That's what kind of interests me. I'm interested in the idea of separating God from religion. Sinéad O Connor

I've been listening to Sinéad O Connor's Theology. yes, both her CD and her thoughts. It's an unlikely name for a rock/folk double CD which resist categories by issuing 2 CDs with identical track listings but presenting very opposite styles for the same songs. The skin-head Irish rocker who is infamously remembered for tearing up a photo of Pope John Paul II on TV is in interesting territory. The songs are one woman's search for the meaning in life and strangely she is looking at the God of Israel. You might not like her theology, her politics, her lifestyle nor her cropped hair — but you cannot deny that it is a good place to start by searching for the heart of God by searching the pages of the Old Testament. I find 33 based on Psalm 33 offers interesting insights in a darker rock version form the London sessions and a warmer folk version from the Dublin sessions.

Sing oh you righteous to the lord
It's right that the upright should acclaim him
Sing to Jah with your guitar
Turn up yer bass amp
Whack it up all the way to 'save him'

By the word of Jah heaven was made
By the breath of his mouth all its hosts
He gathers up the oceans like a mound
And stores the deep
Stores the deep in vaults

Sing him a new song
Sing sweet with shouts of joy
For the word of Jah is right
And he sees what is right
And he loves what is right
And the earth is full of his care

Jah spoke and it was
He commanded and it endured
He frustrates the plans of nations
And brings to nothing
The designs of people

This CD set is not sweet syrup nor pure rebelliousness. But interestingly it is honest and frankly something filled with risk and therefore worth listening to. (Check out her myspace page)

Let your unfailing love surround us, Lord, for our hope is in you alone. Ps 33:22

begin playing

Not many years ago I began to play the cello. John Caldwell Holt

This is an odd way to phrase things because we think we start to learn. Holt went on to explain.

Most people would say that what I am doing is ‘learning to play the cello’. But these words carry into our minds the strange idea that there exist two very different processes:- (1) learning to play the cello, and (2) playing the cello. ... They imply that I will do the first until I have completed it, at which point I will stop the first process and begin the second. In short, I will stop the first process and begin the second. In short, I will go on learning to play until I have learned to play and then I will begin to play. Of course this is nonsense. We learn something by doing it. There is no other way.

John Caldwell Holt was an innovative educator who challenged the idea of a compulsory or a coerced education process. Holt believed that children did not need to be forced to learn if given the freedom to follow their own interests and a rich assortment of resources, children would learn. Formerly a teacher he eventually quit because schools were in his view intrinsically flawed. Thus his line of thinking became known as unschooling and he became a proponent of home schooling. I think we already know that we learn best by doing but Holt looked at the environment, motivation and reasons that bring learning.

When I examine the language and I say that I am playing there is a certain confidence and feeling of accomplishment. I wonder if playing can be seen relationally that playing is an expression of the essential relationship between player and instrument. Learning to play is far more an abstraction moving oneself from the instrument. perhaps I can frame this in terms of Martin Buber's relationships. I am playing the cello is a declaration of intent for an I-Thou relationship however this realistically does not have a significance unless seen against the I-Eternal Thou which in this situation is music itself. But we have a tendency to reduce things to I-it relationships and learning to play is this. (See my earlier posts 1 & 2)

In fact as I think of it I see parallels with Jurgen Habermas' categories of learning. He presents technical learning, process/practical learning, and emancipatory learning. When it comes to the cello, there is a basic technical knowledge that is required however the objective is to transition to process/practical learning as quickly as possible i.e. move from I-it to I-Thou relationships with the instrument. But emancipatory learning requires an I-Eternal Thou relationship. Thus in cello playing, there is learning to play, playing the cello, and making music.

All I have to do is change the "l" to an "r" and spirituality and prayer and my thoughts begin to cascade into a new shape.

Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers... Eph 6:18

chance, coincidence, or wonder

Sometimes unexpected things happen. Tonight we were going to hear Beethoven's Ninth Symphony except there were so many people attending that it was impossible to get into the hall. A student and I went downstairs to sit and chat in the refectory and there was a Chinese pipa player and guitarist setting up for a live performance. My young friend and I chatted for a while and I was saying that many years ago I had seen a group with an attractive and exciting pipa player. Then in the group's warm up I heard them play a very familiar fusion piece mixing Chinese and more Latin influenced. It was her 8-10 years later! I didn't recognise her but the arrangement instantly.

Silk Road Music was formed by virtuoso pipa player Qiu Xia He, who came to Canada as part of a touring ensemble. (info here) Her music and the fusion aspect is exciting and makes me wonder why Christian worship is so influenced by American monoculture when we live in a multicultural setting. What we need is more creativity and willingness to experiment, to break out of a conservatism in favour of a playfulness. Of course this assumes theoretical musical competency and technical ability.

Playing position

This sketch of a young woman playing the cello is passionate and intense. Over the years my playing position has had to change. One year in the 1980's my normal week long annual cello playing holiday was extended to 10 days. On the 8th day my back and right shoulder finally complained and told me that enough was enough. I developed a problem with my latissimus dorsai a muscle running down and across the shoulder. (I later found out this is a common injury for professional cellists! It made me smile then!)

On day 8, I moved from years of playing seated on the front edge of the chair to sitting right on the back of the seat with my shoulders resting on the top of the back. Now wedged into the chair I moved to a more continental style. I believe I first came across it associated with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra but I'm not sure. In doing that I have lost some flexibility but gained support.

More serious nowadays is my left arm/shoulder is no longer as strong as it was. Ideally the forearm is almost parallel with the floor thus offering both a vertical vibrato and a rotating vibrato. But the shoulders need to be exercised and muscles to be in good condition to maintain the correct playing position. This not the case at the moment.

There is for me a nostalgia, a desire to recover or return to my past pleasures and achievements but I know that is impossible. However I still desire something of the past but I realize that first of all I have to begin to work on my playing position for everything else to fall into place. Paul Tortellier's emphasis on good technique is important and can reduce ultimately the amount of rehearsal required. Oh for this young woman's flexibility and passion! Maybe what I long for is a good playing position, better strength, and good technique and the potential for good music.

I know that my spiritual life depends on the exercise of spiritual disciplines and these in turn affect my spiritual growth, but the disciplines do not as such constitute the spiritual life. They are the technique that allows life to come. As a musician it is to discover music in the act of playing, as a Christian it is to discover Christ in the act of praying.