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Wednesday
Apr212010

Arvo's Telescope

 

 

This is what can come when you are looking for something -- a real search -- and music is your telescope.

This tiny little piece, just two short pages of notation, is wonderfully rich. I have been playing through it over and over again this last week. It is absolutely strange how much subtlety is contained in it.

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Thursday
Apr082010

TU + Lori show

Some photos and video tidbits from the performance last weekend at the Kirkland Performance Center. We're still searching around for more pictures and are itching to get our ears on the audio recordings.

This was a very rewarding show. Everyone I spoke to said they were taken by the diversity of the material, and yet it all held together quite well. For myself, the show was an 8 of 10 - which is damn high, and possibly one of the best TU shows ever.

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Tuesday
Mar232010

Trey Gunn interviews on TU

Here is an interview I did for the recent TU shows at the Kirkland Performance on April 3rd. In five parts.

info about the show and tickets

 

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Monday
Mar082010

Music’s Advocate

I had the wonderful pleasure of advocating for Music week ago. It caught me by surprise how direct it was, and how clear my role was.

It was over the course of three different coaching sessions with three different people. I could hear what the music was demanding, and I voiced that. These folks were, each, working on completely different kinds of things.

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Saturday
Mar062010

What's a bass for?

There’s many things a bass can do. Carol Kaye’s version is, perhaps, old school in the sense that

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Monday
Feb152010

Quiet Listening

I have been experimenting with a new kind of listening over the last year.

For reasons partially, but not completely, clear to me I am finding that my ear has developed a kind of threshold. This threshold is not just volume oriented, it is also information oriented. Once I cross this threshold my ears shut down -- both internally and externally. Meaning that not only does my inner ear shut down and I cannot bear to listen anymore, but my physical ears don't want any more sound either. They kind of stuff themselves up.

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Friday
Feb122010

The Mermaid Guitar

I couldn't pass up sending this one on. Before you size up the builder as a "pure-bred loony" --  and he may very well be, I never met him -- have a look around his site for all the incredible instruments he has built. Nice guitars, mandolins and mandocellos for John Paul Jones, Josh Homme and others.

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Monday
Feb082010

The Coaching<>Instruction Spectrum

I recently received a very thoughtful email asking more specifics about how I define 'music coaching' as distinct from 'music instruction'. Here was my reply.

<<<

Basically, there is a kind of spectrum with Instruction on one end and Coaching on the other end. Only two people I am currently working with fall completely on the "coaching end".

I think I can explain it like this.

The instruction end of the spectrum is where one needs to work on facility and there may not be a burning drive to realize some clear vision. The coaching end is where there IS a very clear aim/vision but there is either uncertainty about how to realize it or the spiral of the process is putting blocks in the way.

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