That is the name of the band Hannah and I checked out in Minneapolis on Saturday nite, at the Cabooze. Matisyahu is also the name of the lead singer/rapper. He is a very charismatic guy. The best way to describe the music? Get this --- Hasidic Reggae Hip-Hop. And I have to say, this quartet made it work. The music was hot.
We went in large part because the bassist, Josh Werner, is the bassist and long-time friends with Hannah. Their families go way back. It was great to see him play. His basslines were very phat and groovy - always in the perfect amount of reggae motion.
He told us after the show that he co-wrote the band's album, Shake Off The Dust...Arise, with Matisyahu. Which probably means he added the music to Matisyahu's Hasidic-inspired lyrics, chants, and recitations. This is the best reggae I've ever heard live. The genre, to me, suffers from a lack of innovation. But this was definitely not the case with Matisyahu. The music was very inventive, mysterious, and engaging.
The venue, The Cabooze, was packed with over 600 people. Lots of folks who seem like they did Phish showed up. The dreads were dancin'. Always makes for a good vibe, because dread-folks (and 'dreads of the mind') are usually huge music fans, and give their body and soul to participation in the vibrations channelled by good bands.
We went with our good friends Arielah Moskow, Mark Stenglein, Andrew Carlson, and Emily Zimmer. Somehow I didn't get tired, as I usually go at rock shows that go past 1 am. It was smoky, drunky, and dirty, but it was nice to touch base with the raw juices of a rock club again.
This sort of hippie scene used to comprise my peeps, and I'm heavily sympathetic to the contemporary hippie culture. I often think that I'm a 'jamband composer', which is a ridiculous title, and something I don't take seriously, but it sticks around in my head. It is just that jamband music is where I cut my teeth for so long, especially in college.
But anyway, Matisyahu is not a jamband, but a Hasidic Reggae HipHop group. My best wishes to their continued success and noteriety. They are on tour for several more weeks, so defintely run don't walk to check dem out.
For some much needed weekend r & r. We'll see our good friends up there, bring back our Minnesoootan accent, and I have some studio time reserved for touch-ups to I Am Sound.
And I'm sure I'll raise a shovel for you all. It is January and this here is the upper-midwest. Have a ball, y'all. And I'll be back on Monday.
Well, I finished Pleasants concise polemnic, The Agony of Modern Music. I like it. It lost a bit of steam after the first half of the book, which pulls no punches in its incisiveness, wit, and clarity. The last half starts to fizzle a bit if only because he focuses on 'crises' in melody, rhythm, and opera. This closer scrutiny fogs the strength of his overall opinion, which is not about particulars in music, but its general contours in the West in the 20th century. Of course the book was published in 1955, so he does not have the benefit of the distance we have today as we look back upon the merits and demerits of 20th century composers' output.
His main conclusion is that jazz is our modern art music, exclusively. Jazz is our 'serious music', in the sense that Mozart, Beethoven, et al, through Schumann and even Bartok, were serious composers who were nonetheless loved by the public at large in their day. And because jazz (at least through the 50s) was hooked into popular taste, and relied upon the supply and demand of this taste, Pleasants feels that jazz best exemplifies a music that hasn't lost its vital social component. Jazz is music in the hands of practicing musicians (not disembodied mathematicians). The music has an audience (especially when 'jazz' meant big band swing and dance bands). And on this point, I agree entirely with Pleasants. American composers ignore the features of jazz at their own peril.
I differ with Pleasants mostly in his conclusions about 20th century serious music (atonal, serial, and what is unfortunately called 20th century classical music). Pleasants thinks the era as not much more than trash, with a public indifferent to its music both in record sales and concert attendance. Sure, I tend to not listen to Schoenberg, Webern, Cage, and pretty much everyone from the first 50 years of last century, with the major exception of Bartok and some Stravinsky. But I still think one can find merits in what they strove for in their music. And a proper assessment of those goals, including the psychological attitudes they appeared to have, is direly needed, and frankly Pleasants doesn't provide much help on those fronts.
My sense is that these composers followed intellectual goals to expand our tonal palatte. Our menu is wider because of their efforts, and that is a good thing. That in doing so they tended to dismiss the tonal tradition of the West is, well, ironic. Their attempts to escape tonality were the height of quixotic. Such a task is impossible, because humans simply hear music as a tonal narrative, even if within that narrative are discordant clashes and an attempt to escape narrative. It comes down to a version of the old yarn - even to not have a narrative is your narrative.
With regard to expanded tonal palette due to their overly intellectual efforts to explore chromaticism, well - what we have now is a more fertile soil to grow more tonally informed music (informed more by planet-centrism and absoption of other cultures' music, which was difficult in strict 18th century tonality). Our options for music are more flexible now, more bendy, more able to handle exotic modes, complex rhythms, and prolonged ambiguity. While their musical products can often be dismissed as unlistenable, they cleared the table for new and better aural meals. They prepped us for a planet-centric embrace.
In all of that, with our bag of materials deeper and wider than it was 100 years ago (thanks to the theortical efforts exemplified by Schoenberg, the philosophic efforts of Cage, and the compositional efforts exemplified by Ellington, Williams, and Gershwin), we have the ability for an even more resonant simplicity informed by ambiguity, but also transcendent of its intellectual tethers.
It is music in simple form that most humans relate with, and there is not one thing wrong with that. Composers of today, if they want an audience for their music, have to in my estimation go through the fire of ambiguous harmony, melody, and rhythm. We have to cut our teeth on pluralism, on music from all of the world's major cultures and traditions. We have to make sense of the world's music, and deeply listen to it over many years. If we do this successfully and authentically, then our music reflects that sense-making. And in our own small way as artists, we can offer the world little wave pictures in sound, that metaphor a way to deal with the big wide world. All of this can be only semi-conscious, but it will happen if we are engaged in the world's music, in all cultures, premodern, modern, and contemporary.
Through music, an understanding of how to survive and thrive in a pluralistic world can emerge. We kind of have to sneak this in, and not really talk about it or trumpet this sort of intention, if you have it. Because when you do, people don't believe you, and will turn elsewhere. No one wants to be hit over the head. And the open secret is that music that sounds simple is rarely simple to construct. Authentic simplicity is the result of a yeoman's amount of bodily, intellectual, and spiritual work. To compose a story that listeners relate with requires all of our being, activated.
So my advice - absorb as much of the world's juices as possible. Really get out there, live, love, die, and rejuvenate. Improvise a ton with your favorite instrument, till the midnight becomes dawn. And then, in a almost shockingly simple way, the real music of your soul will just sort to seep into your compositions - organically, and as it should when the time is right for harvest.
We can't let our intellectual ideas get in the way of creative music. We can't have the 'idea' be the central focus of our music. Music is its own beast, and its authentic variety laughs at composers who wants their ideas to territorialize its sonic terrain. Music only partly hits our intellectuality. Mostly it hits our spirit through our meat and bones. And when you are in an improvisation, and your meat and bones get jazzed, then and only then have you taken the first steps towards real composition - the kind that other people want and need to care about.
She sent this to family and friends last week. For those of you unfamiliar with midwifery philosophy and practice, this may help clear things up. So, heeeeeeeeerrre's Mommy!
hi!
well, the birth will take place at st. elizabeth, which is a hospital.
i will be using the midwives the whole time. these are 'certified nurse midwives' (CNMs), so they have gone through nursing school as well as midwifery training and have been board certified. midwives are trained for just this, especially.
the whole philosophy is that only one in every hundred or more births is so exceptional as to need emergency medical care. pregnancy and childbirth are treated as normal processes, rather than a 'medical event.' to put it succintly, a woman's body is not 'a lemon' but instead is made to do this work. i will be allowed to give birth in whatever position i choose, have who i chose be present and assist me for the birth (besides the midwife, i mean friends or family who might act as doulas). in short, i will be much more in charge of the whole process, and can walk around and eat and drink in early labor. i may or may not choose an epidural.
it has been documented that there is a lower rate of all sorts of complications when births are attended by midwives. here is a link to the national association, which might offer some information, if you feel like poking around:
I/we are choosing this route because Western medicine isn't all there is to offer and sometimes a lot of gadgets and technology can actually get in the way of childbirth. for example, birthing in a supine (lying down) position, actually closes up the pelvis, and the woman and baby have to fight gravity instead of work with it, and this is the position many OBs might require. or, internal fetal monitoring requires that the woman stay still, which can actually get in the way of the progress of labor, thus causing more fetal distress, instead of just detecting it.
our midwife works with an OB, and should any risky situation arise, i will have the luxury and comfort of emergency medical care near, but this is thought of as the exception rather than the rule.
after meeting with the midwives, i feel stronger than ever about this decision, and am looking forward to experiencing my pregnancy and birth this way. i hope this helps clear up any concern you have, and i'm happy to offer more information about all this, if you have any questions, too.
That is the newest preview track up on the site. It is a rock song via jamband stylistics. Check out my guitar solo, as well as the sax and bass solos. You can read about the backstory, see the lyrics, and absorb the mp3 if you click here.
It is the first preview track of the Curious Brew album, which is a collection of live jamband rockers, classical and jazz guitar pieces, plainchants, and a vocal motet. It was already released last year, but soon it will be re-released as part of my three album rollout. Some of the tracks will be slightly remastered, so it would be worth a new copy.
And I want to remind everyone that if you choose to support MatthewDallman.com at the member level, you will automatically receive all three of my albums - Spiral Suite, Curious Brew, and I Am Sound. This is something you can consider.
Anyway, I hope you dig In the Shade. There are three more preview tracks to come on this album before it is re-released.
"I see the piano improvisations as directions for us on our way back home. That these are meditation instructions: inhale, notice a thought, witness it, release it or let it pass, and exhale." -- from a fascinating new letter over at Readers Respond.
From The Agony of Modern Music (p. 108), Pleasants quotes Hindemith:
A musical structure which, due to its extreme novelty, does not, in the listener's mind, summon up any recollections of former experiences, or which incessantly disappoints his constructive expectations, will prevent his creative cooperation.
This precisely illustrates why there is a need for integral art production theory and praxis, one based upon the general outlines of integral semiotics. What composers and musicians create, in this sense, is a musical symbol, an aural sign. The sign begins and ends in time, from the silence before the first notes to the silence after the last notes. Within those silences (which act as a frame), a sonorous image emerges, and we can hear it as music.
The structure of sonorous image, how its built and composed, as Hindemith writes, requires a certain responsibility on the part of the composer, that is if the composer is interested in an active relationship between audience and music. With the diversity of interpretive possibilities in contemporary society -- the ways we might respond to a piece of music -- it is important that we know the general patterns of listener response. At the very least, we have to be familiar with how people hear and relate to music, through the terms they use, the broad associations they make, and what they value. This means an investigation of states of listener consciousness, developmental worldviews, and personality types - and how each relate with the listener's experience of music. (For Wilber junkies, this is summarized as states, levels, and types from his AQAL model.)
Throw in composer psychology, an composer's raw materials and architectural grammar and theory, and strategies of public presentation of art to audiences, and what you have is one of the main areas of my work: a theory of integral artwork production. My model is for working artists who want to look to the future and create comprehensive, informed, and resonant art for the world's citizens, and thus surf the wave of breaking consciousness as it reactivates in all sentient creatures.
From the New Yorker, a wonderful article by Claudia Roth Pierpont. The kosmic kwote:
"Rhapsody in Blue” gave people everything they had been waiting for. Novelty with depth; virtuosity with passion; originality with a tradition strong behind it—their own too nervous, much too fast, thrillingly sad, and ineffably romantic lives, circa 1924, expressed in sound. Although the initial reviews had plenty of reservations—the piece was structurally incoherent, technically undeveloped—there was no getting around the fact that something new had taken place.
Hannah felt her first Bean movement the other night! Around 8 pm (CST) on Monday, she felt a little thing move a bit inside her belly. Her birthing books call this a 'quickening', and suggest that it almost feels like a butterfly or, ehem, a gas bubble.
In three weeks we see the midwives again. They will perform an ultrasound, and we'll see if our little Bean shows up as sound waves pulse through Hannah's womb. And with some good fortune (and the willingness of Bean) we just might be able to discern if Bean is a Boy Bean or a Girl Bean.
Holy mother effin' grandioso WOW.
One thing - if it is a boy Bean, I told Hannah last night that I don't think the name 'Django' feels right. We both had talked about that name for several years, as a candidate. We liked it robust forthrightedness. Ja-Ja-Ja Django, comin' atcha.
But that name has lost its resonance with me as a first name. 'Django Dallman'. I don't think the German gypsys have really taken much footing yet in the world (will they ever?). But maybe, just maybe, a middle name of Django, if it is indeed a Boy Bean.
Which I'm totally either way on. I really don't care whether it sings soprano/alto or tenor/bass. At this point, the words "ten fingers and ten toes" mean more to me than I ever thought the words could. Health, for Bean and for Hannah. That is what I care about. I'll figure out how to parent a girl or boy when we cross that bridge.
But I love the Ina May Gaskin midwifery book we both have been reading. Hannah's body is made for childbirth. And her psychology/spirituality has it totally in her to not only just handle childbirth, but to SHINE. Western medicine (not to be too general or cliche) really does treat childbirth and pregnancy as a health risk. This must change!
And while that sociological battle rages, our Bean grows. Hannah is in her 16th week. And she is doing just great. And I couldn't be happier.
I Am Sound, demo tracks (almost done!) Miles Davis, The Complete Bitches Brew (4 CDs)
There is no more controversial an album by a major American musician. For many, this Miles album is the cut off point. Beyond it, Miles' music ceased to be valuable. He was off in electric fusion la-la-ville.
But I don't have that opinion. I think the album is one of the most incendiary musical statements in the history of the U.S. I don't think it is 'jazz' in any classic sense. But it need not be to be a landmark piece of music. As a metaphor for life and death, Bitches Brew evokes a world vibrant with the sweat, sex, anger, grit, and rejuvenation of life in a molten motion.
And it really is a brew. Contemporary Western genres: Blues, jazz, rock, funk, electronic, serialism. Older Western touches from European dance/chamber forms, as well as premodern European modal. Rhythms and melodies from Ghana and other African tribal traditions. Melodic pentatonic with echoes from Japanese and Chinese forms, as well as modalities from Middle Eastern, Turkish, Indian, and other traditions.
Of course it is kind of a mess. He could have used the title "Cosmic Slop" before George Clinton used it for his work. It is not a coherant worldcentric statement, but it is nonetheless just beyond the cusp of ethnocentric into a wider and deeper worldcentric embrace. Miles loved to listen to music from other traditions and cultures, and he was highly influened by the contemporary composer/sound artist Karlheinz Stockhausen. And much of Bitches Brew was constructed through artful editing and splicing of material from different recording sessions. It is patchwork, but it kicks like pretty much no other album, period. It is its own thing, a nearly uncopyable musical paradigm.
Myself, I loved the record in high school. Then classic jazz snobbery got the best of me in college, so I looked down upon this record as less-than-jazz meanderings. Then as I got into Phish, I liked Bitches Brew again, for several years. When I released myself from constant attention to Phish, the entire electric Miles era (1968-1957) went with it.
And now, 5 years later, this work (with its newly released archival material that adds two more CDs) must be taken as emblematic for American music initial push into an embrace and reconciliation with the rest of the world, as Miles and his comrades knew it then (or semiconsciously felt blindly, like babies in a cave with only sound as a guide). And it resonates with me, now simply for what it is - music, produced by over 10 of the greatest improvisatory musicians of the last 50 years. And somehow steered, directed, and irrigated by Miles and Teo Macero, the producer.
Whether it meanders a bit too much can be debated. Both sides have a case. But what seems to me to be indisputable is that these cats made love to the Mystery through collaborative sound experiments. Thank the lord they did so with recording machines turned on.
Mozart, Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major Tamboura in A, drone recording Palestrina, Missa Papae Marcelli Various gamelan orchestras, The Bali Sessions (field recordings)
I'm in the middle of the Bali Sessions. It is 3 CDs - if you don't know, Mickey Hart (of the Grateful Dead and its brethren), field recorded this music in Bali over a 3-day period. It is the most comprehensive slice of Balinese Gamelan that 3 CDs could offer. It really runs the gamut, and everything is beautiful. Go monkey army, go. (inside joke from the 50+ min vocal gamelan piece that includes monkey army sounds from the 20 member vocal ensemble. "Yack yack yack ..." really really fast, and unbelievably tight. Anywho.)
These are two different topics, two different stories, and require two different lenses. It is very important to make this distinction. It is crucial for any authentic integral art approach. What do I mean? Let me flesh the distinction out for you.
To be a musician who develops a life routine (or practice) that supports a wider, deeper, and more inclusive consciousness, of music from around the world, of the various ways to realize music, of the span of emotional depth available, of the ability to bring witness to your thoughts and actions, to be fully educated about music, the relationship of music to the body, mind, and spirit, to be open, creative, critical, self-actualized (or on the way) and full as much as is possible -- all of this begins to outline a story of an integral musician. In short, it is all about the person.
On the other hand, for a piece of music to offer a variety of gifts to the listener, to give listeners a full palette of aural resonance, to frame in sonorous space a fully realized metaphor for the emotions and realization of life, death, and the machinations of time, for sonic assembly in a mastery of grammar, for a piece of music to funk, fugue, and flash, to entertain, educate, and enlighten, for a piece to offer interpretations and reception on many different levels, and to do so with the Mystery "It" thing imprinted forcefully into the notes -- all of this begins to outline a story of integral musical composition. In short, it is all about the things that composers make.
In basic terms, the first is a story of consciousness, the practices and methodology to support personal consciousness evolution, and how to develop it further. The second is a story of aural artifact creation (a composition), the practices and methodology to produce aural artifacts that push the envelope, and how to do so more resonantly.
Do you see how these two stories are different? Do you see that, for both, integral theory offers a lens to view each? Let me tell you, integral theory is all about the lens. The world is the world, and always will be. How we see the world, process it, react to it, and change it depends entirely upon the lens we use to view it and feel it. It is the lens we use that allows us to focus on what is important and relevant to our lives.
So integral art, in its most general umbrella sense, comprises both of these stories. If you add to these two more primary stories - those of institutions and interpretive schools - then you have the four primary facets of integral art. Four facets - four lenses - four different stories. Big effin' tent!
To attempt to ram all of these together into a single lens, single story, and single theory, as Wilber does, is a grave mistake, and inadequate. Wilber's writings on art are pitifully slim, and tend to make only general (but useful) points about art. That he connects artwork creation to levels of worldview in a coherant way (painfully general, but nonetheless coherant) is probably his greatest contribution to the domain of art. He does this primarily in a short essay called "To See A World". Even this is riddled with problems, not the least of which is the problem of terminology - he has since changed many of the words he use to name the various worldviews. But the concept of worldviews is, I believe, important to consider as an artist, and I believe it is a catalyst of artistic alchemy.
(Mind you, the realization of the importance of worldview to art production is one of the reasons I resigned from IU. It occurred to me that I need not walk near a bald philosopher in order to walk the paths needed to evoke a new worldview with my music and my scholarship. I more needed to live a full life, not the partial one of an academic flunky. In fact, the association became counterproductive for me. In order to accomplish what I wanted to do for IU, I actually had to leave. Worldviews are a cultural dynamic, not something that comes from french kisses with a neurotic thinker.)
Other important moments illustrate the diversity of interpretive schools and an sketchy but unitive theory of semiotics (both in Eye of Spirit). With regard to the former, the truth is that many critical theorists have pointed out the various interpretive schools, so Wilber's work here is less groundbreaking as much as it is a solid point of departure. Critics in every field of art had already started to publish works that took into account all of the ways to interpret art in that field. With interpretation, it all depends upon the medium, and Wilber primarily talks only about painting.
And with regard to the latter, his conclusion is that spirituality ought to be included in a theory of symbol creation. (Music is an aural symbol.) This is a very important point, one which I believe allows for a more comprehensive craft of art production. But Wilber does not make that point - I do, and will continue to do. Wilber just provides a basic sketch and, well, stops. He moves on. He has other fish to fry.
All in all, the actual help to artists from Wilber's theories, I believe, is relatively small. But he will deserve much credit for the introduction of many people to a wider world of art theory, developmental theorists, and other philosophers.
Wilber is a philosophical DJ. He mixes and scratches with ideas born and recorded by others. He weaves a thought mix that is seductive in its groove, outrageous in its span, and for what it is, pretty deep (although it wants to be deeper than it is). He really wants you to dance. Figuratively (in your mind and spirit) and literally (with this whole rave business, which - yeah, I have no idea...).
And what is original about Wilber is equivalent to what is original from DJs, by and large. The process and style of a DJ comprises his or her thing. The originality comes not from the material spun and warped in time, but the way the material is presented to you in time. Wilber's original contribution is not new ideas, per se, but new ways of looking at existing ideas (or new ideas about ideas, if you must). He makes maps for the masses. He is a popularizer through and through. Make no mistake - he wants you to know about him and his work, and he wants there to be a lot of people like you.
And like a good DJ, his record collection is large, and he brings it with him wherever he goes. And let me tell you, it is a lot to haul. I've seen his records. The stacks go on and on and on.
Ultimately, I don't think Wilber is the place to go for detailed inquiry about integral music and integral musicianship, or even new questions. Same goes for integral art (although as I stated above, that could mean at least four different things). With Wilber you get important generalities, primarily cognitive. He is not a midwife of integral art. Integral other things, yes - primarily generalities for an integral psychology, and organizations with the word integral in front of another word.
Where is the place to go? One of those places is right here, on this website and my work. Books are comin' down the stretch, and I have many essays available, with more to come very soon.
Another is right where you are, right now. After all, you are the musician. Can you hear a tone with your inner ear? Ok, good. Now can you translate that tone into an aural field in such as way that we, too, hear the tone. And can you work at it, until that moment when that tone becomes music, shared by you and others together.
Self-reflection, the sweat of experimentation, performance, and patience. There's no other way. Would you want it any other way? That wouldn't be any fun!
There is probably nothing that more devastates the development of art that the idea that artists must live a dilapidated and meager existance in order to produce artwork of value. It simply is not true. If anything, a difficult financial existance is more an obstacle to ongoing creativity than a source of inspiration. People who speak from their 'victim voice' when it comes to art and creativity would probably speak from that voice no matter what their income.
This is one reason why the Voice of the Integral Art exercise from the May 2004 Integral Artistry Intensive was so vibrant. The exercise gave space to a victim voice, then transcended and included the it amidst other voices, available to any artist. To help others inhabit and speak from a more expansive and less fearful voice is a main goal of my work in integral art.
I wrote before that my current book of study is Henry Pleasants, The Agony of Modern Music. I'm about 1/3 done. And I like it. Even if the last two-thirds sucks, the book has value for at least one major reason. He dispels one version of the starving artist myth - that of the unappreciated composer myth. Quoth Pleasants:
The most devasting single inhibiting factor standing in the way of spontaneous and honest judgment of modern music is the general acceptance, among professionals and laymen alike, of the fable the new serious music is never "understood" and appreciated in its own time.
This is the result of decades of popularized history and hack program note writing, both of which have consistently indulged in the sentimental dramatization of great composers' initial difficulties, subsequent economic and social setbacks, and occasional musical failures.
Nothing else has done so much to distort society's view of the relationship between composer and public. Nothing else has contributed so importantly to society's assumption that the present gap between composer and public is the normal relationship and that it always has been.
And then the culmination:
The truth is that every composer, without exception, has been appreciated, admired, applauded, and loved in his own time. Even those who died miserably died famous.
For Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Weber, Rossini, Verdi, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Berlioz, Chopin, Liszt, Wagner, Dvorak - the stories are unique and interesting, but one theme resounds in each. And that theme is simple - each composer was loved and recognized by the public on a wide scale during his life.
Or simply - each were popular. Each had an audience, and each composed to please that audience. The audience reciprocated with recognition, consistent attendance, and heavy word of mouth. Just like pop artists of today. And now not like composers of today!
It ought not be this way. Composers need not live in a self-created ghetto of the artistic wayside. They need not be dissociated from society, culture, and the joys shared by everyday folks. Composers can engage widely-held aesthetics. "Popular" can no longer be a bad word. Composers can satisfy regular people with their music, and through this basic satisfaction, choose to inform and deeply inspire. All such satisfaction requires skill and openness to reach others, without shame or embarrassment.
The fundamental injunctions of an integral art production is to wrap into one creation three kinds of audience resonance. Those three kinds of resonance are the capacity for artwork to entertain, educate, and enlighten. Without these three kinds of resonance, artwork can still be creative, interesting, and notable. But is it as full as it can be? Can it offer a full menu, and a full delivery of all of the creative energy that went into its production?
I ask the artists of the world, what do you think? What would it mean to be open and transparent to artwork that entertains, educates, and enlightens? Is it fear that keeps you back, and keeps your art from its fullest manifestation? Is it that you so want the person-to-person resonance of love, that you pretend to be scared of it, and reject it out of hand? I ask you - why?
During my lesson with Allaudin last night, he suggested that I listen and study this album. It is Motets by the composer Guillaume de Machaut, performed by the wonderful Hilliard Ensemble. I have listened to other works by Machaut, but these motets will be new for me. I have already composed motets, so this will be exciting. All "motet" means, by the way, is a vocal composition that sets words to music. As a form that is over 6 centuries old, it comprises a lineage of the West's greatest composers.
Allaudin believes that my understanding of Western plainchant is strong, as is my understanding of Renaissance music. He said that the Ars Nova period, roughly the 14th century centered in France, is what connects the two. He means this on both chronological as well as formal grounds. Machaut's motets, he believes, are one of the best examples of the period.
Particularly for my own composition work, Machaut's motets relate with the "modal modulation" techniques that have occupied the last several months of my own study. Before cadences and key modulations became more standardized in the Renaissance (in the music of Palestrina, Gesualdo, Vittoria, Lassus, and others), Machaut and his contemporaries composed in a more liquid style where modulations and cadences were still avant garde, and thus unpredictable. Machaut composed on the cusp between popular and sacred of his time, so to speak. He was a poet, a diplomat, and a composer of many styles.
If any of you want to pick this album up, too, then perhaps we could have a listening club, and do it online via The Daily Goose. Let me know. It would be a hoot. Myself, I'll be at the Borders on State & Washington after work today, poking my head around the early music classical section, fingers crossed.
I posted a brand new piece of music to Momentary I. It is the first movement of a five-movement work for piano, performed by me. I am very excited about it! The feedback has been really inspiring, from my friends (and subscribers to The Electric Flow, who got a sneak-peak at it in the recent newsletter). Thanks to all of you. I'll post the best over at the Readers Respond section.
The entire work is called Improvisational Suite for Monks in the World. You can listen to the first movement here. If this is something that you dig, you can listen to the entire work here, as part of my online roll-out of the album I Am Sound.
For the Improvisational Suite, I took a shorter piece of mine, A Monk in the World Plainchant, and stretched, tweaked, and breathed into its melody, through three different tonal centres. All of it is geared to the memory of the late Brother Wayne Teasdale, and the spirit of planet-centric religious communion that he sought in his life and work. I hope you enjoy.
JUST TO CLEAR UP ANY CONFUSION ABOUT WESTERN ART MUSIC:
From his forgotten 1955 book The Agony of Modern Music, author Henry Pleaants has provocative things to say about the 'serious' or 'art' music composed in his time. He argues:
Modern music is not modern and is rarely music.
It represents an attempt to perpetuate a European musical tradition whose technical resources are exhausted, and which no longer has any cultural validity.
That is continues to be composed, performed, and discussed represents self-deception by an element of society which refuses to believe that this is true.
The hopelessness of the situation is technically demonstrable, and contemporary composers are aware of it.
What makes their own situation hopeless is that they cannot break with the tradition without renouncing the special status they enjoy as serious composers.
That they have this status is the result of a popular superstition that serious music is superior to popular music.
There is good music, indifferent music, and bad music, and they all exist in all types of composition.
There is more real creative musical talent in the music of Armstrong and Ellington, in the songs of Gershwin, Rodgers, Kern, and Berlin, than in all the serious music composed since 1920.
New music which cannot excite the enthusiastic participation of the lay listener has no claim to his sympathy and indulgence. Contrary to popular belief, all the music which survives in the standard repertoire has met this condition in its own time.
The evolution of Westen music continues in American popular music, which has found the way back to the basic musical elements of melody and rhythm, exploited in an original manner congenial to the society of which it is the spontaneous musical expression.
And it has found the way back to the basic musical nature of the ordinary mortal, from whom music derives, by whom and for whom it is produced, and without whom it cannot and does not exist.
Hope a little polemnical opinion is a good Monday morning elixir. Thanks to Stu Davis for the hat-tip, from one of our many private email conversations (I forget exactly when).
I just purchased this book, so I'll have comments in the coming days and weeks about Pleasants' criticism. One thing I do have to say - it is hard to understate just how disembodied, unmusical, and dissociated much of 20th century art music was, and still is. We are not at a point in our cultural development where we have to worry about piling on. 20th century art music, especially those of composers from the northeast US, deserve about 30 more years of heavy public dismissal. And this blog will serve as a resonant outpost for this dismissal. So stay tuned and buckle up. Here comes the bum rush.
He put an amazing picture on his blog (which I read everyday), in an entry called A New Fetus in the Kosmos Electric. Instant smile when I saw it, and enormous loss of breath. Thanks Coolmel! You are such a good guy, and wickedly talented.
Hannah is pregnant! We've known for 5 weeks. "Bean" is our name for our baby until we know its sex. It is the working title, so to speak. Oh gosh, our Bean!
Today was our first appointment. We met with two Nurse-Midwives at St. Elizabeth Hospital, in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago. It is about a 10 minute drive, by city streets, from our house (that is, when there is no traffic). It was great.
And yes, pregnant! This is real! I am so happy and thrilled beyond belief. Talk about new life changes, and new clothes - this is a new wardrobe from a store I didn't even know about! This is going to be a ride. And it has only just begun.
I might as well just pass on to you all Hannah's update. She sent it via email today to our family and friends around the country. I'll just get out of the way and give the account straight from her voice.
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 16:12:54 -0800 (PST) From: Hannah Dallman Subject: News of the Bean
HELLO!
I know many of you have been eagerly anticipating news of our first prenatal visit.
Matt, the Bean & I saw the midwife this morning. We got a clean bill of health and all seems well. Of course, no results from the labwork, yet, but there was no reason to think things would be other than hunky-dory.
I'm about 15 weeks along, and my due date is set at July 13 right now.
The most amazing thing was hearing Bean's heartbeat! So exciting, and really made this REAL--the pregnancy is no longer such an abstract concept. It really blew both of us away and we both got teary-eyed.
We actually saw two midwives. One was younger; her name was Elise and she was a nurse-midwife in training. Martha is the experienced midwife. We liked them both very much, and Matt commmented that that might be because they had a 'Twin Cities' earthy vibe to them. They were so compassionate and warm and knowledgeable. And they told me to get going on gaining weight! So, goodbye slender figure!
Oh, and Martha was wearing all black...in mourning because of the inauguration! Too funny.
My next appointment is set for February 17. I'll get an ultrasound, and we'll get a tour of the birthing rooms at St. Elizabeth's.
For those of you who've sent me email the past couple of days, I'm sorry if I've been slow in getting back to you. My semester is wrapping up, and I've been crazy busy trying to get everything all squared away. You'll hear from me soon, I promise!
Love, Hannah
So later this year, God willing, I'll be a Daddy. Holy crap. And get ready - I think I'll have a couple things to talk about over the next seven months, and forever beyond that. Spirit has moved. A heartbeat appeared from, where? And where did it learn that robust rhythm?
I am a big believer that we ought to watch or listen first-hand to the speeches of the world's leaders, whether we agree with their ideas or not. Technology allows us to do it, so we ought to take advantage. We can get around the often awful filter that is the major media, and its commentators of all biases. The way to do this is through an experience of the speeches ourselves. Phrasing, rhythm, tones of voice, the looks of our leaders' eyes, the slow-burn of poetry, ritual, gravitas, and history itself - all of this is essentially lost or smothered in a media driven by soundbite.
All in all, we can make more informed, comprehensive, and inclusive (i.e., integral) decisions about our politics if and only if part of our decision-making process is more comphrensive and inclusive. So screw our commentators for a moment. Screw how they see politics (and suggest how you should see it). For the benefit of everyone, absorb the ideas of President Bush, for yourself, as well as the rest of our world's leaders, and do so with your own watchful eyes, nuanced ears, critical mind, expansive spirit, and wide-opened moral heart.
A VISION FOR MIDWIFERY AND MOTHERS IN THE 21ST CENTURY:
That is the name of the final chapter of Ina May's Guide to Childbirth, by Ina May Gaskin. She is the author of the classic, Spiritual Midwifery, that has long been a favorite of Hannah and mine. I think we bought that book 6 years ago. The new one we got this afternoon at Whole Foods. And in that last chapter, she writes:
I'm visualizing that I'm at a smorgasbord of the world's best ideas. I may have missed some great ones (I haven't been everywhere yet), but the following list sums up the features I think we in the United States need the most:
* more midwives, gradually, until we reach a proportion of midwives-to-obstetricians that works to empower - rather than create illusions for - pregnant and birth-giving women. Such a system will eventually have considerably more midwives than obstetricians.
* a national system for collecting data about maternal death and injury equl in reliability and accuracy to the system of Confidential Enquires in the United Kingdom.
* independent community-based boards predominantly composed of public members but including midwives and other health professionals are placed throughout the country, to assure public accountability.
* a national health-insurance system as good as that of the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Canada, and Japan.
* postpartum care for ten days for all women, like that available in the Netherlands, which is partially subsidized by the government
* a revolution in obstetrical education so that midwives teach medical students normal birth before they are exposed to birth pathology.
* the need for multiple educational routes into the practice and profession of midwifery is recognized.
* every medical student who will eventually provide maternity care learns to dress a newborn baby without making him or her cry.
* the art of vaginal breech birth is maintained and transmitted in the next generation of midwifery and obstetrical caregivers.
* rarely use machines for what humans can do far better.
* every mother gets to choose where she gives birth.
* vaginal birth after cesarean is an option for women in all regions of the country.
* no women is compelled to have surgery under court order.
* every hospital becomes Mother-Friendly, as designated by the Coalition for Improving Maternity Services.
* advertising of pharmaceutical products to the general public is forbidden.
* postpartum psychosis is recognized as a disease and a public-health problem.
* nine months' paid maternity (or paternity) leave, depending upon what works best for each family.
* on-site day care.
And she closes with this beautiful wish and reminder.
Maybe one of these days a New Year's baby's birth will be honored in a U.S. couple's bedroom. I am going to continue working toward that goal.
One thing is certain: That goal cannot be realized as long as most U.S. women remain convinced that their bodies are poorly made to give birth. If I have persuaded you of nothing else in this book, I hope that one message will stay with you. Your body is not a lemon!
Amen, Ina May. And bless you for your tireless efforts to foster a more compassionate and caring birthing practice in the U.S., and in the world.
My year-end list of my favorite music, that stuff that grooved me deep all through 2004. Its original home lies below, on The Daily Goose, as my faithful readers instantly know.
But like good music, I froze its life in the form of its own page. Thus it forms what might become a new section on my Writings page - "Highlights from The Daily Goose". I'll think about that.
Till then, you can forever read my 2004-faves list, here. Never forget - you cannot forget - to rock your Timeless Self on.
I added the grey globe image, with outlines of every continent, to the top of The Daily Goose page. I felt this urge to place a visual sign front and center that the trajectory of this blog, as well as this entire website, aims in its own humble way to all reaches of our planet. And it is a reminder to myself that this is a big wide world, with lots of stuff going on, and just to sit with that recognition.
I think I like it. I'm not entirely sure about it right now. Some energy/voice inside says that something like this globe image belongs there. So I am gonna test run it for a couple weeks to see how it sits. If you have any thoughts, drop me a line. If it reminds you too much of the cornball song, "We Are the World", definitely let me know.
Here's the story from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel newspaper. I like it, I have to say. The figure comes from the new Calatrava-architected addition to the art museum. It is a very beautiful building right on the lakeshore. It was built as a cross between a butterfly and a sailboar. I see it as a goose, but that must just be me.
All in all - go Millie-wau-kay go. Me home sweet tribal home.
THE MODULES OF AN INTEGRAL MUSIC COMPOSITION 101 CURRICULUM:
If you are unfamiliar with the term module, let me define it for you. It is pretty easy. A module is an independently-operable activity that a person can choose to be part of a larger whole-person practice. To eat, work, and sleep are the basic modules for pretty much every adult human; each are filled with choices that accord with our preferences. To read (your favorite books, articles, magazines) is another module.
And there are many, many more. What we see in each is the characteristic of an independent activity that is part of a larger whole. The strength of the term is its flexibility. You can choose to plug it and remove modules from your practice, as you find the right mix of modules to help you get where you want to go in your life.
In a sense, anything can be a module if approached in this way - as a choice of activity to be constituent of one's daily or weekly routine (which depends upon our available time). I prefer to suggest a modular approach as a way for artists to create a comprehensive artistry routine, or what I call an integral artist practice. This sort of practice is the best means, I believe, to support an integral artist consciousness, one that is open and aware of the full spectrum of waves and lines of bio-psycho-spiritual development. The mark of integral artist consciousness is a sense of openness. We can't literally do everything, but we can be open to everything, as its parts flow in and through our awareness over time.
The modular approach can also be used for a balanced lifestyle, as a healthy and enaged human being. Or the method can be used for your chosen occupation, such as for an integral teacher practice, an integral ecologist practice, an integral leadership practice, an integral doctor practice, and so on and so forth. The details for these differ than for an integral artist practice, as you would expect. What is consistent is the modular approach to find the right combination of practice and discipline to foster personal growth and development.
The number of modules that one can choose to add to their practice is theoretically limitless. It seems that the tendancy is to choose somewhere between 3-8 modules for regular and disciplined exercise. Quality, not quantity, matters most for deep and sustainable cultivation. The nature of particular modules are usually self-explanatory. All you usually have to do is just look at the details of the module, and you are likely to readily grok what it means.
Here are the minimum number of modules of an integral music composition course/seminar that I would teach (and will, see www.integralchicago.org, forthcoming). These choices are geared to be activities for the planet-centric composer. Here I use the widest possible definition of composer, that of any musician who creates new music where there was nothing before. This is the 'there is silence, then - poof! - there is music' definition, open to anyone with an instrument and the desire to create. That which comprises the more traditional and narrow definition of composer (and original to the West) - a trained person who fashions charts of musical directions for other musicians to read and perform - is the subject for upper-level coursework. Stay tuned for that. But we got to get our basic down. This is a big, wide planet-centric world we see out there and in here. So first things first.
THEORY Harmonic Experience by W.A. Mathieu
RESONANCE Daily sargam vocal improvisation over a drone, through a full tonal panoply, as described in Harmonic Experience
PLAY Magic-mode improvisation on your instrument of choice (preferably piano), as described in Harmonic Experience
LISTEN Daily absorption into your favorite music (preferably via a planet-centric iPod)
PERFORM Debut your new music at least once a month for an audience (5 person minimum), even short 1-min pieces
PHYSICAL 30-min exercise everyday (at least dedicated walking)
Mind you, levels 201, 301, 401 and beyond get more complicated. But can you pass 101 first? For now, I'll spare you all the theoretical backing for my choices, but know I have such support and would likely bore you to tears with it.
But seriously, if you have any questions about this material, please ask. Any advice and support is still free of charge at this point. So know that I'm here for ya. This is a ride. And from my experience, it is pretty damn exciting.
A quick review of my general model for integral art is that there are four primary themes in the art world, each of which I express in simple terms but all with profound implications. What expresses these themes are 'stories', for stories capture the ongoing and open-ended narratives of the way we relate our experiences of the art world's diverse features and unfoldings. Because the information age has taken root in the consciousness of many humans (with the rest to likely follow at some point in the future), more and more we reconcile our day to day lives with those that operate everywhere else on Earth. We have no choice but to reconcile, for it is the way we survive and hope to thrive.
These four stories are the Story of Artist Consciousness (the practice of personal creativity), the Story of Artwork Production (the science of craft and technical assembly), the Story of Art Institutions (the houses and systems of education, curatorship, and distribution), and the Story of Art Interpretation (the schools of critical response). These themes arise in a planet-centric scan and analysis of the points of emphasis found in the art world's artifacts (books, interviews, artworks, methodologies, and so on), first-person anecdotes and reports, and the cultural discourse of all kinds that have occured within the historical record, most of which continue in some form today.
In practical, everyday application, these four stories logically translate to four modes of being in the world - that of as an creative human, a producer of artwork, an institutional steward of art, and an artwork interpreter. Everything overlaps, that much is certain, but these distinctions seem to cover the span of the art world, exhibited in all corners of the planet to the extent that the evidence suggests. Of course, any such construction of this kind inevitably collapses as the Mystery of human existance is examined from a transcendent witness. Yet to frame further evolution in the art world via this general model of Integral Art is to frame a human evolution and embrace to which everyone on the planet is invited.
In addition to these four Integral Stories of Art, a single concept can unify each story. That concept is the Four Quadrants, offered by philosopher Ken Wilber. The Four Quadrants unite the four stories at the conceptual level, though in that single unity there is wide diversity of theory and practice. The Four Quadrant illustration, or template, has a different look and feel through the course of each story, because each story fills in a Four Quadrant diagram with particular strokes and details native to that aspect of the art world.
If the Four Quadrants are properly thought of as a lens (and it do believe this is the proper way to concieve and use the Four Quadrants), then the Integral Stories of Art are what results from a propertly lensed examination of contents and trends of the entire art world. All of this is detailed further throughout my work, forthcoming books, and summarized in two papers: The Integral Stories of Art, and The Big Three of Integral Art. The rest of my scholarship to this point tends to be based upon the theoretical foundation expressed in these papers.
This general model rests upon its simple expression, but it nonetheless asks that as we talk about Integral Art in all of the ways humans do, we declare upfront what we intend the particular context of the discussion to be. (Are we talking about consciousness and creativity? About artwork production and technique? About institutions and education? About interpretation and scholarly investigation of meaning?, and so forth.) We have to make these distinctions in our discoursem I believe, to clarify ourselves in the face of enormous amounts of information, insight, exchange, and interpretation that reside in our contemporary art world. The information age requires a new model to make informed distinctions. Without some organizational model, the world becomes a wasteland of dissociated heaps of knowledge we don't know how to fully apply.
For the art world, I suggest that the Integral Stories of Art, and its ramifications, presents just the kind of model needed in today's world. As a model to both allow the fullest depth and span of absorption and reflection, as well as to avoid needless confusion due to sheer glut of data, the Integral Stories of Art aligns with a planet-centric moral injunction brought by the Pluralist worldview. This worldview values consensual collaboration amongst the world's cultures, as well as efforts to honor reconcile the diversity of human spirit and knowledge found in the world's many cultures and traditions.
And because of it is structured by this level of moral sense, what is automatically granted is the freedom and responsibility to engage anything in the art world with the most resonant openness that we know is possible. We can both honor and view transparent all ethnocentric boundaries in the art world. We can maintain our delicate cultural wardrobe while at the same time we can recognize that all of our clothes are made of durable kosmic spirit, known to all humans who have ever lived, and in fact all of life as we know it, as the wheels of creativity roll down the roads between timelessness and time, and back again.
