Living in Alaska, Palin, and more. Part I of III.

Sorry family, taking a political detour today. I'll warn you now, some of this may sound offensive before the essay's over with. But there ya go.

So.. I woke up to the news about Gov. Palin being on the VP ticket this morning. As much of a splash as its making in the talking heads circles, trust me.. it's all the buzz up here. When the newsies report the high approval rating she has up here, it's one thing at least they're not making up.

"Hear the news this morning?" I ask my boss as I walk into the shop. He gives a thumbs up and a grin. Later I muse... "wow, you know, this is the first time I've seen a candidate on a presidential ticket I could actually respect since...." I trail off, thinking, searching my memory for someone to put in that sentence and failing.

"Since Reagan," he supplies.

Yeah. She's that loved.

Governor Palin is quite popular in these parts - not in the "Russian Propaganda Poster Personality Cult*" way, but in the simple honest "hunh.... a politician I can actually respect - who would have thunk it?" way. The woman made her name turning out the old boys club in the state GOP, and that was just where it started. Selling the private jet, losing the fripperies of the office like a chauffeur and cook, taking on industry and state alike for principle's sake... between that and being "just folks" - it's no wonder she's popular.

I'm sure the stories from up here both good and bad will start hitting the national circuit like crazy over the next few weeks, but suffice it to say this much - she's unusually popular here, because of her track record.

At least as important for the national implications though is the "here" part of "she's unusually popular here," for reasons I'll go into in Part II and III.

And yes, that's where it might get a wee bit uncomfy.









*Yeah, you know who I'm talkin' about. :)

What is music to you?

So... more frustration today in the lessons. My student had been learning a duet with her mom, but since mom couldn't come today we worked on other stuff. More on the "other stuff" in a minute.

See, since the new and shiny's worn off, she's been more bored and frustrated with fiddle. I can't blame her really - the first time I had violin lessons as a kid I felt tricked and forced into it myself, went along grudgingly, and dropped it soon as I could (to my later regret of course). So I can certainly empathize. Not that it makes it any easier to teach.

Anyhow, the lass has four lessons left. At the end of September her mom's letting her quit, and she's practically counting the hours. Despite her skill at picking out tunes by ear, she's really not developed a love for it. I suspect once she's done the fiddle will almost certainly go back in the case and be either returned to the renter or stuffed in a closet and forgotten for years. Just like mine did. Twice. To my regret.

So... I'm taking another tack. At least in these next few weeks, I'm shifting some focus from technique to the "whys" of music. Sure, we could spend our time polishing this technique or that song, but in the long run what good would it accomplish? Being a trifle better at "irish vibrato" or having another tune in her head won't make so much difference in the years to come for her.

But if I can convey just a taste of the expression music makes possible, to plant just that one little seed in her soul, then I'll feel I'll have succeeded.

But how can you teach that?

I can talk about the sensual pleasure of a violin's pure tone pulsing through your body as you play, or the time-without-time when you become lost in the melody under your fingers and in your being. I could try to describe the otherworldly sensation that comes after the song dies and your mind tries to readjust to the outside world around you.

But how can your put into words the sheer ability to give the feelings of your heart some expression in a language more visceral and direct that spoken language can bear? No description I can give can really convey those feelings.. there's just no way to experience them but to experience them.

There's a small taste of that in watching a good performer in concert, but it's still nothing to doing it yourself. But you can't get to that point without a fair amount of technical competency - and it's hard to sustain motivation to get to that competency without that inspiration. The classic paradoxical catch.

So today we talked some of music and of emotion. I tried getting her to feel the vibrations of the fiddle without all the rests in the way to get more connected to the sound, I had her stand up and move with the music as she played, and to channel all the frustration at having to play at all into the strings... and I don't know if anything at all sunk in. She still describes music as something she likes in the background, not something that actively stirs her soul.

So.. what is music to you?

Do you have memories inexorably tied to a snatch of melody? Can a well-loved song send you into that zen-like chatterless state of simple being? Does hearing a particular chord or slip of sound evoke a unique sense in your soul?

If so.. how? What particularly stands out?

If not - what does touch you like that? How do you express what's in your heart?

Imagine if you will...

You are in a tunnel in the very roots of a mountain. Barely wide enough for a boxcar, it stretches over a mile behind you, and that much again ahead. The walls are rough, raw uncovered stone, and the air is thick with grease from the machines piping in air to keep you alive. The great mass of the mountain hovers around you, with a thickness and weight you can feel straight though to the marrow of your bones.

Eventually, you reach the end of the tunnel. Soon after, the road runs out to a gravel patch. In the daylight, filled with throngs of visiting people it must light, breezy, and a little hackneyed. Tiny shops circle the little square, waiting for the cruise ships to offload their passengers into the small deepwater port. It's night now though, dim and empty. A chill drizzle fills the air, and high across the water you see a huge empty building.

"Abandoned since the earthquake forty years ago" says your companion. "But that was the town." There is no room for private dwellings, she says. Everyone who lived in "town" - lived in that building. Now they live in a newer building, which looks like any mid-sized hotel - innocent and a little humdrum. Except it's not passing strangers - it's the whole of the local community living in that building. With the memory of a killing still fresh in their minds. Other tales follow... whispers of Cold War doings before it became a civilian port. And still the behemoth of a building stretches large and dark in the distance.

Soon it's time to leave, before the tunnel is closed for the night and we are stuck on this side of the mountain until dawn. The long dark is calling again.

The stories here are amazing. No pictures this time, for it was an impromptu road trip. But if you ever want to come here.... do it at night. In the rain.

Plateaus

My fiddle student has just hit that first plateau. She's in that place where you know more or less where to put your fingers, you can draw the bow across the strings and have it sound more or less alright, and you have a few songs in your head -- but things are still in that "mechanical" state where you feel more as if you're operating a machine than as if you're singing through the instrument. And really, there's no cure for that but time and experience.

Eventually your fingers just find the right place on the strings, your bow pressure is just right - somehow you know just what sound will come out even before the bow hits the strings. But getting there requires the patience to do it again, and again, and again until it's second nature.

It can be a dull, repetitive process - it's work. And as frustrating as that experience is as an adult accustomed to the process, it can be agonizingly dull as a teen. The new and shiny has worn off, and what's left is the long slow slog of repetition until the next breakthrough.

I try to liven things up best I can - tossing in a new ornament or snatch of popular melody here and there for spice, but sometimes there's only so much the teacher can do.

Just like the rest of life, you need love for what you're doing to carry you through the dry patches. Well.. I've got a week to figure out what inspiration might make her last month of lessons more fun. In the meantime...time for a walk.

PS....

Before I forget -

the intelli tuner is totally awesome. They were all over camp the other week, and no wonder.

It's a little slower on the uptake than my old Korg, but a heck of a lot handier!

They're cheap. If you play anything with strings, you want one. :)

Wild neighbors...

You know, there's something a wee bit unnerving about getting out of the car with your groceries when a giant bull moose is chowing down in the front lawn.



Still, nice to know we can all get along. Guess he liked the bushes.

Jah, we can being all hip, yo...

The lass I'm showing fiddle basics to was getting a mite bit bored during class today - lots of basic bow and tone work and frustration over "why do I have to learn theory?" Anyhow, she mentioned afterwards she wanted to learn bass guitar. "Whyever for?" I ask.

So, she digs up a video way too young and hip and cool for me - Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes. Nice heavy bass line, rocking beat - fun song, actually! Since her homework anyhow was learn a simple melody by ear, that's what we transitioned to. Before long she had the bass line worked out, I grabbed the bodhran, and we set to. Slight disagreement on the tonic - she thinking D# and I'm fairly certain it's E, but so long as the intervals remain the same I'm not particular where she settles.

Anyhow, pretty darn fun all told. Her homework for next week?

Be able to play along with the song, copying the bass and at some point when the proper melody settles down put in her own little solo. She sure seemed to have a grand old time - amazing the difference when you like the subject matter!

home again home again, jiggedy jig

Wow.

Now that was an experience.

We had our "final exam" student concert Friday night, and despite flubbing in a few places it went more or less okay. I did manage to pull most of the flute bit together in time, which was more than I was expecting. For some reason it gave me all kinds of trouble - the melody just didn't "click" in my mind for days. Like some other Irish dancing music, it seemed to just ramble around and around with no discernible pattern at first*. Of course, that I was still trying to master the embrochure for the highest half octave didn't help much.. but nonetheless I made a huge improvement for four days work. And the teacher really was fantastic and helpful.

Whistle went fairly easily, though towards the end we worked on the oddest tune - it was nominally in D but kept "rubbing your face" in its modal weirdness with a C-natural. Played quickly the effect is masked a little, but it was definitely one to bring about the "hunh??" expression more than once when learning it. The "final exam" piece we chose was much simpler, a jaunty little unnamed polka that was just plain *fun* to play.

Despite only having the one class in it, I spent the most time practicing fiddle. We didn't have much in the way of written music for this one, and I found myself ignoring what written notes I had as much as possible once we started, for the tone of the class was very much "learn by ear." In fact, that alone was probably the most valuable part of the whole class - getting to the point where I can just hear a tune through and replicate it is a good end in itself.

So while the experience was very much one of just getting thrown in the lake and told to sink or swim, it was nevertheless a valuable one, and one that will give me a lot to work on in the coming year. It's not just learning something new, it's learning a new way of learning - and that's a double challenge. Still, even by the fifth day workshops it had started to get easier. Don't get me wrong, I've a long way to go on that score, but at least the road there is a little clearer.

I also discovered that since I've been playing alone for the most part, my fingering had gotten a little sloppy - once you're in a closed, well resonating room with half a dozen other fiddles, not being perfectly on pitch is downright painful**. It had mostly gotten better by the fourth day, but nonetheless homework item #473 is sit down with a tuner clipped to my scroll and tighten up all my rough edges. Ouch.

Finally - this part was something of a surprise - despite going for the Celtic stuff, I found the Oldtime music SO much more touching to my heart. Maybe it was homesickness for the Appalachians, maybe I just got sick of rambling "overly notey" Irish jigs, but for whatever reason I found the music of the old homeplace had a hold so much stronger now that I'm not living in the middle of it. I guess familiarity really can breed - if not contempt - then at least an apathy of sorts.

Being surrounded by Irish, Oldtime and Bluegrass all at the same time was quite the experience - it's one thing to *know* those interconnections, but another entirely to *feel* it by immersion. It was not unlike going to a family reunion, and seeing strangely similar yet nonetheless clearly distinct facial features everywhere I looked. Certainly I gained a new appreciation for the ornaments and conventions of Oldtime fiddling - again, it's hard to put into words, but every now and again a certain slide or doublestopped chord would say "home" to me in a way no word or even melody could.

The "Fiddle as Accompaniment" workshop was especially cool - I confess while I'd *heard* the backbeat focus before, I'd never really been conscious of it in the way that actively working within it made me. And using a fiddle as a sort of percussive instrument was just... wow. Lots to work on there to.

So in closing? The "drinking from a firehouse" metaphor is so apt. I'm sure I'll be listening over and over to the recorded class sessions I made in order to pull out the bits I know I missed - there was just *so much* there. And for next year? More technical precision and lots of "learn by ear" practice. Whew.


Hope y'all had a good week. I sure did.






* One of the quips passed around was of a Scots fiddler joking "ye ken why the Irish name all their jigs, don't ye? It's so they can tell them apart!"

** If you've not played the fiddle, know that just rolling your fingertip on the fingerboard a little can move you a good 20% or so off your target note. So if even your angle is the slightest bit off, the result is a painful discordant sound when you're playing in company.

midweek break

The sun finally came out at the camp last night, and it's been GORGEOUS ever since. I did tear myself away for one evening at home - the usual bit of tend to the house, bring in the mail, show the flag and such. It was SO hard to leave the floating dock though, hanging out in the middle of a lake so clear you could count the pebbles on the bottom. You could see minnows just hanging in the water, resting at different levels like a 3D geometry lesson come to life. Dragonflies a good 4" or longer flew around in clouds come midday.

Walking through camp after class is also an experience. Snatches of song float through the air, Irish, Bluegrass.. little bit of this, little bit of that. Everywhere you look, students of all ages are working out the day's lessons. The work is HARD, but every now and again you can stop and take a sniff of the sheer romance of it - what I wouldn't give to have been able to do this fulltime at 12 or so. And to have had the attention and wisdom to make good use of it, of course.

But anyhow - here's where it gets hard. Classes are almost universally taught by rote - the instructor plays a section, you repeat it. Repeat it a few sections, move on to the next. Repeat. You might get written music or a scrap of tab - likely as not though, your notes consist of your memory and whatever recording you happened to make.

I'm finding that learning HOW to learn by ear is the biggest hurdle for me. I've always had the crutch of having a nice pretty sheet of music in front of me when learning a piece, so this is a totally different - and overwhelming- experience. Like most overwhelming experiences, I'm sure once I have a chance to properly digest it all over the coming weeks it will have proved extremely valuable. In the meantime.. ouch. "Sipping water from a firehose" indeed.

So - back to "The Lonely Boatman" Later y'all.. work calls.

Poetic Rememberances

The other day I saw at the library something that brought back a flood of memories - the DVDs of the first season of "Beauty and the Beast" - the late 80's TV series set in New York. When it first aired, I was in junior high, and filled with all the angst of that age loved it. Oh, what a crush I had on dear Vincent- I remember once upon a time having a poster of him looking all sweet and poetic on the wall, and a CD of poetry he'd read.

Yeah, gushy, sweet, wonderful romantic stuff.

Somewhat to my suprise, it holds up fairly well after twenty odd years - some of the plotlines are rather tired and hackneyed (has any series ever *not* done a "cave in" episode at one point or another?) - but for the most part it's still good drama.

Some things are altogether more disturbing as an adult though. The foremost is the Tunnel community itself.. in the wake of Koresh and Jones and all, the idea of an old commie-blacklisted man calling himself "Father" running lord over a little community of homeless under the city is well... just a little creepy. All the moreso when it comes to Vincent, the adoptive son he'd never let outside to play because "the outside world would never understand you like *we* understand you."

Romantic memories aside (and I have plenty of them) - the whole thing just seemed a little cult-creepy seeing it again.

And Vincent, he's just unnatural. No, I don't mean his lionic visage or claws or anything, that's all part of the ruggedly handsome bit. But really - a man who spouts pining poetry all the time, speaks lovingly of an "empathic bond" - but never seems to ask the love of his life for more than an embrace or -once- the suggestion of a chaste kiss?

Something just ain't natural with that boy, I'm tellin' ya.

Still and all though - a great tour down memory lane. And for all the joking, it was a sweet romantic treat to see again.

Maybe I'll see if I can scare up that CD somewhere.

Vacation!

Well, I actually have all next week off - it'll hurt some money-wise, seeing as how I'm still at the maintenance place and apprentice wages don't go far. But it'll be nice to give the grease a chance to finally work all the way out from my skin! Besides, it's just plain foolish to live in Alaska and not get out into the woods at least a couple times in the summer.

So.. all next week I'll be at a traditional music camp in the woods up north of town. Mostly fiddle, and some bodhran and flute to. Should be fun!! Now... time to go buy camera batteries and suchlike. Report in a week or so.