"It may be that the satisfaction I need depends on my going away, so that when I've gone and come back, I'll find it at home." Rumi

David Byrne has written an interesting piece that appeared in the Guardian on Friday about the state of the music industry. Thought provoking, a little lengthy but good. Although the mode of music marketing has changed, in many ways it is still the same as it has always been with the arts in my opinion. The most aggressive creators find a way to make money and survive. There is a small percentage of artists (performing or fine arts) who find a way to make a living off of their creativity. For every one that figures this out, there are thousands more at any given time who do not or can not make it work. Many give up. One of my recent past times connected with study of classical piano has been to read biographies of great pianists. The one I am reading now is Bach by Christopher Wolfe. So take Bach for instance.....or Mozart, Horowitz, or any "successful" fine artist, you plug in the name. They all struggle(d). The point is this, you work your ass off with your art because you love it, because it is your passion, because you really have no other choice. You must express yourself creatively. Sure, there are artists that get filthy rich from their work.....but, the passion is about making the work, not becoming wealthy. So read this Byrne piece, it is pretty bitchy and I don't blame him or others who are being robbed for being cynical.  But remember, you do art because you have no other choice. If wealth is your primary objective, get a job and stop doing what you love. If you really love creating you will figure it out. The most important thing is to be relentless, absolutely relentless and committed to the thing you love. So most have stopped reading by now. That is OK, I have work to finish in the studio, am firing a kiln, have yet to practice my Chopin pieces today and would like to work on those new guitar scales....but you know what, I am going to get all of it done. I have no other choice.
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/11/david-byrne-internet-content-world?CMP=twt_gu

Only Breath

Daphne and I sit many mornings and read Rumi to each other. This is today's reading. I thought it was particularly wonderful. Very fond of Rumi and remember attending a Coleman Barks lecture many years ago in North Carolina and meeting him. He read his poem, "How to Curse an Okra Seed". Someday I will find that.
From “A Year With Rumi” pg. 371
Reading for November 27th
by Coleman Barks

Only Breath

Ah, true believers, what can I say?
I no longer know who I am.
               Not Christian or Jew or Muslim
               Not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen
               I am not from the East or the West,
               not out of the ocean or up from ground.
               Not natural or ethereal, not composed
               of elements at all. I do not exist.

               I am not from China or India, not
               from the town of Bulgar on the Volga
               nor remote Arabian Saqsin. Not
               from either Iraq, between the rivers,
               or in western Persia. Not an entity
               in the world or the next. I did not
               descend from Adam and Eve or an origin
               story. My place is the placeless,
               a trace of the traceless, neither
               body or soul, I belong to the beloved,
               have seen the two worlds as one
               and that one call to and know,
               first, last, outer, inner, only
               that breath breathing human being.

Hymn to God, My God, in My Sickness

By John Donne

Since I am coming to that holy room,

         Where, with thy choir of saints for evermore,

I shall be made thy music; as I come

         I tune the instrument here at the door,

         And what I must do then, think here before.

Whilst my physicians by their love are grown

         Cosmographers, and I their map, who lie

Flat on this bed, that by them may be shown

         That this is my south-west discovery,

      Per fretum febris, by these straits to die,

I joy, that in these straits I see my west;

         For, though their currents yield return to none,

What shall my west hurt me? As west and east

         In all flat maps (and I am one) are one,

         So death doth touch the resurrection.

Is the Pacific Sea my home? Or are

         The eastern riches? Is Jerusalem?

Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltar,

         All straits, and none but straits, are ways to them,

         Whether where Japhet dwelt, or Cham, or Shem.

We think that Paradise and Calvary,

         Christ's cross, and Adam's tree, stood in one place;

Look, Lord, and find both Adams met in me;

         As the first Adam's sweat surrounds my face,

         May the last Adam's blood my soul embrace.

So, in his purple wrapp'd, receive me, Lord;

         By these his thorns, give me his other crown;

And as to others' souls I preach'd thy word,

         Be this my text, my sermon to mine own:

"Therefore that he may raise, the Lord throws down."

I stay involved with performing and playing because for me it is an art form completely detached from my income. I don't teach music, or depend on it for anything other than feeding my soul. That puts it in a pure space that in turn nurtures and feeds my work with clay that is in a dimension of economics. If you have worked with clay a long time, I am sure you have encountered the "burn out" dilemma. I have spent decades writing about clay, doing workshops, teaching and firing hundreds and hundreds of kilns. At an inflection point about 15 years ago, I realized that not working in the studio, teaching clay or doing anything related to clay at times, gave me insight and inspiration to return to the clay with a love and wonder that was there from the beginning. So, I guess you could say that I do music to do clay. As with most everything in my life, I don't seem to stick my toe in the water. I drink deep submerge and swim as far as possible.

Gary Hatcher

David Byrne has written an interesting piece that appeared in the Guardian on Friday about the state of the music industry. Thought provoking, a little lengthy but good. Although the mode of music marketing has changed, in many ways it is still the same as it has always been with the arts in my opinion. The most aggressive creators find a way to make money and survive. There is a small percentage of artists (performing or fine arts) who find a way to make a living off of their creativity. For every one that figures this out, there are thousands more at any given time who do not or can not make it work. Many give up. One of my recent past times connected with study of classical piano has been to read biographies of great pianists. The one I am reading now is Bach by Christopher Wolfe. So take Bach for instance.....or Mozart, Horowitz, or any "successful" fine artist, you plug in the name. They all struggle(d). The point is this, you work your ass off with your art because you love it, because it is your passion, because you really have no other choice. You must express yourself creatively. Sure, there are artists that get filthy rich from their work.....but, the passion is about making the work, not becoming wealthy. So read this Byrne piece, it is pretty bitchy and I don't blame him or others who are being robbed for being cynical. But remember, you do art because you have no other choice. If wealth is your primary objective, get a job and stop doing what you love. If you really love creating you will figure it out. The most important thing is to be relentless, absolutely relentless and committed to the thing you love. So most have stopped reading by now. That is OK, I have work to finish in the studio, am firing a kiln, have yet to practice my Chopin pieces today and would like to work on those new guitar scales....but you know what, I am going to get all of it done. I have no other choice.
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/11/david-byrne-internet-content-world?CMP=twt_gu

"You are a ruby in the heart of granite, how long will you try to deceive us? We can see the truth in your eyes, so come, come, return to the root of the root of your own self." Rumi

“I don't want learning, or dignity, or respectability. I want this music, and this dawn, and the warmth of your cheek against mine.”
Rumi

"It may be that the satisfaction I need depends on my going away, so that when I've gone and come back, I'll find it at home."
Rumi

“Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.”
Rumi

“You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?”
Rumi

From Delancey Place
http://www.delanceyplace.com/index.php
In today's encore selection -- in the dawn of the Atomic Age, the hottest music trend was bebop. Fast and dissonant, it packed returning soldiers into New York's nightclubs on The Street -- 52nd Street. The high priests of this music were Charlie "Bird" Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and their young protege Miles Davis. To those players, the father of this new music was Thelonious Monk, with "'Round Midnight," his angst-laden song filled with all the strange angularities of the new music:

"The war officially ended on September 2, 1945. A celebratory mood pervaded the country, including The Street, where the hipsters were usually too cool to care. War-weary New Yorkers were ready to put the past behind them and embrace the promise of peace, prosperity, and productivity. It was the dawn of a new era, the 'American Century,' when the U.S. emerged as the leading global power. Technology became the country's obsession -- the possibilities of space exploration, jet travel, the availability of cheap televisions and high-fidelity recordings. Speed was the order of the day. It was also a period of uncertainty. The atomic age had arrived, revealing an ominous side with the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but also promising new sources of power (energy and military).

"Jazz was the perfect accompaniment to the new atomic age. It had become faster and more dissonant, without losing its sense of joy and humor. Audiences were drawn to Bird's velocity and his joyous, spring-like melodies. From Hawk [Coleman Hawkins], Monk, and company, came hip harmonies, danceable tempos, and nostalgic references to foot-stomping swing. ... The popularity of the clubs exploded. For anyone looking to cel­ebrate the return of the GIs, to laugh after so many years of killing and dying, here was exuberant fun. Monk pulled listeners in because he made them laugh and wonder if he was for real. Miles Davis would rush over to the Down Beat Club to catch Hawkins and Monk while on his break from playing with Bird. ...

Thelonious Monk, Minton's Playhouse, New York, N.Y., ca. Sept. 1947

"Miles had great admiration for Monk as a teacher and elder (nine years separated them), and he found his compositions bril­liant and beautifully balanced. As someone who spent his days at Juilliard studying the great composers of the Western tradition, Miles believed ' 'Round Midnight' was as challenging as anything Ravel, Schoenberg, or Bach had to offer. ..

"Virtually every arts and entertainment maga­zine was scrambling for anything related to the hottest trend in music -- bebop. Besides the jazz mainstays -- Down Beat, Metronome, The Record Changer -- popular magazines such as The New Republic, Esquire, and Saturday Review began carrying profiles, editorials, and curiosity pieces on bebop and its major players throughout 1947, a good six months to a year before debates over the new music began to really heat up. The battles were fierce: bebop was great, or terrible. No one could define it musically, but that didn't matter. ... Of course, those musi­cians who came to represent the different camps continued to call music 'music,' and neither generational nor stylistic differences kept them from sharing the bandstand or a recording studio. But collaboration, flexibility of style, and ambiguity in genre distinc­tions didn't sell magazines.

"Bird and Diz suddenly became the new heroes -- or antiheroes, depending on one's stance -- in the jazz wars. And in virtually every interview they granted, they mentioned Thelonious Monk. Monk had mastered the new harmonic developments; he was one of the pioneers at Minton's Playhouse. Suddenly Monk came across as the 1940s ver­sion of Buddy Bolden, that missing link who started it all but then disappeared. To [Down Beat writer Bill] Gottlieb, he was 'the George Washington of bebop.' "

Author: Robin D.G. Kelley  
Title: Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original
Publisher: Free Press
Date: Copyright 2009 by Robin D.G. Kelley
Pages: 106, 122-123

 Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original

by Robin Kelley by Free Press

Paperback ~ Release Date: 2010-11-02

Talent. A complex topic and something I have never invested too much time contemplating. I certainly do not believe in "natural talent", I do believe in hard work and tenacity. So I am posting this 5 minute video of one of my favorite classical pianists, Mitsuko Uchida. She is actually the first pianist that really captured my fascination with the personality behind the piano. Then I move on to Sviatoslav Richter, Horowitz and of course Rubenstein and others. To my colleagues, friends and students in the visual arts, you should watch this as well. Creativity and achievement in any art follows the same path and considerations Uchida discusses. Scroll down on the page a bit for the video.
http://www.gramophone.co.uk/classical-music-news/borletti-buitoni-trust-celebrates-10th-anniversary-with-live-debate