dyslexic begonias

dyslexic begonias http://www.litzenberg.net/ the language of music | the music of language en Copyright 2008 Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:32:04 -0600 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Dear Rotosound Hi: Not looking for any response, just wanted to let you know a little something. I'm 43 years old and I've been playing electric bass continuously since I was 11 or 12. In that time, I've played a lot of different basses - Fender, Kramer, Gibson, Epiphone, Hagstrom, Musicman, Yamaha and Rickenbacker to name a few. Short scale, long scale, extra long scale. Roundwound, flatwound, half-round, nylon. I've never been happy with anything but Rotosound strings. I've tried other strings (usually when I needed a last minute new set and couldn't get Rotosounds) but they always seem to fall short of the mark. Jazz, hard rock, blues, punk, r & b or funk, small clubs, theaters, orchestra pits, bars or festivals -whatever the style, whatever the venue, Rotosound comes through with a consistent punch, clarity and beefy bottom end that no one else can match. When I first started playing, I looked to inspirational bass players for tips on what equipment to use. It turned out that the bassists I loved the most - John Entwistle, Chris Squire and Jaco Pastorius, among others - all were Rotosound devotees. That was enough for me then. Now, younger and less experienced bass players see me at work and ask the same kind of questions. I tell them the same thing. Rotosound. Swing 66. It's all you need to know. Thank you, and best wishes for continued success. http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/08/dear_rotosound.html http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/08/dear_rotosound.html Conversation Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:32:04 -0600 Unconscious Mutterings No. 288 LunaNina.com | Unconscious Mutterings: Crankiness :: irritability Backpack :: hike Clone :: copy High ground :: ethics Dreams :: aspirations Lovingly :: with care Mistake :: error Carson :: City Errand :: task Dozen :: roses]]> http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/08/unconscious_mutterings_no_288.html http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/08/unconscious_mutterings_no_288.html Words Sun, 03 Aug 2008 19:11:05 -0600 Unconscious Mutterings No. 287 LunaNina.com | Unconscious Mutterings: Memory :: enemy Original :: sin Exclusively :: yours Listings :: job opportunities Bucket :: 's got a hole in it (don't hold no beer) Knight :: chivalry Dusty :: Springfield Choice :: options Sunlight :: Dialogues Change of plans :: meaning of the acronym "COP" (i.e., John Q. Law, piggy, the man, 5-0, the laws, Mr. Ocifer, etc.)]]> http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/07/unconscious_mutterings_no_287.html http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/07/unconscious_mutterings_no_287.html Words Thu, 31 Jul 2008 18:11:59 -0600 Freedom of Religion As a pagan, I often overhear pagan conversations where the chief topic of concern is the negative affect that evangelical Christianity has on the "free trade" of alternative religions - its nature to limit, deny, persecute and eradicate viewpoints other than its own. I wonder, however, if the "power" of the rough 70% majority (in America, that's about how many claim to be "Christians," whether they act accordingly or not) is not greatly overestimated by my pagan colleagues. Historically speaking, the number one enemy of Christians is usually other Christians (or in the case of the Crusades, which weren't really about religion anyway, other monotheists). The Pilgrims and Puritans who sallied forth and assailed Plymouth Rock with their austere sense of righteousness were running from persecution in Europe and England, where they were being thumb-screwed, hung, burnt and otherwise imperiled by other Christians. The separation of the church and state was originally a way to prevent a Catholic state from persecuting Protestants, or visa versa. Those brave souls (and if they're yours, they start as visionaries and end up martyrs; those on the other side generally begin as heretics and blasphemers and end as capital criminals) who question the status quo of the Christian power structure from within are usually the most likely victims of Christian persecution; there's so much to harvest there (in terms of dissention, dissembling and disavowing) that I don't think at least in recent centuries there's been enough time for them to focus on or bother with non-believers. Sure, every now and again someone will get a Cotton Mathers bee up their bonnet and worry about the devil lurking in strangers. But typically (and ironically) it's much more effective to clamp down on "your own." Of course, that depends on who you call "your own." Particularly when you've got more churches than congregants (where I live, there may be 300 churches for 17,000 people - on any given Sunday, there are between five and forty cars in 300 different parking lots). To sing, not to sing; musical instruments vs. voices only; women clergy or no; laity preaching; dancing; drinking; wine vs. grape juice; transmigration real or symbolic; Latin vs. local; tithe vs. time; literal vs. figurative; dip vs. dunk; limbo, purgatory, bottomless pit, endless fire, consuming darkness. About the only thing they agree on is barbeque - and then the sauce is different depending on which side of town you're on. Again, from local experience, there's one denomination that has two separate facilities - one for "locals" and another for "foreigners" (i.e., those who were not born and bred in town). How could this group of divisive, in-fighting, bickering, nit-picking and otherwise non-collective souls agree on anything - at least, once they pass out of the church's threshold and return to their completely isolated and often hypocritical lives? Pagans: who cares what they think anyway? "If you want to sing out, sing out." That's what I say. I know, I know. There's that social pressure. Those potential cross-burnings. That shunning. The losing of the job, etc. But why would you want to live in a town with that kind of thinking, anyway? Shouldn't you be looking to live among your own kind, like the Christians do? Or do you have the same level of schism with your fellow "pagans"? I say again - if you believe in what you are, what you do will follow. If that is worth doing, then it doesn't matter who opposes it. Is living in any other way worth living? Besides, I think it was Dan Rather who said in an interview perhaps 15 years ago that the most important question you will ever have to ask yourself is "what am I willing to die for?" Once you have that answer, the rest is pretty clear. If you're up against anyone in those sacred areas who hasn't asked themselves that question (and given themselves an honest answer), unless that's what they're fully committed to, you will emerge victorious. Happy Independence Day. http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/07/freedom_of_religion.html http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/07/freedom_of_religion.html Conversation freedom independence religion Fri, 04 Jul 2008 09:15:37 -0600 Vintage Vinyl circa 1978 If you thought the eight-track list was bad, check out the albums I owned in 1978-1979: The Eagles - Greatest Hits 1971-1975 The Beach Boys - 40 Greatest Hits Johnny Cash - Ring of Fire Elvis Presley - Gold Records No. 1, 2, 3 and 4 Kiss - Double Platinum Kiss - Ace Frehley ELO - Out of the Blue The Bay City Rollers - Greatest Hits Queen - News of the World Roy Clark - The Everloving Soul of Roy Clark Linda Hargrove - Music is Your Mistress* The Blues Project - Reunion in Central Park* Freddie Hart - His Greatest Hits* Maynard Ferguson - Chameleon Columbia Jazz Sampler - 1958 The Music Goes Round and Round - Decca Vol. 1 - 1951-1954 The Music Goes Round and Round - Decca Vol. 2 - 1955-1957 The Music Goes Round and Round - Decca Vol. 3 - 1958-1959 * These I actually won in the fourth grade from a WKTN radio station contest for writing a Halloween essay. http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/04/vintage_vinyl_circa_1978.html http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/04/vintage_vinyl_circa_1978.html Conversation Wed, 23 Apr 2008 11:17:02 -0600 Eclectic Eight Tracks circa 1978 So here's the rundown on my eight-track library circa 1978: The Yardbirds - Five Live Yardbirds The Yardbirds - Greatest Hits Carlos Santana and Alice Coltrane - Illuminations The Beatles - Love Songs The Beatles - Live at the Hollywood Bowl The Beatles - Rock and Roll Music The Beatles - Singles* Todd Rundgren - Runt: The Ballad of Todd Rundgren Boston Pops - The Best of Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Various Artists - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (soundtrack) The Beatles I got courtesy of my cousin, who transferred these albums from his vinyl collection to eight-track for a Christmas present one year. The remainder were acquired in Kmart and various drugstore sale bins in and around Forest and Kenton, Ohio. I listened to most of these albums A LOT. One bit of evidence of that is: I loaded up this Rundgren album and listened to it today, and knew almost all the words and every one of the vocal nuances. The piano songs and vocal style in particular were a huge influence on my writing at the time (1977-1979). http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/04/eclectic_eight_tracks_circa_19.html http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/04/eclectic_eight_tracks_circa_19.html Conversation Fri, 18 Apr 2008 17:24:09 -0600 Movies About Musicians Having just seen (actually for the second time) the made for VH1 movie "Hysteria: The Def Leppard Story" and recently also having watched "Ray" and "The Five Heartbeats" got me thinking about all the movies I'd seen about real or fictitious musicians or singers. Musical biopics, I suppose they're called in the trade; biographical pictures that because of their subject matter must include a great deal of music. So I thought I'd put together a list, and over the next few months I'll be updating to add comments and ratings to these flicks as a guide to the newly needing to be inspired musicians on my reading list. Because I've seen most of these movies, over the years, and found them either inspirational, insipid or in some cases, wildly inaccurate about the way being a musician actually works. No matter, the accuracy, however, it seems that the movie-going public has ALWAYS been fascinated by biographies of musicians, whether they would have them in their homes or not. So here's the list: http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/03/movies_about_musicians.html http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/03/movies_about_musicians.html Diversions biographies biopics movies musicals musicians Wed, 19 Mar 2008 09:21:34 -0600 Unconscious Mutterings No. 266 LunaNina.com | Unconscious Mutterings: Homicide :: murder Divisive :: conquering Flash :: in the pan Steaming :: pile of horsesh*t Crunch :: time Look out! :: watch your head Anticipating :: waiting Slim :: to none Navel :: orange Help :: hand up]]> http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/03/unconscious_mutterings_no_266.html http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/03/unconscious_mutterings_no_266.html Words Sun, 09 Mar 2008 16:47:10 -0600 Unconscious Mutterings No. 265 LunaNina.com | Unconscious Mutterings and I go spelunking, cerebrally: Chemical :: Wedding Poker :: Face Federal :: Case Mattress :: Go to the ... Who am I? :: Who cares? Investigation ::unofficial In good hands :: good at what? 8:30 :: four hours and 10 minutes into a 4:20 Creditors :: unfriendly reminders Resource ::secret cache (cash)]]> http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/03/unconscious_mutterings_no_265.html http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/03/unconscious_mutterings_no_265.html Words Sun, 02 Mar 2008 15:19:28 -0600 Effortless Mastery (and the Little Prince) Sunny and I, probably tens of thousands. One of the books I acquired in the months prior to the great water-log of 2005 was a slim volume by jazz pianist Kenny Werner entitled Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Master Musician Within. I know I wrote about it, and quoted from it, at the time because it made a definite and deep impression on me, particularly with respect to why we as musicians feel it necessary to play at all, and what drives us to maddening attempts at continual perfection (maddening, for the most part, because these attempts are doomed to failures of varying degree). I recently reacquired the book, and this time when reading through it, I was struck by a correlation between Kenny's philosophy and that line from Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince:

"...what is essential is invisible to the eye."

There are those that tell you that BB King can convey more with one note than most other guitarists can say in five minutes of scale shredding. I myself have said that playing the blues is about speaking the truth by creating each line of melody as you proceed, rather than simply hinting at it by playing circles around it. I think it comes down to that saying, "Life isn't about finding yourself. It is about creating yourself." In other words, that one note from BB means more because it is in fact the only note that could be played at that time. It's not a suggestion or potential answer, despite BB's humble apology that it goes "...something like this." A musician has depth because each note they produce has chiaroscuro, something else I've talked about before:

Nothing holds a shape without its shadow,
that place at the edge where the lines are rough,
and sharp defined shapes blur in a limbo
made of innuendo and the small stuff

that, in shades of gray, fills up silent space,
shifting with the slightest movement of light
to redefine the angle of a face,
moving what was once unseen into sight.

Compared to that substance, that space within the jar that makes the jar useful (to paraphrase a Zen parable), the effort from a predominant number of musicians can seem like a cardboard cut-out, an endless parade of meaningless notes, a cacophony of mind-numbing technical exercises ... a lot of "talkin' loud and sayin' nothin'".

]]> http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/02/effortless_mastery_and_the_lit.html http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/02/effortless_mastery_and_the_lit.html Conversation Effortless Mastery Kenny Werner musicality Saint-Exupery The Little Prince Tue, 26 Feb 2008 13:00:37 -0600 Unconscious Mutterings No. 264 LunaNina.com | Unconscious Mutterings: Protocol :: rules Girlfriends ::significant others Shoulders ::Atlas shrugged Coming home :: centering Let it in ::let it go Honor :: roll Tyler :: and Tippecanoe, too Thriller :: chiller Angela:: Davis The winner is :: (drum roll) ]]> http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/02/unconscious_mutterings_no_264.html http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/02/unconscious_mutterings_no_264.html Words Sun, 24 Feb 2008 23:48:11 -0600 Revisiting the Otic Nerve This is a reprint of a blog entry from 2002: When in doubt of where to go musically, when questioning one's ability to hear harmonic structures, to find the “in” groove or chord, or if just in need of a general aural cleansing, there is nothing that will substitute for Ornette Coleman. I first experienced Ornette's harmolodics at Berklee, where often friends and I would spend late nights with the eightfold attack of of Coleman's Free Jazz: A Improvision by the Double Quartet "barrelling forth from the speakers like the Mongol horde” (a quote from my journals at the time). Now, when you want to learn about phrasing, you turn to Miles' Sketches of Spain; when you want close-knit harmony that weaves in and out around the beat, I always like to put on The Gerry Mulligan Songbook; and when needing to hear just how much you can do in just two choruses (and how anything more than that is simply unnecessary, if you do it right), there's nothing like Charlie Parker. Doesn't matter what your instrument is, or what style you think you play. If you want to focus on these aspects of music, here's where the clues are. But if you want to know the secret of space, to stretch your ears, to cut to the bare bones, there's no substitute for Ornette Coleman. Just like James Brown can teach you, particularly on Love Power Peace (live in Paris, 1971) that there is nothing outside of a groove (or maybe, cosmologically, it's THE groove), Ornette can help you understand just how melodic the entire world is. Ah ... but I digress ... Did I mention that it makes great headphone music? Back to my wonderful cup of tea, a darkened room, and that plastic saxophone ... Here's a poem that I wrote one night in Memphis after listening Ornette and discussing Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein over endless strong coffee ... Plastic Pocket Harmolodics (1993) Run down changeling boots the funk, improves the shunned extractionary; "Stove" in traction rips rough, ready, pocket not for inner sanctums. Cherry cola coughs surrender: queasy Compton did the mother, freaking heat in slumber tumble; his xray eyelids slip the winking. Bop, the Bird, the sticky finger --- fallen anglos sin cojones open quiet, quick and greasy; down the town round wound up lounging. Run down starlings, cop the mutants; the groove pontificates for Shiva. Flip the whip trip, banned in Boston, this Coleman-ation's green and hunchbacked. Cherry, copper-coated, kicks mazal tov and "Off the Mutha!" speaking shit in rumble mumble; "X" the spot where Malcolm put it. Stop the word, the slippery jungle, pent up houses of the holy. Open skies bleed hard and humble; Central busts the changes open.]]> http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/02/revisiting_the_otic_nerve.html http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/02/revisiting_the_otic_nerve.html Influences Free Jazz Gerry Mulligan harmonics James Brown Miles Davis musicality Ornette Coleman rhythm Sketches of Spain Thu, 21 Feb 2008 11:46:40 -0600 Unconscious Mutterings No. 263 LunaNina.com | Unconscious Mutterings: Passport :: photo Small world :: after all Radio :: free transmission Marine :: band Wall :: of shame Wanna be :: your dog Pigtails :: pippi longstocking Hyphen :: ated 9.99 :: won't do Unrated :: unclassified]]> http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/02/unconscious_mutterings_no_263.html http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/02/unconscious_mutterings_no_263.html Words Sun, 17 Feb 2008 00:30:42 -0600 Unconcious Mutterings No. 262 LunaNina.com | Unconscious Mutterings helps me uncover a little more of the soft white underbelly: Score :: rank Luxurious ::sumptuous Party ::crowd Limited edition ::short supply Security :: blanket Betty :: Boop Under construction :: work in progress Pest ::control Director :: honcho Express :: delivery]]> http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/02/unconcious_mutterings_no_262.html http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/02/unconcious_mutterings_no_262.html Words Mon, 11 Feb 2008 11:00:37 -0600 A Good Reason for Keepin' On Kris Kristofferson has a song called To Beat the Devil. If you haven't listened to the lyrics lately, they're about a recommendation from the devil on the meaninglessness of trying to change the world with your music, and Kris' response to that challenge. The Devil's argument goes like this:

"If you waste your time a-talkin' to the people who don't listen, "To the things that you are sayin', who do you think's gonna hear. "And if you should die explainin' how the things that they complain about, "Are things they could be changin', who do you think's gonna care?" There were other lonely singers in a world turned deaf and blind, Who were crucified for what they tried to show. And their voices have been scattered by the swirling winds of time. 'Cos the truth remains that no-one wants to know.

Well, to be honest with you, I've felt that way a lot. There are definitely times when it seems like nobody's listening, nobody cares what I'm saying, and it wouldn't really matter much if they did. But I tell you what: that's defeatist thinking. I used to say that in order to change the way people think, you first have to make sure they're thinking. That's a bit of a downer, too. It's a cynic's approach to life. That everything sucks. That there is inevitably a need for either bitter coating on the sugar pills, or sugar coating on the bitter pills. The cynic lives their life believing that human beings, and this must needs include themselves, are intrinsically no damned good. And what, pray tell, is the point of that? Better, I think, to retain at least a little optimism, or at least perserverance and stubborness of purpose, if you can't muster a bit of a smile, so that like Kristofferson, you can say:

And you still can hear me singin' to the people who don't listen,
To the things that I am sayin', prayin' someone's gonna hear.
And I guess I'll die explaining how the things that they complain about,
Are things they could be changin', hopin' someone's gonna care. I was born a lonely singer, and I'm bound to die the same, But I've got to feed the hunger in my soul. And if I never have a nickle, I won't ever die ashamed. 'Cos I don't believe that no-one wants to know.

If we're not supposed to affect the world at all, if we really are just a moment's ripple in the ocean, then what's the frickin' point?]]> http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/02/a_good_reason_for_keepin_on.html http://www.litzenberg.net/2008/02/a_good_reason_for_keepin_on.html Conversation Kris Kristofferson optimism performing songwriting To Beat the Devil Fri, 08 Feb 2008 10:37:55 -0600