Trey Gunn

Dr. Minz's video to The Magnificent Jinn, from "Music for Pictures."

The Magnificent Jinn

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Video by Bas van Huizer for Hari's Dream from Music for Pictures.

Hari's Dream from Bas van Huizen on Vimeo.

The Fifth Spin of the Sun from Music for Pictures. Video by Ste van Holm. (Greg Gilmore on Drums.)

Trey Gunn - 5th Spin of the Sun from Ste van Holm on Vimeo.

Note: this post follows on from this earlier post. Go there first if you are just coming to this discussion.

Wow! So many great responses from everyone. I am super enlivened and encouraged, not just by the level of the dialogue in general, but in the depth to which everyone is willing to engage with these questions. My responses so far:

    ONE: Stop It or I will Make You

For those who think I am not aware of the cease and desist strategy of

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It has now been just enough time since the release of Modulator that the free downloaders have ripped their files and are making the recording available for free. There are even some sites that make my entirely personal catalog available with one click! My life's work transmitted to you for free. Yikes. How would a plumber or a car mechanic feel about that??

There are many arguments in the debate regarding the goodness/e-vile-ness of this. Some have decent point and some are just plain uninformed and stupid. One of the silliest is that artists make all their money from touring and that is just the way it works nowadays. Not true. Touring and bringing money home is still extremely difficult, making it a dubious and crap way to support one's creative activities.

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I spent two hours Saturday morning at a teacher’s training workshop at the Aikido Dojo. This is a monthly workshop that helps the black belt’s work on their teaching chops. The Sensei likes to have some less experienced folks there, as well, to be guinea pigs. What happens is that one of the black belts gets chosen to lead a 15-minute segment. They present a series of techniques and work with the group. Then afterwards we have a short period of feedback on what worked for us and what didn’t.

This is the second teacher workshop I have attended and they are quite different from the regular practices. For one, there are bucket loads of black belts in the room. Saturday had about 15+ with, maybe, four white belts. So the energy is quite different. The pacing in the room moves faster and there is clearly work going on at a deeper level than the classes with larger percentages of beginning practitioners.

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A whole lotta bass going on....

L’Orchestre de Contrebasses

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I was at the most wonderful performance last night. The Icelandic composer Johann Johannsson. The group consisted of piano, electronics and string quartet. As far as pure, rich musical sound goes, a string quartet is unsurpassable. And these folks played very, very well. Perfectly in tune, and with dynamics that leave most all music that hits our ears in the dust bin of flatness.

For some unknown reason the music was quite moving to me. Unknown because even after 4 decades of being directly involved in the life of music, I still have no idea why some things move and some things don't. Last night moved. And not just me -- I could feel lot's of empathy with the music in the room.

Two things made for a unique night for me. And the first one made it extraoardinary.

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