Sun Nov 08, 2009
Prayer
O Allah,
Hold my feet forever to Your fire
Sew my eyes wide open, my vision forever gazing to Your will
Burst my eardrums at every music of Your command
My flayed skin a parchment for Your decrees
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A Message For Youth
A Message For Youth
I pledge to help and support you in whatever way I can in all of your endeavours and goals, because:
I want your voices to be heard
I want you to be empowered to make a difference, then make that difference
I want teachers who don't squash individuality and creativity
I want you to keep forging a responsive, transparent media
I want you to consider government service and rebuild it with integrity and openness
I want you remembering to become the shining children of God that you already are
I want through art/music/film - or whatever work each of you do - to end social/race/class/school clique divisions
I want a livable planet
I want peace
I want you to relax and enjoy this time of your lives, develop youselves and each other (if that happens everything else follows)
I want your hearts to be energized so that you can transform with grace and optimism the jaded public legacy you will inherit
I want your kindness to be cultivated and extended to your peers , to your family
I want your anger, isolation, and hatred to be revealed, exorcised and cured
I want my bones to rest in a happier grave tomorrow than they would today
I want to die blinded by the brilliance of your collective love, polished in billions of young strong large hearts
I want you to offer each other your own heart, share and build hope to critical mass, so that hope is created in itself of itself
I want to die softly crushed by the weight of your conviction in that hope
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What can we do?
What can we do?
Sometimes, young people ask me this as they grapple with the global challenges.
I have no answers, only thoughts:
It starts small, it seems to me; simply do your best. Try to activate hearts, one heart at a time, along your path.
Pray that wisdom and Allah's love enters the hearts of those who put the planet in harm's way. Leaders everywhere have lost the love in their souls, and while we oppose their deeds, ask God to restore their hearts.
Keep your hearts open, stones and guns away, minds clear, and voices strong.
I also love these passages:
"O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise (each other). Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things). " Qu'ran, 49:13
"And hold fast, all together, by the rope which Allah (stretches out for you), and be not divided among yourselves; and remember with gratitude Allah's favour on you; for ye were enemies and He joined your hearts in love, so that by His Grace, ye became brethren; and ye were on the brink of the pit of Fire, and He saved you from it. Thus doth Allah make His Signs clear to you: That ye may be guided. " Qu'ran, 3:103
"Faqir, nothing is more beneficial to you than true sincerity with your Lord in what he has commanded you to do and in what He has forbidden you. By Allah, if you were like that with Him, you would see wonders since Allah Almighty says, "If they had been true to Allah, it would have been better for them." By Allah, if we were true with Him, our enemy would be true with us. By Allah, if we were to restrain our abuse of the servants of Allah, our Lord would defend us against every harm and abuse. Then we would only only experience good from everything, and we would not see any evil in anything. The one who used to harm us would not harm us, and the one who used to cut us off would not cut us off." - Shaykh ad-Darqawi
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Sat Sep 06, 2008
towards the vertical
I've been quite energized by preparing for the challenge of the upcoming solo fretless gig.
Last solo gig was about six years ago, and there has been a lot of absorption and intake of languages, experiences, musics, and instruments over that period.
The main impetus of course has been the re-immersion into Indian music.
Indian music is essentially linear -- which is beautiful and is what its instruments are geared to -- but a solo fretless guitar can be more, much more, than just an electric sarod (which might be cool as well, but that's another story).
Jefferson and I are still hammering out the subtleties of applying the fretless in the Duo setting, but as I've been developing the solo material for the fretless the past couple of weeks, it occurs to me that I'm still treating the fretless in an essentially linear, " electric sarod" fashion with the Duo. Ha ha, that may change significantly when we get together next as I go through this process.
In an earlier post I discussed some aspects of my previous solo work, applying very post modern improvisation concepts into an early flamenco medium:
Very, very disparate traditions, yet the lynchpins I heard connecting them were musical occurrences such as a certain dissonance in the harmonic voicings; the fluidity of tempo; the immense degree of subtle improvisational interplay between guitarist and singer. I was hearing a lot of connective tissue between the two, not parallel bundles but interesting, flexible hinges, joints, angles, sinews, tendons. I started working with that and then took that idea a bit further, trying to liberate the material from a metric confinement while still keeping rhythm and drive very much a part of it. That distinction between meter and time and rhythm -- all distinct elements in my book -- had been done a lot within the free jazz idiom itself, but hadn't really been applied in a flamenco context.
Conceptually, I'm trying to develop a similar methodology to working with Indian musical material; there's a lot of connective tissue I'm hearing here too.
While that post wasn't written that long ago, what's now apparent has been the impasse of treating the fretless in such a linear fashion.
But exploring the chordal and harmonic possibilities that a guitar can bring (and I mean both terms in the broad yet strict sense of any pitches sounding simultaneously, rather than implying any traditional sense of Western functional I-IV-V harmony or "standard" chord types) reveals the much larger challenge of applying some simultaneous pitch textures, filling the landscape with some vertical structures across the Indian music linear horizon.
Flamenco was easier in the sense that there was already prescribed harmonic procedures -- I just voiced them differently for added density and tension. Applying verticality to Indian music, so far I'm treating chords and tone clusters as more weighted, dense versions of any given melodic pitch, rather than any implied harmonic foundation or direction.
More to come.
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Wed Apr 30, 2008
Why Indian music?
I'm often asked, "why Indian music?" Sometimes the question is put in a more probing manner, such as "why do you think you can do this?"
I'll try to address some musical and philosophical aspects on those issues in this post.
In the late 90s I had some nice solo opportunities in Europe based on work using the most abstract modern free jazz and improv techniques within a springboard of *very* traditional flamenco ( pre-Paco, and really pre-soloist - my favorite flamenco players are the early cante accompanists). Very, very disparate traditions, yet the lynchpins I heard connecting them were musical occurrences such as a certain dissonance in the harmonic voicings; the fluidity of tempo; the immense degree of subtle improvisational interplay between guitarist and singer. I was hearing a lot of connective tissue between the two, not parallel bundles but interesting, flexible hinges, joints, angles, sinews, tendons. I started working with that and then took that idea a bit further, trying to liberate the material from a metric confinement while still keeping rhythm and drive very much a part of it. That distinction between meter and time and rhythm -- all distinct elements in my book -- had been done a lot within the free jazz idiom itself, but hadn't really been applied in a flamenco context.
Conceptually, I'm trying to develop a similar methodology to working with Indian musical material; there's a lot of connective tissue I'm hearing here too. On the sarod and tabla it's voiced in a much more subtle and melodic approach, though I think the electric instrumentation we're exploring will in some ways call for a return to some of my earlier rigour and more overt abstractness (but I think we'll maintain the lyricism of the acoustic setting as well).
Its very nice to be absorbed in the fretless electric, discovering what it can do as a tool to link the methodologies in avant free improv and Indian music.
Thats a long way of saying that I don't think musical fusions have to be terribly closely related to be successful; it may be helpful, but I think the exploration can be quite fertile by looking at where and how things *connect* (and how different musics approach their detail and methodology in developing improvisation -- that improvisational aspect, then as now, is key --), in addition to looking at what parallel streams of commonality there are. Anchor the connecting elements, celebrate the differences. Unity in diversity ( a parallel Sufi concept also).
For me, it's not about trying to be an Indian Classical Musician. I love it, respect it immensely, learn it, learn from it -- but I'm not an ICM, won't ever be, and in truth, it wouldn't interest me musically to completely go that path. I also respect it too much to pretend to do it.
What drives me, what interests me is how this music merges into what I already am.
Somehow, what I'm sensing just as a person and also what I'm hearing musically calls for a certain kind of cultural articulation to complete it. That cultural articulation isn't just limited to the music, either, as I'm driven to be engrossed in many aspects of it - learning the languages (Hindi and Bengali), cooking, absorbing dance, film, reading history and current trends, etc, etc. There's so much more I need to immerse in still, to make the music work, to better integrate myself as a being, I feel. But this is the life process.
And yet, while somehow I'm connected to that culture, that land in this very broad and deep way, Cecil Taylor, Bill Dixon, Albert Ayler, Peter Brotzmann, Led Zeppelin are all just as much a part of me and the music I make. To sell either tradition short is dishonest to myself and dishonest to both legacies.
Its my hope that I honor and respect the Indian musical tradition by being *internally* honest with it, folding aspects of it into myself while offering my own traditions to it in return.
I think people sense that, given the feedback we've gotten by people from India and other accomplishments such as the film project.
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Thu Mar 23, 2006
Love
If you cant believe in anything else, then at least,
Believe in Love.
Bad days, good days, - how much love did we carry in us that day?
God's love for us manifested in our love for Him, for each other, the planet, etc, - it is a prime guide for all faiths.
If we had a bad day, if we are completely psycho, if we arent forgiving enough, its because we
arent carrying enough of (God's) LOVE within us, we are not remembering Him or what He gives,
because someone or something took that capacity away from us for a time.
I have to search deeper, find it again.
And only by resuming that remembrance of Allah (SWT) and His loving gift of ALL creation/createdness for us, do i find it.
How much love can we carry in our hearts?
Our anger, our rage, is a function of how much love we carry, (or can hold on to) at any given time - and, if you lose it, how much you love yourself (not in the vain sense but as a living compassionate creature) to seek a state of forgiveness and re-access that love.
It is the essence of life in this realm and what we are here to do.
It is the only quality on this planet that keeps it going, that keeps us going, because it is the DIRECT reverberating manifestation of God.
And by remembering Love and thanking and loving its Source,the Creator, Allah (SWT), for it, ingesting it to reach those around you, we also remember Him (dhikr).
Believe in Love.
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Towards an interfaith dialogue - Golden Threads
What is it about human nature that causes us to look for differences rather than commonalities? There are so many common tenets in most religions- love, compassion, service, the desire to respect and honour the Divine ( however any particular religion defines that divine energy).
Personally, I resonate most with Islamic Sufism -and in it lies a tolerance and inclusivity that is remarkable; it is a faith that honours all the prophets that came before Mohammed (pbuh) - Adam, Abraham, Noah, Moses, Jesus - and recognizes the Torah and the Bible as Revelation. And while I believe there is no god but God (Allah SWT), and Mohammed (pbuh) is His Messenger, I notice messages of Divine love in other faiths, and that is a common point for me to understand and respect my neighbour.
It is an altogether too human trait - is it ego? social need? - to defend ourselves and our community, our belief systems, rather than to search for elements in common and build bridges based on that.We seek out differences and the need to defend them perhaps not out of divine devotion, but out of the stem of pride - which is a human trait (and how many belief systems warn against pride? several,... and we cant even see that)- , instead of seeking out commonalities from the stem of love (which may or may not be a strictly human component, but is also held as a main component of the Divine by many faiths; and if not directly expressed as a manifestation of the Divine, then most faiths certainly, at least, give high credence to it, regardless of how they identify its source).
Look for the Golden Threads in all faiths that bind us together, that are common. If you have a quarrrel of belief with your neighbour, ask him: does his Divine believe in love? compassion? service to the needy? etc? so many commonalities are possible. Then ask yourself these same questions about your own faith. What then are the common points with your neighbour? from there, tolerance and respect begins, united in some common atrributes towards the Divine.
These common Golden Threads are so important, because the fact that they are manifested in so many faiths tells us that they are the Divine's most sacred, most important aspects - why else would they be manifested all over the globe? The differences, then, are in a sense, secondary in this context of building bridges when compared against the glory, majesty, awesome nature of the Divine Energy Itself (Allah SWT) , and so these differences should be allowed their respect (is this perhaps one possible meaning of 109:6?) - and we can do that more comfortably when the Golden Threads of the Divine are recognized.
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