Taking in and making images: Aikido and Relaxation

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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More Bass than you can shake a Bass to

A whole lotta bass going on....

L’Orchestre de Contrebasses

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Johann Johannsson

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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Italian Improvisations

  --- thanks for Matt Chamberlain for this  ---

Ennio Morricone, Mario Bertoncini, Walter Branchi, Franco Evangelisti, John Heineman, Roland Kayn, Egisto Macchi,  Ivan Vandor 1967-1969

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Russian remix contest

My sometime musical collaborator Inna Zhelannaya has begun a remix contest with a track off her new cd "Cocoon." I played on this track as well as several other interesting Russian musicians.

"Cocoon" will be released in the US on my label, 7d Media, early this fall.

For the Russian speakers, here is the original remix link:
Inna remix track

For the non-Russian speakers, here is a translated version of the info page (have fun with the translation!):
Inna track info in English (if this link doesn't work see the translation below)

 Inna and I will be two of the judges in the contest. We look forward to checking out your entries!

 

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"The Lanyard" - a day for mothers

For Mother's Day:

Billy Collins "The Lanyard"

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David Lynch

Lynch on the iPhone

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Modulator excerpt

Just a quick note to let everyone know that the Modulator section is beginning to grow. I just added the first sample track and plan on adding some "before and after" tracks, including some pieces showing the process quite a bit along the way.

This should get more and more interesting as I add stuff of my own, in addition to new stuff from the other collaborators. Alex Machacek's version "24 Tales" is coming out the same day as Modulator: May 18. Mike Keneally's is on his way, as well as John Czaikovski's and Marco Minnemann's.

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