Dhyāna Series: Photo 3

The next door neighbors here have great joy in their yard. Their backyard is a jungle of all kinds of plants from this grape vine to palm trees to roses to "beautiful, but invasive ground-cover" gardened by those that obviously love each and every one. They care about the fate of a small plant's life, health, and prosperity. That, to me, is worthy of note.

Dhyāna Series: Introduction

There is a great deal going on in the world, and close to home that I (alone) can do very little about as a (currently) unemployed grad student but that disturbs me greatly. This is a series of photos that I am beginning in a centering effort to do something, hopefully a little more toward peace and order in a world more and more of chaos and hate.

(do feel free to correct cultural/informational/any inaccuracies as I am a grasshopper in this) In Sanskrit, Dhyāna ध्यान, is a root word for varying forms of meditation, positive/negative and modified/traditional. A lovely article by Shinzen Young sums up Patanjali's three levels of concentration as:

Dhāranā: Attention wanders from the object and is brought back over and over again.

Dhyāna: Attention on the object is effortless and continuous like an unbroken stream of oil.

Samādhi: Attention is so complete that the yogi becomes the object!

Some of this hits a little too close for comfort in a number of ways. However, in one small way I offer as much as one photog can in this series of increasingly horrible events unfolding in our world. We may not be able to undo what we've done, and how many of us feel more and more agitated at the inability to effect change? Positive thinking is one thing. Prayer another. little as it may be or do universally, please accept a moment of peace and stillness as a reminder for ourselves. These are the first two photos I have designated in this series, and hopefully, the first of many:





gassho and love to you all.

"In the Frame"

I've thought about it for a while and find myself more and more looking at the teaching lessons of life through the act of framing. Intentionality and accident; awareness and ignorance; containment and randomness; art and impassivity--all encompassed in our frames. As director Scorsese says about cinema: "It is a matter of what's in the frame and what's out," but more and more I see that applicable in my life as a whole. There is so much to be learned and taught through what is found in the frame. I would like this topic to now be reflected in this blog (might as well as I seem to go on and on about it so much anyway). Anyhow, more later.

a few of my favorite quotes below:

"Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame."
Gilbert K. Chesterton

"Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet."
Victor Hugo

"Humor expands our limited picture frame and gets us to see more than just our problem."
Allen Klein

"Human life itself may be almost pure chaos, but the work of the artist is to take these handfuls of confusion and disparate things, things that seem to be irreconcilable, and put them together in a frame to give them some kind of shape and meaning."
Katherine Anne Porter

Collaborative Quilt; Dedication Quilt

Ordinarily, I am not much of a quilter. or, you might say, I suck at quilting, but very much enjoy sewing quilt tops. However, so many of the women in my family and lineage make very beautiful quilts; my grandmother, perhaps, most of all. For this reason, a number of years ago, I made a deal with her that if I finished the top, I could pass it on to her, and she would do the actual quilting. I thought of this as my "collaborative quilt" and thought it very exciting, even if I did underestimate the complexity of the pattern and the time it would take to complete such a goal. Well, an embarrassing number of years later, and my part of the deal remains unfinished, partly because each piece must be cut by hand and partly--more importantly--because my grandmother passed away a few years ago. Needless to say, it has been particularly difficult to work on since then, because I cannot help thinking of her when I do anything with it. The color design, sewing tips--nearly every bit of it, I learned from her and my mother, and all I have accomplished with it have been with both of them by me all the time.

Now, with time passed, as I pick it up again, I realize how grateful I am for such strong memories and associations with this project. Who wouldn't want to be reminded of such remarkable women? But I cannot deny or avoid how the concept has unalterably changed. Instead of a "collaborative quilt," I have decided to remake the deal into my "dedication quilt." (Lord help me for the actual quilting... but one thing at a time.) It is the price we pay for loving people that they leave us, and times are ended, but that's part of what makes what is left behind so much more precious. I hope that in every continued step, her presence becomes more apparent. To clarify, I do not wish to make this project embody her life or everything she meant to me; that is a hell of an attempt and would be giving what is most precious to something that passes away. The Thing remains forever just a thing, but it is my intent to infuse a bit of my love and memories in the making of this object, then take them with me, though leaving a perceptible remnant for the enjoyment of others. I am a proponent of this in nearly every art form I participate in, from photography to (musical) performance to sewing, and continue to be amazed at the effectiveness and intensity of the experience, viewer and creator alike, with this method.

Below, some pictures of my remarkable creative lineage that I hope to measure up to someday, if I'm lucky. I don't currently have a digitized copy of my grandmother at her quilting, but hope to soon:


**Grandmother and early family.


**Three generations; four crafties.


**My beloved Aunt passing on the tradition!

Storm Chasography

Well, successfully completed the first foray into storm photography. Hopefully more to come with my beloved shutterbuddy. I've loved storm chasing for quite a while, but never considered photographing until recently with such great travel companions. Last night's first adventure just happened to be the most perfect conditions and ended up with a number of addictive subjects caught on film between the two of us, and now I must admit: hook, line, sinker; I'm gone, especially after several lottery images like these:

Murphy descends to next level of hell

Taking the one hour available, after nodding off in three of the most interesting classes it has ever been my pleasure to attend, to catch up on a little sleep in the hope to function for subsequent class/study session/rehearsals. and the phone rings off the hook the entire time.


Low blow, Murphy, low blow...

Research Experiment #1, Performance in Practice: Guidelines

or, "Following Your Own Theoretical Advice In a Practical Example." This series, of sorts, of posts that I want to start is the informal substance of a paper I'm working on and will be using this blog as a crucible for that project. If it doesn't work, I'll reassess from there. What I am going to do is walk through the performance questions that arise when building a modern, newly-imagined version of medieval music as I have learned to conceive it, and my particular method for answering those questions. This is one method of many, and one person's opinion on how to go about it.

Now, to begin. This will be the 'accompanying a song' section. Of primary importance in this type of performance is the text, followed closely by the story, i.e. meaning of text. How that translates for an accompanying instrumentalist is what I will now (attempt) to describe using a practical example. What I hope, if successful, is that a reader will have a general understanding of what it takes and a few guiding steps to re-imagine medieval music in performance. The truncated version that I give for people asking me, "I have been assigned _____ piece and must come up with accompaniment [with or without panicked inflections]. Where/how do I start?" etc., etc. This is:

1. reduce the melody to long tones
to further clarify: there are certain modal gestures, or even simpler: just notes, that will follow and support the melody or text, or (hint, hint) often both. The reduction of the melody in this fashion will very quickly give you a foundation to then develop.

2. manipulate (or substitute) the particular 'melodic gestures' indicative of the specific mode.
This is a jumping off point for figuring, or improvising, variations on the melody, as well as providing plentiful material for extemporized interludes, preludes, etc., etc. To clarify as well: 'melodic gesture' is a term coined by a teacher of mine that speaks to the fact that modes are defined, somewhat by the placement and span of the octave, but much more so the specific collection of melodic figures distinctive to each mode.

3. reduce the text to adjectives.
The role of accompaniment is to heighten and support the text. To do this, even as instrumentalists, I feel very strongly that some knowledge of the meaning of the text is needed. We don't have to know the extent that (we hope) the singer is doing, but it can only help to inform our performance. What is the point, and what does it mean?

I would suggest as well a general knowledge of the context of the piece, in as far as we can gather, in it's original historical setting, but that is a slippery research slope, because it becomes difficult to know the line between "research for the sake of performance" and "burying the performance in research." Trust me: been there, done both. To solve this, here is my check-list of things to be aware of:
a) have a list of performance questions to answer, and just answer them. For example, 'what century/country/region are we in?' 'Who's paying/playing/listening?' 'What types of methods do have from (roughly) the period about creating music, or maybe more specifically about extemporizing music?' 'What guesses can we make about possible influences on the piece?' I have found for me, the shorter the answer, the less distracted I am liable to get.

b) knowing more about the piece can only help, but spend at least as much time practicing the thing as you do researching it. Playing this music, or really any music, is hard. It is immensely gratifying, serves unnumbered purposes, and connects people in ways nearly inconceivable to me though I've seen and done it for years, but it is hard. Aspiring to excellence requires a dedicated amount of time and effort. Both of which I am happy to give because I value what I do, but I believe it cannot be reached without those two elements.

c) have fun and experiment. As my teacher told me the day I met him, "If it's not fun, why are we here?" I'll add to that here in that if it's not an interesting performance to the person singing/playing it, I guarantee it will not be interesting to the audience listening to it. Think about, hold in your mind, feel what you want the audience to "take away" from this performance, and as crazy as it sounds, they will. even in various crazy dialects no one's heard of or completely instrumental music.