Its quiet here at home today; there’s a comfortable, cool breeze coming in through the open patio door and no pressures to be anywhere or do anything in particular. All in all a great day to work on tunes.
“Le Corbeau” is a great, crooked reel by Montreal flute player Nicholas Williams, which he recorded on The Whispering [...]
Archive for July, 2008
Lazy Sunday Tunes – Le Corbeau
Posted in Transcriptions, Tunes on July 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
HAWP! @ The Owen Sound Celtic Festival 2008
Posted in Gigs on July 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Last summer my good friend and (not so) minor guitar deity Andy Webster approached me about working together on a project he had in mind which would meld tunes, songs and dance. Of course I said yes, cuz, well, its Andy. (When you hear him play, you’ll understand.) With Jay Weiler on fiddle, Jenn Tompkins and Ciaran Myers [...]
Improvisation
Posted in Creative Process, Early Entries, Jazz, Performance on July 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
TAKEN from an article by Terri Windling on the art of Stu Jenks: “Circles, Sprials and Stu,” as it appears on the Endicott Studios website:
Art historian John Berger, in a recent essay (“Steps Toward a Small Theory of the Visible”) comments: “The modern illusion concerning painting (which postmodernism has done nothing to correct) is that [...]
A Suzuki View
Posted in Practice, Teaching on July 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I’ve been reading Shinichi Suzuki’s Nurtured By Love: The Classic Approach to Talent Education. While I don’t agree with the method in all respects, there are a good many gems and brilliant insights to teaching here.
I’ve already posted a few. Here are some more worth considering:
- “The word education implies two concepts: to educe, which [...]
Sessioning in SW Ontario (The First Time)
Posted in Sessions on July 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Back in 2005, I spent a few months vacationing in southwestern Ontario, spending some time getting to know the area and visit loved ones before actually relocating to the Buffalo, NY area. A fair amount of that time – and one of its most rewarding aspects - was spent networking with local players and getting out [...]
More Alex Grey
Posted in Creative Process, Early Entries, Folk Art, Inspiration, Practice on July 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
ART is communion of one soul to another, offered through the symbolic language of form and content.” (p 19)
“The only way to formal inventiveness and technical ability is to work and work, studying and perfecting the craft.” (p 19)
“Technique is just the way to arrive at a statement. Great art is a concentration of transformative [...]
Words with Rufus
Posted in Early Entries, Folk Art on July 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
A few months ago, I came across the website of an old teacher of mine. I wrote to him just to say hello, see how he was doing and tell him some things I’d never had the chance to tell him before our time together ended. He was very gracious and interested in what I’d [...]
Folk Art
Posted in Early Entries, Folk Art, Inspiration on July 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“FOLK art is an expression of one’s life, not one’s culture. The past and the present co-exist. Local artists have an instinct for creation. In a place without tradition, they make art that does not look like art. Let’s call it community spirit, its sensitive and open-minded. Human-centered….
A folk artist takes pride in bringing back [...]
Session Playing is the Great Equalizer
Posted in Early Entries, Sessions on July 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
SOMETHING John Brennan, one of the best guitarists in the Philadelphia area, once told me between sets at the Commodore Barry Club.
It was a St. Patrick’s Day weekend, and John and a couple of folks had been down to play the Kimmel Center on Broad St. in Philadelphia. Their set wound up being an “unofficial [...]
Personal Insight: “The Concept” (a la Harold Mabern)
Posted in Inspiration, Music & Spirituality, Performance on July 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
(…) My time in Philadelphia also saw interests in other areas developing, areas that at first seemed far removed from the music I was pursuing, but which later came to be intrinsically connected with my approach to it. Studies in spirituality, religion and mythology, psychology, aesthetics, the creative process, sociology / anthropology…all had a hand [...]
