T.D. Lake's Fragments

A Brief Primer on Recollection

2007-05-16T06:55:00.000-07:00

Okay, so it's not an easy form of meditation to do, and in fact, I recommend that people do another form of meditation instead called Centering Prayer, but it is pretty interesting so I'll post it here.

1. You pick a theme. Ex. "Give up everything and follow me."
2. You say a prayer to open the meditation.
3. You sit or kneel and you consider what the theme means.
4. You think of how you are applying it in your daily life.
5. You return to the theme.
6. You think of how you could apply it better.
7. You return to the theme.
8. You wait patiently until your period is over, returning to the theme and allowing acts of prayer to come up.

Usually the period is roughly an hour.

St. John of the Cross

2007-05-16T06:40:00.000-07:00

Well, John is a pretty problematic figure. First, the bad news. John was so excessively ascetic, meaning that he mortified his body so badly, that he essentially killed himself. He got gangrene from one of his attempts to mortify his body and died. He was not by all records, a kind man.

What John said however is very interesting. He was a life long lover of the Song of Songs, and he wrote love poetry for Christ. He had this idea that one would use recollection, a form of Christian meditation pioneered by Teresa, until what he called the "Prayer of Silence" began to emerge. Recollection involves meditating first on one's daily life, and then on some biblical verse. That's the short parts version. It is a very structured meditation.

When the "Prayer of Silence" began to emerge, the mind would be emptied of thought, and John believed at this point that this state should be extended in order to obtain mystical union with Christ himself. It is called "Bridal Mysticism" because it uses the metaphor of marriage to explain union with God.

He talked about a process whereby the mind would be mortified of its old ways until it became pure, and that is the origin of the term "Dark Night of the Soul."

He ran afoul of the Inquisition and went into hiding, and then died alone and unrecognized.

As you may notice, both Teresa and John used sexual symbolism in their Christianity. This had been done for many centuries, but as you can imagine it was fairly controversial, continues to be so today actually. Sometimes it amazes me that people that look at sex as massage therapy get all in a tizzy when you tell them you're married to God. Just an interesting side note.

St. Teresa of Avila

2007-05-16T06:26:00.000-07:00

Okay, so there was this woman in Spain around the time of the Inquisition that defied all odds and became the founder of a Carmelite Order in a time when women had no power. She was encouraged to write, and she hated writing, and because of her spotty education, she wrote in Spanish in a very personal, odd way. Kind of the way I write, very stream of consciousness and using word play and very individual expressions.

She was a great mystic, but people who met her mostly saw this old nun who was constantly trying to get her nuns to follow the rules of the Order. The Inquistion investigated her, and Teresa's spiritual advisors saved her from persecution. She followed the Church authority in a very tongue-in-cheek way.

Her visions were extremely passionate, some say sexual, and her teaching was so very esoteric that it's hard to describe. Essentially what she taught is that through a process of meditation, the only Western meditation practice of any complexity that has ever existed, one can reach these mystical states that end in a perfect humility before Christ.

Her order exists today, and is considered by scholars the only true meditative Western religious order in existence. She was greatly influenced by St. John of the Cross, but she broke with him because of his excessive asceticism, and because his defiance of Church authority put her in danger of being executed. I'll talk about him next.

Esoteric Christianity: A Rose by Any Other Name

2007-05-16T06:06:00.000-07:00

Okay, so there is another word for what I am, and that is an esoteric Christian. "Esoteric" means some kind of knowledge that is hidden or obscured. The literal meaning is "inner layer," but it's general usage isn't the literal translation from the Latin.

What an esoteric Christian is: someone who follows Christ, but makes use of knowledge that is not on the surface of the Christian tradition, some kind of mystical knowledge.

Now, we get a bad rap from a lot of people. Personally, I think there are limits to the kind of knowledge that is appropriate for a Christian. I will admit that I haven't always stayed in those limits. But from everything to the signs of Heaven (Genesis) to the mysteries of the Bible, I believe that there is a huge amount of knowledge beneath the surface that is available to the Christian who follows Christ's Way.

It's really just another way of saying the same thing. Esoteric Christians tend to be very eclectic, as I am, and I make use of everything from Jewish mysticism to Jewish Torah commentary to astrology to energy work (... and Jesus felt the power go out of him...) to Gnosticism, although I do think some Gnostic sects were appallingly un-Christian.

Not all esoteric Christians believe in it, but I believe in the Incarnation in the flesh. In fact, I'm right there with Luther in saying that Jesus used the latrine. As Origen said, everything that was taken on was saved, and the implication is that everything was taken on.

I think to dehumanize Christ is a mistake. I believe he was more than a man, but I don't think he was less than a man, if that makes any sense.

There are some really good books on esoteric Christianity, in particular one just called "Esoteric Christianity" by the editors of GNOSIS magazine, which is now defunct I think. It may be out of print, but I bet you'll turn one up used on Amazon or eBay.

Well, I'll be back. Good morning all, or whenever you're reading this. Guess what? I had someone tell me that they and their friends are very interested in what I have to say! I thought I was boring people to tears! Thanks for being so kind people!

The Greek Word Logos

2007-05-15T01:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, so this word is just a little important to Christianity. The Greeks used this word for a lot of things: it could mean "word", "underlying order," or "speech," or "discourse." The most common use of the word was the use "discourse."

Now we flip back and forth between the beginning of the Gospel of John and the beginning of the Book of Genesis. Okay, so God "speaks" and creation begins. The "Logos" was with God at the beginning and nothing was created without Him. So, in my mind, metaphorically speaking, this principle of the Logos, made flesh, is the "speech" of God.

That's my argument. Now, if my knowledge of Greek serves, this is a good word for our Savior. He is the "discourse" of God or "word" of God given to man in the Scriptures, he is the "speech" that started Creation, and he is an "underlying order" to our world. I am unsure of the Hebrew parallel, but I believe it would be Torah, which means "instruction."

As a final note, I realize that I am making use of Jewish principles in ways that Jews do not. I have mentioned two famous anti-Jewish philosophers, and I know from experience that Jewish people do not feel fondly of Christians. I am sorry, but I'm not attempting to pervert Judaism, but outline my sort of whacky way of viewing the world using principles taught to me by several Jews who have been very influential in my life. I hope my Jewish readers, assuming there are any, can forgive me a little.

More About my New Friend

2007-05-14T08:42:00.000-07:00

It turns out that Tegan is from a very traditional Latino family. They eat mole (moe - lay) and flour tortillas made on the griddle and stuffed poblanos and at one time they were Pentecostal, but very few of them attend Church with any regularity anymore. Tegan is a lot like me in that she used drugs when she was young, and now she doesn't. She's had one or two less sex partners than me, and I've only had four. Seriously. And neither of us has been in a serious relationship in a few years. Both of us have dated some.

I come from a lot more money than Tegan, but she has a very tightly knit extended family. They're already telling her stories about all the bad things men do to try to settle her down a little bit. They're very surprised that a blonde-haired blue-eyed Swede is both interested and respectful of their family member.

Tegan comes in at 5'3" and just over 100 pounds, and most of the people in her family are short. Her grandfather moved up from Mexico and met their grandmother in San Jose, and all of the grandchildren are citizens of the U.S. by birth.

Tegan's grandmother was very important in her life, and was a very spiritual, developed person. She tells stories about the things her grandmother used to say, and I think most of them tell of a person with a lot of wisdom. Her mother was very traditional, and told Tegan old Haitian and Mexican folk stories. Her father played an instrument like a mandolin in a mariachi band, and they were considered one of the best mariachi bands in San Jose.

I like Spanish better as a language than English, and I'm going to learn it so I can speak to Tegan in Spanish. Tegan's Spanish was taught by her mother, and her mother made her learn the traditional form instead of the Mexican, although of course, Tegan speaks Spanish slang all the time.

She finds my family very odd, which they are, and we talk about what it's like growing up white and Catholic a lot and it really interests her. She likes the way I look, and we're spending about 2 hours a day talking right now. We don't want to get into each other's stuff too much, and it's not good to sink into a person and get lost. She's a Capricorn if I remember correctly, and she asks a lot of questions about my music and stuff, but says she doesn't understand half of what I'm saying. She listens anyway and it makes me feel good.

Uhm... we're exchanging music and I can't find most of what she listens to but we're getting through it ok. They just exchange tapes of things mostly. They don't buy much music. Just people that play in LA and locally and stuff from Mexico and that kind of thing.

Right now Tegan is in bed trying to sleep. It's almost six there. We talked about general stuff earlier, and I could tell she was flagging. We'll talk later tonight after I get finished with my stuff, and I'm sure it will be good.

Personal Interlude III

2007-05-14T07:48:00.000-07:00

Well, I woke up pretty early today and that is typical of me, and I wrote for you guys. If it's not of any interest, ignore it, if it's of any interest, read it. Feel free to comment too, I don't bite. If you're rude, I can delete your comment. No big issue. I won't write paragraphs about how you're wicked and idolatrous, although I may comment on comments that have some effect on me.

I also met a very nice young lady of the same age as me on the Internet. Her name is Tegan. We've been talking quite a bit. She lives in Southern California near San Jose, and we're just chatting right now. It's more serious than you think, but we're pretty distant from each other and we're both poor, so it may just be like this for quite a while.

Her Grandmother was Haitian, and most of the rest of her family is Latino. She's very good looking, I've seen her picture, with dark wavy hair and dark eyes. She has ADD and she's considered mentally disabled like I am, and we have a lot of free time to talk consequently, and it's going better than any relationship I've ever been in, barring the fact that we've never met in person.

She's Christian and New Age, decidely not intellectual, very stable and reserved, and we are a good complement to each other, because I am intellectual, reticent but highly active and chaotic. We've done our astrology charts together and stuff and just generally talked about things that you talk about with people: family, politics, a little sex (no cybering though), our ways of viewing the world and all of that fun stuff that I don't get to do with people my age too often.

I'm very happy to have met her, and I wanted to tell everyone.

And I know it seems strange that I poke holes in my own arguments, but that to me is ethical. When you argue with someone, you have to be honest. I can't claim that my experience dominates yours, or even scientific proof. I think it does, but there is no way to back that up. So I'm happy to tell you where my limits are because to me it's the way you talk to people. I'm not telling you what to do, I'm telling you what I know. Half of the truth can be just as bad as a lie.

So, I'll be up a while longer. I'm talking to Tegan and we're both talking about going to bed. Over there it's 4 am and I think she should go to sleep, but people with ADD never sleep unless you give them sodium pentathol so I guess it's fun to talk until she finally gets in bed.

Well, I'll be back.

Science and the Limits of My Personal Beliefs

2007-05-14T07:26:00.000-07:00

Okay, so my ideas are based on metaphysical claims and they are therefore not falsifiable and not scientific. I believe that Science is real, but I believe it is limited by the boundaries of the world. And a good scientist believes that too.

Where I come in with the oddball idea is that I believe there is another kind of knowledge, other than science, that is real. And I believe it is knowledge of the Spirit. I believe that human knowledge of the Spirit is limited, but that the Spirit itself, unlike anything physical, is unlimited.

This isn't a scientific claim. Now in my mind, that's ok, because I don't believe you can reduce the entire world to science. There is love and hate and all kinds of things that aren't part of scientific knowledge except as a chemical transfer or a proton discharge.

Some people disagree with me. Some days I'm not so sure. But I think life requires spiritual things in order to be of any meaning. This claim is typical of religion, and a point of much dispute among people of differing beliefs, and I can't prove it. I wish I could give you cold facts, but all I have is my experience. Experience is a bit tricky, because it's not a fact.

Not all scientific knowledge is fact. Very little of it in fact. But it is backed up by a certain system of proof that I can't produce for my spiritual beliefs. And like I said, I wish I could. So there is the limits of my way of viewing things. I'll be back in just a moment when I think of a new topic.

Logical Positivism and Scientific Knowledge

2007-05-14T07:11:00.000-07:00

Okay, so there was this group of people in Vienna around the time of WWI, who wrote philosophy that became called positivism. What they said is pretty interesting, and I think it's very important. It's not widely studied today, but they did two things that are worth noting.

1. They said the meaning of something is the measurement of it. So what this means is that, regardless of what something is, your measurement of it is the meaning you get. If your measurements are accurate, then you have an accurate measurement of something and your meaning is accurate, but not the same as the thing itself. Think about what we said of human modes of perception. Human perception measures in discrete intervals. The Universe really isn't that way.
2. They had a huge influence on mathematics by codifying a logical calculus that is still used in an altered form today.
3. They said that for a claim to be scientific, it has to be able to be verified. That was called verifiability.

Later, Karl Popper and some others did some work on logical positivism that essentially revised the way we look at science. They came up with negative proof, and the idea that in order for a claim to be scientific, it had to be possible to disprove it. If it can't be disproven at all, regardless of it's truth, then it's not a scientific claim. That is approaching the limits of language too. Remember, it's not false, it could possibly be false. That's what Popper and his group were working on.

Godels Incompleteness Theorem and the Limits of Mathematics

2007-05-14T06:30:00.000-07:00

Okay. In mathematics there was this old paradox in set theory. There were two different kinds of sets, and if you said, "the sum of all of of one type of set," then you had a set that could either be the first type of set or the second type of set but wasn't either.

Along come Bertrand Russell and Alfred Whitehead and tried to fix the problem. They created hierarchical set theory. Now very few people used it, but it did appear to deal with the set theory problem.

A guy named Kurt Godel had a realization. He did a simple mapping, and showed a) that no form of set theory could overcome the paradox he had just created and b) that no form of set theory that will ever be created could ever overcome this particular problem. At least until someone makes a form of mathematics that doesn't work anything like mathematics does now. If we don't blow ourselves up, someone will probably solve this particular form of paradox, but there will probably be something new to worry about. It's a brilliant proof and well worth studying.

So what did the mathematicians say? Brilliant work Mr. Godel, but set theory is working just fine for me! Seriously. And we continue to use the old set theory with it's old paradox to this day, and studying Godel's theorem is something for specialists who research it specifically, as is hierarchical set theory.

It's math. It has to do with deduction. Physical science is inductive and works completely differently. But it is important to understand that axiomatic systems are fatally flawed, and as far as we know, permanently flawed. This hasn't stopped us from using axiomatic systems for the past 50 years with great effect, much in the way that a lot of people used philosophical techniques to great effect after Hume.

The Cretan Paradox and the Limits of Language

2007-05-14T06:16:00.000-07:00

Okay, so this one is interesting. We have two propositions:

1. All Cretans always lie. (Has to be said that way.)
2. I am a Cretan.

Now it's obvious that the first proposition couldn't be true, but what we're looking at is a paradox of language. It is impossible to put those two propositions together in language. What we have isn't a paradox, but a linguistic singularity.

There are a lot of things that can't be said in language. I happen to believe in determinism. That means that nothing can be changed, the cause and effect chain is totally worked out according to physical law. I believe the Spirit can take us out of this determinism, but without the Spirit, there is no other way except the way things will always go.

Now think if you talked that way. You can't. It would be like, I am physically being moved to go to work this morning by my protons and neutrons and the chemical forces in my brain. Kind of a silly way to talk, and that has to do with social convention, which is unfortunately where most of the limits of language come from.

These linguistic difficulties force us to use things like mathematics to explain things that can't be said in language, but as we'll see in a few moments, the language of math has its own linguistic paradoxes. I'll be back with that shortly.

Zeno's Paradox and a Continuous Solution

2007-05-14T06:03:00.000-07:00

Now here is a statement of Zeno's Paradox, and I'm going to extend it even farther, because the original statement doesn't take everything into account. If a ball moves half of the distance to a tree. And then half of the rest of the distance, and half of the rest of the distance, and half of the rest of the distance, and so on, it never reaches the tree.

Okay, now think of this. The ball has to move half of half of the distance, and half of that, and half of that, and half of that, and so on, so not only can't the ball move all the way to the tree, it can't move at all.

Now, the reason this doesn't happen is because movement is continuous. The ball doesn't move a discrete distance, it moves continuosly. Physically this causes some other interesting sidelights about movement, but that is my solution. We are measuring a discrete distance, but the distance isn't discrete, it's continuous.

Heidegger and Being

2007-05-14T05:49:00.000-07:00

Okay, so a brief disclaimer: Heidegger is abused widely by many different cults. Secondly, Heidegger was an ardent member of the Nazi party. He wasn't on the fringes of the Nazi party, he was right there in the thick of it. So why talk about him at all? Because I think his philosophy is important.

Now, Heidegger did what was called ontology, which is a form of phenomenology that deals with being. In practice, ontology is not much different from metaphysics, and I would argue that Heidegger was a metaphysician. What phenemonology is: a philosophical technique that investigates any observable thing, which it calls a phenomena.

Now Heidegger had what he called Existanz, which is the sum total of everything that exists. This sum total was in constant change, and quantum physics bears this out. Quantum physics is very hard to understand, but everything from DLP television sets to fiber optic cables works on its principles. It is a very well-proven theory.

Now there is a being in Existanz called Dasein. Dasein is the human Being. It is part of existanz but its mode of perception is separate from it. This is because Dasein's consciousness works in time.

Think of how the eyes work. Every few milliseconds, the eyes snap a picture. It works kind of like digital sampling. They snap a frame at a very fast rate, and this produces our perception. All of human perception works that way. This "sampling" creates time. Also, it is important to note that human perception isn't continuous, it's discrete. It works at consistent intervals.

Now Heidegger argued that Dasein must study itself and its modes of perception, and that understanding itself would help it to understand Existanz. Some of you should think about going into neuroscience.

And that briefly explains Heidegger's best work.

The Book of Daniel

2007-05-14T02:09:00.000-07:00

Okay, so here is a brief synopsis:

The Jewish people are in captivity in Babylon. Daniel and his brothers are advisors to a very evil king, and Daniel is doing all the work of running the kingdom, while he and his family are under threat of death or worse. This evil King has Daniel interpret some visions for him, persecutes Daniel and his brothers who are saved by God, and Daniel has visions of his own of the rebirth of Jerusalem.

The book is very visionary, and there are timetables as to when these events will happen that are sealed up in symbolic language. The way it gets you is that you try to figure it out too much, and if you do figure it out, you lose your mind, because the deeper truth about the book of Daniel is hidden, not revealed.

I recommend this book after the Gospels, Genesis, some of the letters of Paul and the Book of Revelations. We must not forget the Tom Sawyer effect, but that seems to me to be the best way.

How to Read the Bible

2007-05-14T01:25:00.000-07:00

Okay, so here is my method of Bible study:

1. I pick a book of the Bible I haven't read before.
2. I read it carefully through in its entirety.
3. I cross it off the list of books I've read.
4. I pick another book of the Bible I haven't read before.

And so on. Now a couple of highlights:

1. Daniel and the Revelations of John have been known to drive people absolutely out of their minds. I recommend reserving them until later, and being careful about reading them.
2. Obviously it can be necessary to compare books with one another or research a certain topic, and for this a concordance can be very useful.
3. I find it good to take notes on the book I'm reading while I'm reading it, writing down passages that are interesting, and commenting on what I'm getting out of the reading.

Translations of the Bible

2007-05-14T01:03:00.000-07:00

Well, there are a lot of translations out there. Here is what I think is necessary for a Bible:

1. The language should be poetic.
2. The language shouldn't be gender neutral, in particular because as Christians, we often view the word "man" as pertaining to Christ.
3. The Bible should represent good scholarship.
4. The Apocrypha should be included in the correct format, as the Apocrypha, with the section of Esther found in the alternative texts included separately.
5. The Bible should compare differing texts with one another, and include annotation as to what text is being used or how they differ.

In order to get all of these things in a Bible, you have to use the old Oxford translation the Revised Standard Version with Apocrypha. Sadly, the version that includes the Apocrypha may be out of print, or is at least very hard to find. In lieu of that one, the New Revised Standard Version with Apocrypha is very good. There is nothing wrong with the King James, but one doesn't get the scholarly viewpoint that comes out of the scholars at Oxford.

So there you are. My particular coffee-stained dog-eared copy of the RSV with Apocrypha is going to be replaced with a Messianic Jewish Hebrew Old and New Testament, courtesy of Amazon.com, whenever I learn Hebrew.

The Way

2007-05-14T00:53:00.000-07:00

Well, in the book of Acts, the Christians are called followers of the Way. What this means to me is that their is a path, a narrow path with a narrow gate, and Yeshua has gone before us on this path and prepared the Way and we follow him on that path.

So what is the first step on that path? "Give up everything and follow me." How do we do that? We pray to give up everything from our most prized possessions to our fingers and toes to Yeshua, and we begin following him on the Way.

I also recommend taking everything in your house that you can bear to get rid of and selling it. Everything you give away will bring blessings to you. "Go, sell all of your possessions and come follow me." We may not be able to give up everything, but we can give up alot. One think I think of is that if I had the faith to give up everything in my house and leave it bare, what would happen to me? I don't have that kind of faith, and I can't find out, but I bet it would bring a lot of blessings to me.

Someone asked me today about Bible translations, and I'm going to talk about that in a minute.

Spiritual Alchemy

2007-05-13T21:52:00.000-07:00

Solve et coagula.

So what spiritual alchemy is:

It's an application of the processes of alchemy in a spiritual fashion. In laboratory alchemy, one mines the ores and extracts the elements in a certain way. These elements are alchemical Salt, Sulfur, and Mercury. Then one places them in the alchemical furnace and applies heat and the first process is called nigredo, where the elements blacken, the second is called rubedo, where the elements redden, and the third process is called albedo, where the elements whiten. After albedo, the philosopher's stone forms, which turns base things into alchemical gold, which is not the gold of the profane.

In spiritual alchemy what this means is that the elements of the spirit are first broken down and looked at in terms of shadow, transformed, and then purified, and then the new spirit transforms the flesh into a spiritual "gold."

I use some of these metaphors in my own explorations, and find them very good. I tend to use alchemy to understand the things I'm receiving in the Gnosis of the Holy Spirit, breaking down the complexity and turning it into something I can understand.

Analyze and synthesize.

Nietzsche and Radical View

2007-05-13T00:42:00.000-07:00

Okay, let's look at an example: You've got two people standing in front of a tree looking at it. Each one sees a differing view of the tree, because they can't stand in the exact same place. If the people switch places, they are still different people with different attributes, and they have also moved in time. They can never have the same view of the tree.

If we apply this to everything, we have Nietzschean perspectivism. So each individual on the Earth has a radically different view of reality. Now, because our views are all different, they come into conflict with each other, and we attempt to make our own radical view the primary one whether through argument or war. Nietzsche called this the "Will to Power."

Now what Nietzsche further said is this: Up until Christ, there were two differing kinds of morals. There were morals for the elite and how the elite would be treated, master morality, and rules for the underclass and how the underclass would be treated, slave morality. This is in fact true of all belief systems except for the Christian one. I could give numerous examples, but let's just say that from the Greeks making sport of their slaves to the Japanese samurai practicing sword technique on poor farmers, there has always been two sets of rules.

Now what Nietzsche envisioned was that people who are actually elite, in strength and brains, would have their own set of rules, and the people that didn't have the strength and brains would be treated differently. That is the idea of ubermensch, and it sure caused a lot of trouble. It's essentially a vision of an anarchist meritocracy.

Nietzsche argued that Christianity's idea of treating everyone as an equal was a bursting forth of slave morality into a place where it didn't belong. I disagree with this view, but Nietzsche had his own problems, and that is that.

It is interesting to note that when Nietzsche finally went mad he recanted his anti-Jewish views and became a hell of a lot nicer person. He was unable to do any work, and died in obscurity, only to become the main influence of thousands of movements all over the world about 20 years later.

Hume and the Death of Philosophy

2007-05-13T00:26:00.000-07:00

Now, Kant wrote in reaction to Hume. Hume was a young genius who published all of his major works by the time he was in his 30's, and spent the rest of his life drinking brandy I think and playing a little shuffleboard. Again, I can't do it justice, but we'll look at what he said.

What Hume realized was that many things that seem absolute are not absolute at all. This is the view of modern science. In science today, we prove two negatives, not a single positive, and we never prove them without some margin of error. A well proven hypothesis is not absolutely true, it's negatives are true within a certain margin of error.

An example. We don't prove "rats get cancer from saccharine." We prove a) rats not given saccarhine don't get more cancer and b) rats given saccharine don't get less cancer. That's what we prove. It's called negative proof.

So what Hume said was that there are no absolutes in empirical investigation, which, is true. And he said that emprically there is no reason for just about everything. This is why Kant proposed a priori knowledge, because it allows one to investigate with a meaning already assumed. Hume would say that there is no grounds for a priori knowledge, and Kant spent a lifetime trying to prove there was.

So in 18 something Hume killed philosophy. Kant didn't revive it, he only approached it in a new way. No one after Hume and Kant could do anything except return to metaphysics, or study esoteric parts of the theory of knowledge. We'll talk about Nietzsche in a moment, but I argue that Nietzsche is a sociologist and not a philosopher. I'll explain it. Nietzsche was mad too, so we have to weed out the chaff, but I know Nietzsche like the back of my hand.

Immanuel Kant and the Death of Metaphysics

2007-05-13T00:11:00.000-07:00

Ok, so not many people know a whole lot about Kant, and I thought it would be good to explain his ideas in a very short, simplified form. Kant is brutally complex and I can't do him justice at all, much less in a short article, but we'll dig into the dirt a little bit.

Okay, now, up until Kant, what everyone did was establish their philosophy on metaphysical grounds. Now metaphysics in philosophy is anything that comes before physical investigation, like Aristotle's uncaused cause or my God or my concept of Gnosis. Liebniz had monads, Spinoza had a unified single object with differing attributes, and so on.

Now what Kant said, and he knew it was a revolution and it was, he said that instead of basing things on metaphysics, we would base them on knowledge. Sounds pretty self-explanatory but it threw everything in philosophy into a disarray, because no one had ever done that before. Kant divided knowledge into two distinct groups, a priori, and a posteriori. A priori knowledge was knowledge that was assumed in the investigation itself, and a posteriori were the things discovered in the investigation.

What many people don't know is that Kant didn't believe that every investigation had the same a priori principles, and that he also said that mistakes at the a priori level were the cause of almost all false knowledge.

That's the basics.

Uncaused Cause and Telos

2007-05-12T23:58:00.000-07:00

Well, Aristotle is Plato's student. We can't deny that. But he extended and modified Plato's philosophy and is the originator of Western logic and the scientific method.

What Aristotle is saying with this uncaused cause is this: Every effect has a cause, and so on back as far as you can go. If the chain never ends, then there are no first principles, and Aristotle won't be able to prove anything. So the chain ends at a point where there are no further causes. There is an uncaused cause. Aristotle looked at this as a principle and not a God, but I call it God.

Now Aristotle also talked about something called telos. Telos essentially means "end" but to Aristotle it meant that something had become what it was originally meant to be, and that was its end. He has a whole book on telos.

Now here's my idea: telos is a bad thing. It means the terminus of the cause and effect chain for an object, in a word, destruction. So what one attempts to do is overcome telos and reach backward towards the uncaused cause. One does this with the help of the Logos, who is a man. This theosis, or movement into God, unwinds the chain of cause and effect until it is overcome. It frees one from the determinism of cause and effect.

Mediational Theology

2007-05-12T23:44:00.000-07:00

Okay, so we start with Aristotle. There is this absolute principle that caused everything and is uncaused itself. The chain of cause and effect stretches from this absolute prinicple down to right now.

Now, as Christians, we call this uncaused absolute principle God, or the Father. Now God is way up at the top of this chain of cause and effect, and we today are at the bottom, at the terminal end. So, God sends another principle down this chain of being to contact us at the terminal end of the chain. This principle is called in Greek, the Logos, and the Logos, as the Gospel of John tells us, is Yeshua abn Messhiach.

And I would argue, because of this principle of the Logos, we draw closer to God at the top of the chain of being, the absolute.

That's the short parts version.

Flipmode

2007-05-12T23:28:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm back from that play that I went to with my Mom. It was pretty good. It was definitely a lot better than I thought it would be. It was called "The Dining Room" by Patrick Gurney.

Well not much going on. I'm not going to bed anytime soon. I don't know, I might do a little theology tonight or just chat music. I'm going to turn some on here.

Man, I'm going to have to have a cup of coffee to settle my nerves. Anyway, there isn't much to say, unless I go off about mediational theology which is kind of on my mind right now. I'm just sitting here listening to Bobby Valentino and thinking about that cup of coffee. I'll be right back with something. Totally pointless post. I'll be back.

After Deep Things

2007-05-12T19:10:00.000-07:00

Well, I've got 15 minutes until I go to a play at the local community college, and I though I'd just type something and see what comes out.

Well, I've gotten this question before. I use a little Hebrew, and things like that, and am I a Messianic Jew? I'm not really a Messianic Jew. I prefer the term "Messianic Christian." It's a whole lot of complex theology that I may explain at a later date, but that's what I call it. I'm also New Age and all that, let's not forget that.

So where most people would say "Jesus Christ," I say "Yeshua abn Messhiach." Yeshua the Messiah. The Hebrew instead of the Greek. That kind of thing. I'd like to learn Hebrew but I'm sort of stuck at this point. I may get a tutor at some point. I'm trying to learn Modern Hebrew as well, because I've got a Messianic Jewish Bible picked out that contains the New Testament in Modern Hebrew. I'll get there.

I mean, the whole Christian tradition stems from Judaism. Now, there are lists of things that Christians have to do, all from Jewish law, and everything else a Christian doesn't have to do. Most of these things we have to do are considered right behavior by Modern Judaism for Gentiles. I believe there are a few differences, but I think we err on the side of caution.

Look, there are a lot of lifestyles easier than Christianity. Let me tell you my idea of what my life should be, disregarding my morals. I'd like to do some boxing and wrestling, drink some beer, sleep wherever is convenient, smoke cigarettes and drink coffee, and do music and writing. That's my idea of the good life. There are a lot of reasons I'm not doing it: friends, family, Bible, and a lot of other things. My lifestyle is not easy. I could be having a lot better of a time.

But, life isn't like that to me anymore. There are days when I think, just walk out of the house and never come back. Wander around, do some fun things.

Well, gotta go!

A Personal Interlude II

2007-05-12T18:45:00.000-07:00

Well, a couple of things.

First off, I spent most of the day asleep. I had my haircut around 12 and ate some lunch, and promptly climbed back in bed. I'm doing okay, but my sleep patterns are all off. I've been praying for 11 pm to 7 am and I just haven't gotten there. I'm lying down early, but I'm getting restless and getting up. Yeshua must want me this way, and I guess it's ok. Prayers get answered pretty quickly in my life, and things will return to normal at some point. In the meantime I'm talking to the UK at 4 in the morning, or other insomniacs, and it gets pretty hairy sometimes when I've been up all night. People really don't sleep as well during the day, and it's wearing on me.

Second. No one has contacted me and said this, but I've had an incident this week and it kind of makes me angry. Look, I read the Bible. I pray to Jesus, who I call Yeshua. I actually don't pray to anyone else. I live the commandments of my Lord to the best of my ability. I am however, a little broad minded and I am fiercely independent. There are a lot of things I believe that mainstream Christians don't believe. Some of it comes from the Bible, and some of it is my interpretation of my experience. You may not think I'm a Christian, but I'm warning you not to come on my site and say it. I let the guy who told me I'm Satan this week have a piece of my mind.

Honestly, people who aren't Christian tell me things like "If all Christians were like you..." The reason I get this response isn't because I'm not doing the work of Christ, but because I accept that people are different, and that maybe, Yeshua is working on them from a different angle. I don't know... people have to come to their own realizations. Life experience changes all of us, and who knows where the Spirit blows? Honestly, I just look at it as different ways of saying the same things. No one I know doesn't have some form of moral belief, and no one I know doesn't hold some kind of ideal about what humans and the world should be. Those things are spiritual to me, and even if they don't look at it that way, they're getting an education in their own personal experience of life.

I mean, as a Christian I'm supposed to love my enemies. And I try to. When I gave that guy a piece of my mind, I tried to do in a way that was educational, and not offensive. He made me walk a mile with him, and I walked a mile further. That's my job. He may be stealing my sandals, but I gave him my cloak. Why? Because those are the words Christ gave me for that situation. I get angry, but I know that anger at my brother can prevent my salvation. That's another word of the good news of the Gospel. So what I'm getting at is that Christ meant for me to be in the world as a healer, and not as a guy that goes around telling people how evil they are.

Life is not so simple as people think. It really isn't. Life is complex, difficult, and very confusing at times. The stuff the Spirit shows me doesn't always make sense. It takes time to figure out what message I'm receiving. Sometimes I don't figure it out. When I talk to Yeshua, he doesn't give me a bunch of theology, he talks to me like a friend. That is very simple. I've never had a complex conversation with him.

So I'm a little crazy to some people. That's okay with me. I don't mind being considered a little crazy. I do mind being considered Satan, and maybe I shouldn't. I'm just this average fellow who has in his mind that life is an experience of spiritual forces, and who lives in a world that a shaman or a mystic would feel at home in. And if people think I'm a little befuddled, it's fine. I am a little befuddled.

I mean, what people don't understand is that life contains a lot of disagreement. I may have a friend that looks at life as a kind of field of play with very little meaning. I understand that view, even though I don't live that way. I may have a friend that's an atheist that believes my views on life are uneccesarily magical and views life through a very scientific lens. I can understand that view too, even though he may think my mystic world is a little befuddled. And if I want to have friends, I have to be able to live with disagreement. Anything else is a cult. Beware of large groups of people who all have the same ideas.

The Genius of Albert Ayler

2007-05-12T18:16:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I don't know how many of you got Spiritual Unity, or maybe the Impulse Recordings, but it seems like this deserves some explanation.

1. Albert Ayler is free jazz, but it's nothing like Ornette Coleman's old work. It is more avant-garde, and far less accessible.
2. Ayler spends a lot of time playing in the highest range of the tenor saxophone, where a lot of alto players couldn't play. His playing is harsh, but he moves through these notes very smoothly and with a great deal of virtuosity.
3. Ayler believed himself to be on a spiritual mission as a musician, and his music was to him an expression of the Holy Spirit.
4. Ayler was a little crazy. He was very New Age and very driven by spiritual impulses. I identify with the guy a lot. Some of the speeches and lyrics are hokey, but the guy is sincere.
5. Ayler's music is not easy music to love. I love it because it is so breathtakingly unique; no one has ever before or since had that sound.
6. Ayler's ideas are now used quite frequently in avant-garde jazz, and as such he is a major influence and innovator.
7. Ayler was a Christian. He may not have been the mega-church brand of Christian, but he is constantly putting his spiritual beliefs in the forefront, and it turns a lot of people off. He did it anyway because that's what he felt his mission was.

It may not be your kind of music. I don't listen to it often. There are times when his chaotic impulses leave me a little jittery. But the man and his music were unbelievable. A very independent and interesting musician.

Alrighty...

2007-05-12T06:35:00.000-07:00

I'm going to try to get a little sleep. I've got some more ideas but I'm tired... I'll be back probably I don't know... 6 pm? Maybe a little sooner depending on how things go. I'll be back though.

Well I tried...

2007-05-12T05:56:00.000-07:00

Here is a sort of go at a progressive rock piece. It's not my best effort. I don't understand guitar all that well, but it's not bad, sort of interesting and I can imagine how it would sound with the long notes in the lead sustaining and distortion on the rhythm guitar. Feel free to solo on the first four bars, or on the whole form!

Wind Against Wire

Insomnia III

2007-05-12T04:57:00.000-07:00

So I experimented with the double quartet and I didn't like it. I'm just going to write a progressive rock piece. Nothing else. Back to work.

Insomnia II

2007-05-12T04:16:00.000-07:00

Well, I had a little trail mix to calm the jitters, and I did make a cup of coffee. All good people are asleep and dreaming right now, and that leaves - you.

Okay. Let me think. Well, I'm not sure how to write for the Chapman Stick. I need to listen to some things a little more to get some ideas. I want to write some fast parts. The first quartet is going to play total progressive rock. The second one is going to play jazz. I haven't decided if they're going to be in the same key or not. Chapman Stick has a tuning that plays F really easily, and I was thinking of F for the jazz band so I may put them in the same key. It's going to be midtempo... I've got some other ideas. I want to do like a Bill Frisell type thing with the rhythm guitar at some point.

So then I guess "New Coals" is going to be a burner, and there are going to be some irregular meters in there.

And I've decided that I'm going to start a jazz band as soon as I get my act a little more together on woodwinds. I'm looking for a trumpeter, a bass player, and a drummer. I want swing... I mean it, like REAL SWING... and I want people willing to take some risks. I'm open to sharing writing responsibilities, and I'm open to other ideas as well. If you're in the area, and you're interested in that kind of thing, look me up!

I'll probably get no response to that, but I will get a band together, and we'll see after that. I need (good)intermediate to advanced players, and the band will not be a profit making organization. All funds received will be small and not what you can make a living at.

I'll be back. No sign of sleep coming.

Insomnia

2007-05-12T03:35:00.000-07:00

Well, I haven't slept for more than an hour tonight. I'm doing okay, except for a little jitteriness. Must not drink a cup of coffee, or I'll be shaking like a leaf.

Well, I picked up some King Crimson the other day. I was listening to Starless and Bible Black, and I was really dissatisfied with the saxophone playing. I think if I were playing it I'd try for a more "Kenny G" type tone, more suitable in rock and roll, and ornament the line a little differently based on the harmonies, which are weird.

For those who don't know... King Crimson is a rock band that had a big hit in 1965 when progressive rock was at its peak. They've gone on to become the premiere avant-garde rock band, and their influences come from everywhere. I like Fripp, he's an Anglican Christian and he's into Orthodoxy... and he writes some really interesting stuff.

His blog is pretty interesting. Mostly right now it's about litigation, because the record company that held the rights to his songs got bought out in a hostile takeover and the new people are fouling him up royally. I did see one thing... he talks about how he works very hard to achieve what he achieves... Crimson is not punk rock... but he's also unsure of his abilities.

There are two possibilities: he may be prodigal at doing what he does, and not well trained in the things he doesn't do. I've been through that. Still am going through it with piano. Or he could just be humble. I don't know. It's really hard to say, because there is no relationship between a Crimson song and say... I don't know... Bouree, or Confirmation, or standards like that. Things everyone should be able to cut.

I have a lot of respect for his music. Some of it is too weird, some of it is too heavy metal, and some of it is just right. It's hard to find his stuff right now with all the litigation going on. I'm pretty sure he has an album finished that hasn't been published yet. Try "The Power to Believe." Nice work by Trey Gunn, great phrasing by Pat Mastelloto, the usual Belew craziness, and Fripp's rhythm guitar. Most people don't know that Fripp doesn't play the lead parts, but he doesn't.

Anyway, I'm working on the "New Coals" and I've got a bunch more titles I came up with. More on the way... I'm thinking of a piece based on Crimson. It'll be two basses (one a chapman stick and one an upright), two drum sets, two guitars, alto sax and trumpet, and the playing will be divided into two quartets. It's going to be called "Wind Against Wire."

I'm also thinking of tunes called Tune Up II and III, that include tuning and the extended harmonic overtone series as part of collective improvisation. Still letting my imagination run wild on that one.

I just finished reading Proverbs and plan on starting the ever enjoyable Leviticus next. It's 29 pages of work and I'm pretty much done with all of the books of the Bible that are fun to read. I give it nine months before I finish the last 20 or so books I have left.

I'm trying to find some decent work on the overtone series. I have like 16 partials in my Edward Aldwell book, but I wanted to see where it goes from there. We'll see. I'll probably have to go to the University library. 32 or 42 partials would make me happy.

I'm also listening to some Fred Hammond and Take 6, and then I'm working on stuffing my ears with jazz at all hours. Speaking of which, it's time to turn on that long playlist again.

I'm planning on subscribing to WGBO as a student, and I'm looking at all of this as a fun time. Oh and I bought an easy piano book and I'm working on it, and it is going much, much better than Bach and Czerny. Although I can play the first couple of exercises in Czerny now, most of the time. I'm trying to get them down exactly.

Still haven't gotten my saxophone, and I haven't been playing my flute much, but I'm going to start working on it again soon. I've just taken a break from a few things.

I heard "Ankaa" from Equatorial Stars by Robert Fripp and Brian Eno and here's my review: The use of diminished intervals to alter the tonality in places is very nice, the solo itself sounds like one of those "mode of the harmonic minor" things I keep hearing, and I think would have been better as a series of minor (maybe even major) and diminished intervals, rather than the way it's played. Still the overall effect of the piece isn't bad.

Well that about covers it, I may be back in a few minutes.

The Path I'm On

2007-05-06T02:37:00.000-07:00

Okay so first we have to set the groundwork. In this fallen world, all things are imperfect. Everything. Now, here is the deal. It's called hyle. You won't hear me talking about hylics, I hate that crap, but you will need to hear about hyle. I have an altered version of it. Okay, so there's energy. Now as energy is transferred, it creates a web of associations. This web of associations between different centers of energy creates a cause and effect that is deterministic, and it's a trap.

This trap leads to continued rebirth of this web of associations and when the web closes in, it leads to death, and then the web continues working out and a rebirth occurs. That's not really karma, there is a difference.

Now, the Gnosis begins to clear this web, and when the web is entirely clear, the energy moves out of this world into the next one.

So how do you get to the Gnosis? Well, "seek and ye shall find..." It is sought after, it is worked for, it is earned.

Some Thoughts on Buddhism

2007-05-06T02:17:00.000-07:00

Well, I believe the middle way works as a path to enlightenment. The reason I'm not on it is because there is one thing I can never do, and that is find a teacher to train me in Buddhism. This is a sign that I'm not ready for Buddha's path.

If I had my druthers, I would either continue on the path I'm on, whatever it is, or undertake the maha ahimsa in a reincarnation favorable to that path. I wouldn't take Buddha's way at all. The maha ahimsa is for someone of great purity, and what it is is total peace of thought, word and deed. One may not even fight for peace, one must simply be at peace. One may not take a wife or a lover or have kids, because ethically one would be required to defend them.

Daily Tarot Reading

2007-05-03T03:12:00.000-07:00

Here is a Tarot spread that I sometimes use when I need daily advice:

1. Shuffle the deck and cut it three ways left to right. Put the deck back together.
2. Draw the first card. This is the past.
3. Draw the second card and put it below the first. This is the present.
4. Draw the third card and put it below the second. This is the future.
5. Draw a card and place it to the left of the second card. This is the first possible path.
6. Draw another card and put it to the left of the third card. This is the second possible path.
7. Draw a card and place it to the left of the first path card. This is the result of that path.
8. Draw a card and place it next to the second path card. This is the result of the second path.

As with all divination, this can be helpful, or it can be damaging. Try to only use divination for yourself and others in an emergency.

A Brief Primer on I Ching

2007-05-03T02:56:00.000-07:00

Now, I want to make a disclaimer here. People will think this is stupid, but I have to do it. When studying the I Ching, be very careful. It can be very dangerous. It's a very complex work, and it also holds a great deal of power. Be sure to look at both sides of the story and be sure not to make rash judgments. The I Ching warns about this all of the time, but I want to give you a warning myself. Be careful.

Now the first thing to think of is method. There are roughly 30 methods of divining I Ching. The oldest, and perhaps the best, is with yarrow stalks. However, this method is really difficult and I've never studied it. The best coin method is this:

1. Take 12 coins, I prefer nickels, and put them in a cup.
2. Toss the coins on the table.
3. Without looking too much, organize the 12 coins into pairs of two.
4. Two heads will be a hard yang, a head and a tail a soft yang, a tail and a head a soft yin, and two tails a hard yin.
5. Write the yangs and yins down, including whether they are hard or soft.
6. Read the first hexagram.
7. Change all soft yangs and yins to their opposite, and write down the second hexagram and read it.
8. If the first hexagram allows, turn it upside down. Do the same with the second. Read the hexgrams.
9. If the first hexagram allows, flip all yangs to yin and yins to yang. Do the same with the second. Read the hexagrams.
10. Now take all of your readings and collect your thoughts in a short journal entry that includes your impression of the reading. If reading for someone else, do this verbally.

The I Ching requires wisdom. You can learn wisdom from it if you pay attention. For example, when it says "now is the time for fullness," don't forget that the next line is "after fullness comes contraction." Here we might think of Daniel storing grain for famine in the time of plenty. Those are the things you need to be thinking about. Be careful.

My Basic Principles of Belief

2007-05-03T02:05:00.000-07:00

1. There is one perfect thing and that is the Absolute, or God, who I believe to be beyond gender and just about everything else. He's ineffable, immutable, and he's the creator of the imperfect Universe.
2. All other things are imperfect in creation. Everything from Yeshua ben Joseph, my Savior, all the way down to the lowest spirit.
3. Everything that exists contains energy.
4. There are two principle types of energy: light and dark, and neither is evil or good, but they express a fundamental dualism in creation. I go back to the Bible "And he separated the light from the darkness." Not a normal interpretation, but there you are.
5. Life is about energy transfer, and the transferring of energy requires work.
6. To live is to be in pain.
7. To be conscious is to suffer from pain, and this is caused by our desire to escape pain and experience pleasure.
8. Virtue is required to pass the trials of life, and the ten commandments and the eightfold path are the best guides to that virtue.
9. The stars and the planets have energy, and it influences the flow of energy on the planet Earth and its people.
10. Creation is fallen and so are its rulers, but there are forces trying to save it.
11. One reincarnates in creation as long as one either wishes to, or as long as it takes to gain salvation.
12. Every star is the soul of a human being.
13. The body has subtle bodies not detected by science that are made of light and dark energy, and are influenced by the stars, the planets, the earth, and other being's energies.
14. There are many spirits in the world, some fallen, some helping humanity, and some light and some dark.
15. Some spirits are superior to man, and some are inferior.
16. Yeshua ben Joseph and the Buddha are neither spirits nor men, but something of a higher perfection.
17. There may be other people that have attained that degree of perfection.
18. There are an infinite number of realms in creation, ranging from our realm, somewhere in the middle, to hellish and heavenly realms.
19. One is not always reborn of a womb when one experiences rebirth.
20. Salvation is attained by gaining a special form of knowledge, something like the Gnosis of the the Gnostics. This knowledge isn't book knowledge.
21. People experiencing rebirth go through the stages of the Bardo.
22. Symbols have a certain energy, and can be used to do work, or transfer energy.

Western Mysticism

2007-05-03T01:43:00.000-07:00

Well, in spite of the mainstream's attempts to snuff it out over the past 10 centuries or so, Western Mysticism is alive and well. Just as I'm an eclectic in my practice of music, I'm an eclectic in terms of my religious beliefs. Here is a short list of things I draw from:

1. Christianity - bible, core values, the psalms, centering prayer
2. New Age - astrology, energy work, depth psychology
3. Gnosticism - some cosmology and basic principles
4. Shamanism - a belief in animism, visionary principles, no entheogens though
5. Buddhism - zazen, Lord Jizo, the eightfold path and the four noble truths
6. Other - symbolism, numerology, philosophy and semantics

That about covers it I guess.

Okay I Was Wrong

2007-05-03T01:25:00.000-07:00

My Saturn is in my 12th house, and my Venus in my 11th. Still a good place for Venus. I don't know how to share the birth chart with you, as the page its on requires logging in, but essentially I'm a Gemini with a lot of energy and some depths that are surprising, and other than some vanity and arrogance, good if mercurial relationship skills. That's the basics of it.

I'll be back in a moment.

For Anyone that Wants a Birth Chart

2007-05-03T01:14:00.000-07:00

If you want a very good free birth chart, try this website:

Astrodienst Astrology Website

I'll show you mine when I figure out how to do it. It's a total mess. Although I do have Venus in the fourth. That's why I'm not the typical adulterous Gemini.

Saturn Transits

2007-05-03T01:08:00.000-07:00

Okay, so let's do a little astrology. What a Saturn transit is:

On your birth chart, the planet Saturn appears in a certain house. Mine's in the 9th. Meh. Anyway, what happens is that roughly every 23 years Saturn re-enters the House of your birth chart, and then takes roughly 5 years to leave. Saturn transits are trial periods, and it can feel more like a torture period.

I didn't believe in astrology until I began studying Saturn transits about a year ago. Everything they said was happening to me! I would also note that "hardcore" astrologers think that you can fail a Saturn transit, and that sometimes when you fail, you die. In spite of my problems, I think I've succeeded.

This Is Pretty Funny

2007-05-03T00:54:00.000-07:00

After reading the last post someone said to me "I wonder why you have health problems!"

Look, I am one of the worst cigarette addicts in the entire world. I love to smoke. I mean, even after cigarette number 42 of the day, I'm still enjoying it. I know that cigarette smoking is one of the worst things a person can do to themselves. I'm not like "Oh the studies are wrong, it's not that bad for you." I know it's a wretched filthy habit that I have lost control over and I'm planning on quitting here fairly soon. I've quit for years at a time, and I plan to do it for good this time.

As someone else said to me "Ooo we picked up a heavy smoking habit on our Saturn return." My Saturn transit ended this year, and boy can I tell. I've gone from being miserable and confused to more mature and happy. I've learned a lot from this transit, but I'm not looking forward to my second one!

On the other side of this, I eat a very healthy diet for the most part, with occasional glitches, I drink a lot of water, my cups of coffee are 8 oz. cups of coffee, and I walk a few miles a week.

By the way, I can't sleep so I'm going to be posting some tonight. But yes, cigarette smoking is part of the reason I have health problems.

A List of Facts About Myself

2007-05-02T20:28:00.000-07:00

1. I'm a New Age Gnostic influenced Christian.
2. I read the Bible a lot.
3. I'm a jazz and classical composer.
4. I'm a beginner classical piano player and a pretty advanced jazz piano player.
5. I'm a good woodwind player who is trying to get his chops back.
6. I am heterosexual.
7. I've done a lot of years of therapy, and I think it's working.
8. I'm into Nero-linguistic Programming.
9. I own a Baldwin Studio Upright.
10. I own a Gemeinhardt open holed flute with a gold lip plate.
11. I own a two year old eMac computer.
12. I take motion capture pictures with an old video camera.
13. Most of my friends are at least 20 years older than me.
14. I do not like macho guys that are insensitive and talk trash.
15. I have a thing for "robust" looking women.
16. I drink 4 cups of coffee a day.
17. I smoke 2 to 3 packs of cigarettes a day.
18. I'm bipolar.
19. I have health problems.
20. I have one tooth in the front that is dark, and my left canine is flat because it got sanded down, from a trampoline incident when I was about 11 or 12.
21. I despise plastic surgery, unless it is called for.
22. I like beer occasionally, Coors Light and Sam Adams on draft.
23. I love my hometown Dayton, even though it's pretty shabby and dull.
24. I call Dayton, "D10" sometimes.
25. I often go by the moniker "Ghost Bear" on the Internet.
26. My family thinks we're Irish, but we're really Swedish. I did the research.
27. I'm only racist by accident.
28. I drink roughly 72 oz. of water a day.
29. I'm addicted to soda.
30. I love anything with capers on it.
31. I eat veal occasionally and then lie awake at night thinking of poor little cows afterwards.
32. I eat vegetarian probably 75% of the time.
33. I'm the most conservative person in my family.
34. I'm confused by the term "just war."
35. I chose St. Sebastian as my confirmation name as a kid. He was beaten nearly to death with clubs, brought back to health, preached again and was shot full of arrows. I liked archery at the time, and I've always been one to come back for more.
36. I was raised Catholic, I don't practice Catholicism, and I love some things about Catholicism.
37. I can't stand narcissistic behavior.
38. I know what it feels like to have people look down on you because you're fat.
39. I lost 100 pounds the past three years.
40. I had more dates when I was fat than now that I'm thin.
41. I always wear a hat when I'm out of my house.
42. I studied Hebrew at an Orthodox Synagogue for around a year.
43. My favorite fish to eat is trout.
44. I eat Brownberry high fiber bread.
45. I can't stand skim milk, so I drink 2%.
46. I use real cream in my coffee.
47. I have a weakness for salami and pepperoni as well as the aforementioned, which is why I'm not completely vegetarian.
48. I used to go to a Quaker meeting at Antioch College.
49. I believe in adult baptism, but I don't like organized religion. You figure it out.
50. My favorite ramen noodle is Sapporo Ichiban miso flavored.
51. When in doubt, I eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
52. I wake up no later than 6 am every day, although I usually take a nap midday.
53. I'm the hardest working guy on the planet without a job.

Personal Interlude II

2007-05-02T19:51:00.000-07:00

Well, here's a question people have for me that always strikes me as a funny question, but because I get asked so often, I thought I'd do a post about it. The question is "Don't you like, do it?"

The fact that this is a pretty personal question doesn't seem to register with people of this day and age, when manners have gone by the wayside, but I'm a fairly open person and I always answer. Well, I'm pretty liberal when it comes to my attitudes about sex for the most part. I figure between two consenting adults, just about anything goes. But, because of the problems I've had with bipolar, I don't get a lot of dates. And I keep very busy most days, and to be honest, since around 8 years ago I haven't had a relationship (a definite must for me for "doing it") of any serious kind.

I've had a few dates here and there, but nothing ever came of it. I've met some people on the Internet and got dumped, I considered eHarmony and decided I'm not at a place in my life for what eHarmony has to offer, and that is pretty much it. It's been me, myself and I for 8 years, and no I do not "do it." I'm not some kind of latent homosexual, I just haven't met anybody that's worth spending more than a couple of AIM conversations with.

So there you are. I'm an open book. I can see my biographies now; it's going to be like Leonard Bernstein. "Hung out with male prostitutes and threw sex parties which he videotaped while carrying on relations with his female cousins." Something of that nature. Sometimes the truth really is stranger... Of course, here I am projecting biographies of myself. I can be like that sometimes. Sometimes I see myself as who I am in relation to others. Kind of natural but it leads to narcissism. Weird that way.

Neuro-linguistic Programming

2007-05-02T08:27:00.000-07:00

Well, the name is unfortunate. That's the first thing. It doesn't suggest what NLP really is. Here are some of the basic principles of NLP:

1. The meaning of your communication isn't what you're saying, it's what the other person understands you to be saying.
2. What you say, as well as what you think, reinforces basic patterns about yourself.
3. To communicate effectively, you need to understand what the other person understands you to be saying.
4. An effective communication isn't one where the other person understands what you're attempting to communicate, but when you understand what the other person understands about your communication.

The ideas come from cognitive science and social psychology, but I've found this way of viewing communication has radically altered the way I deal with people. I don't always succeed in doing those things, but I sometimes do, and I try to bring these ideas to my music.

More on the Way I View Music

2007-05-02T08:17:00.000-07:00

Well, let's talk about how I view music again. First, I view music as a language. I view language as a set of symbols that relates to something in reality. So I view musical language as a set of symbols that relates to something in reality. Now, in music, the language is just as specific as in other disciplines, but it relates to more abstract things like emotion and mood.

So when I compose something, I'm thinking of what does this say about a reality? And that reality is generally a reality beyond words, that can only be expressed in music. This isn't to cut out music with words, which expresses the same things on two different levels, but I think that what I need to say often needs to be said with music only.

I realize that this is a little esoteric, but what I'm getting at is that when you hear a sequence in music, because music is heard in time, then you're hearing a symbol of some abstract thing, and in my case that abstract thing is generally experiential. It's hard to put this into words, and I realize that my view of music is pretty singular.

So what happens is that we hear a sequence of tones that relate to each other in time. How they relate to each other and what they are by themselves creates the piece of music. My music is programmatic, and verbal and visual as well, and so the piece expresses through its tones a message and a series of images. What it suggests is up to the listener to decide, just as in communication where the meaning of the message is what the other person hears. (A little NLP for you.)

And this sequence of tones is played by the performer (or will be) who puts his or her personal stamp on the score. My scores are specific, but not overly specific. I want the performer to be able to communicate their vision of the score to the audience they're playing it for.

Understand that the parts I write out for the jazz music can be altered within certain reasonable limits for the performance of the piece. The overall guideline has a certain integrity though, and changes should be made intelligently.

Shadowfire Suite, Part 2

2007-05-01T22:09:00.000-07:00

Here is the second part of the suite! Turned out well in my opinion. I was a little more careful being specific with the markings this time. Hope you enjoy it!

Shadowfire Suite Part 2, "Ashes"

Some More Jazz Recordings to Look For

2007-05-01T20:46:00.000-07:00

1. Billy Taylor - Ten Fingers, One Voice
2. Billy Taylor - Music Keeps Us Young
3. The Roy Haynes Trio (name of album and artist)
4. Chick Corea and Bobby McFerrin - Play
5. Chick Corea - Expressions
6. Chick Corea and Origin - Change
7. Geri Allen - Homecoming

A Brief Portrait of John Coltrane

2007-05-01T20:21:00.000-07:00

Well, he started as an R&B sax player, and he got interested in jazz. Word around the campfire is that when he first started sitting in he was so bad that they frequently threw him offstage. Eventually he met Miles Davis, and Miles took a liking to his sound.

He played on a lot of seminal jazz records with Miles Davis, and he began writing music of his own. There was Giant Steps, which featured wonderful complex compositions, but solo playing that sounded a little forced, and a couple of other albums.

Now most of the people in jazz at that time were using heroin. Mr. Coltrane got clean, but his body was badly burned from his use of heroin. His health began to fail.

In 1965 he created the album "A Love Supreme" which to me is right up there with Beethoven's 9th symphony. The album had Coltrane's passion, as well as his insights he had gained through years of academic study of everything from classical music to Hindustani ragas. It was a spiritual album, a fiercely dissonant album, and an album of great passion.

John Coltrane cut a few more records of experimental music, and then his body just couldn't go on. He died in his 50's with very little recognition by all but a few people in the jazz field.

Two things about Coltrane's sound that were so interesting was that first, he was a searcher. You'll hear him playing patterns over and over in different ways like he's looking for something. The second was that he never played licks really. He was always working away at motifs. This approach is spectacularly realized on "A Love Supreme."

I like Coltrane's way of soloing, and his sound is a big influence on my solo playing. I sort of like taking a few notes and reworking them according to the harmonic rhythm in the way Coltrane did.

A Brief Portrait of Bud Powell

2007-05-01T20:04:00.000-07:00

Now, Mr. Powell is one of my heroes.

Look, at the time, there was a small group of people inventing bop music. Charlie Parker, to some degree Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Ray Brown, Clifford Brown, and among those people was Bud Powell.

Now Mr. Powell was an incredible talent, but he had mental problems. At the time he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, but I wonder if it wasn't bipolar with psychotic features like I have. Now, he recorded as he went in and out of the hospital, and then at some point he just couldn't play anymore. After a few years of suffering he died in his 40's I think.

Chick Corea tells a story about him that runs roughly like this: Chick adored Bud Powell, and he heard he was playing a club in New York City. Bud sat at the piano with his head buried in the keys with his hands in his pockets. Before each tune, someone would come up and whisper in his ear. Bud would proceed to play music that would make you tremble in fear, and then when the tune was finished, head back in the keys and his hands in his pockets. This went on all night.

If Bud lived today, he would have had a much longer, brighter career. They would have been able to help him a lot more. Understand too, that another strike against him was that he was not only mentally ill, but mentally ill and African American in the 40's and 50's. Not a good combination. He had very little freedom for most of his life, and he died in obscurity, while people who couldn't play jazz piano got on the cover of Time Magazine. He's still relatively unknown by most people in jazz.

There was one day I was listening to WBGO and they were playing a Verve recording that I have never been able to find of Oblivion. In the solo section, Bud paused briefly and played a low minor key chord and the bass and he just clicked perfectly, and I thought... "That is the sound of God talking." Beautiful music.

The State of Music Today

2007-05-01T19:47:00.000-07:00

Classical:

It is very difficult to find contemporary classical music outside of the Internet or a large city that supports ensembles that play such things. However, people like the people at sequenza are in the trenches trying to open up people's ears. I've been happy to see some traveling ensembles on the blogroll there, because to me, that's the way classical needs to go. Let the muckety-mucks have the concert hall, form a small ensemble and travel and play new music.

I'm optimistic. The fact that this genre of music exists at all, what with the few people out there that listen to classical in the first place, and the even fewer that are willing to try contemporary music, is to me a very good sign. Stay in the trenches guys! We need you!

Jazz:

There are three overwhelming problems with jazz today. One is that jazz players simply do not get the education in music they need. Two is that most of the good work being done is historical, playing old bop or swing tunes. Three is that people are approaching jazz composition without the aforesaid education, and with historical pieces in mind.

There are maybe 25 recording artists in jazz right now doing good work. Most of the rest of the stuff is either smooth jazz, or simply isn't any good. That's not enough people.

But we're no worse off than contemporary classical. We have more venues, a wider audience and we need to stay in the trenches too and keep working at things until our horizons broaden a little bit.

All too often what you hear in jazz today is someone playing music that is an oversimplification of what used to be played. Bud Powell played G7b9 chords that way, but that's not all he played when he voiced the chord. Charlie Parker did play the diminished scale pattern you're using, but he also played it in a far more complex way.

The Programme of the Shadowfire Suite

2007-05-01T04:46:00.000-07:00

Well, one time I was painting in watercolors and inks, and I painted a black sun with a gold limin around it. This has become to me a personal symbol that I kind of view as part of my personal poetry or mythology. I considered calling the piece the Black Sun Suite, but didn't like the sound of it, and settled on Shadowfire after doing some writing.

The idea for the piece came when my Dad was grilling chicken at his house. There were the old coals that he reused, the new coals, and then the ashes that he collected and threw away. So I got the idea for the movements, and settled on the titles again, after some writing.

So what does it mean? Well, hmmm... okay, let's get a little New Age. I look at the world as filled with dark and light energy. Dark energy isn't evil, and light energy isn't necessarily good, but they have a certain character or quality. This doesn't really relate to science, but I kind of came up with it after studying astronomy some. So the character of this piece is of dark energy.

I tend to think of the world in mythological terms, and it drives a lot of people nuts, but I really don't want to change that about myself. I know it sounds a bit kooky, but the ideas for this Suite have to do with my personal beliefs. I think the big thing to remember is that at the end we begin the fire anew with new coals, and that there is hope.

Up Before the Birds

2007-05-01T04:29:00.000-07:00

Well I awoke a little earlier than usual today, and I've just had my first cup of coffee and I thought I would post some things.

Overall I'm happy this morning. I've started taking notes on the second part of the Shadowfire Suite, which will be called "Ashes," and I've got a few notes on the third part, which will be called "New Coals." One of the issues has been deciding what key to put the next two parts in. I was thinking A Minor or Ab Minor for "Ashes," and probably C for the final part, but there are going to be some angry alto sax players out there.

I'm playing around with a melodic line for "Ashes." I'm going to go against my usual feelings and use open fifths and octaves in the piece, because of the sound I want to get. There is a specific motif I want in the bass that uses an octave, and it needs to be around the note A to get the right sound out of the contrabass.

It's actually based on a motif by Roni Size, a drum and bass artist, from a song called "Brown Paper Bag." I'm not sure where he got the sample from, but I'll have to give him credit for the line somewhere, even though I'm going to alter it slightly. Nothing worse than a plaigarist. I like Dave Brubeck better than plaigarists.

The third part is going to be fast, and "Ashes" is going to be very slow. I'm planning between 76 and 84 beats per minute on "Ashes" and maybe 164 on the third part.

"Ashes" is going to be a feature for muted trumpet, and then in "New Coals" I'm planning on a trumpet and tenor sax solo. The trombone players are going to feel a little left out, but I'll write a feature for them at some point. That's about all I've got. The melody for "Ashes" is proving difficult to write. I think I need to focus on perfect intervals more, and I'm sort of playing around with things and right now I'm a little stuck.

I haven't started any of the music for "New Coals," I'm just doing some writing and trying to piece together what the basic form of the piece will be. I'm considering changing from the chorus/solo/chorus pattern, but we'll have to see. I'd kind of like to get a contrasting theme in there, but often jazz melodies don't readily suggest a contrasting theme. That will take a little work to figure out.

Well, don't worry, I'm going to go back to bed eventually. I had trouble sleeping last night and I figured I might as well type up a few things before I did my morning routine and went back to sleep. Take care!

Might As Well Go Into the Breach

2007-04-30T19:51:00.000-07:00

What's wrong with Frank Sinatra and Dave Brubeck?

1. Neither of them can swing.
2. Black and underground musicians did music at the same time that was far better that still lies unrecognized. Ever heard of Jimmy Giuffre? Bud Powell?
3. You can't just write a song in 5/4 or 2/8+2/8+2/8+3/8 with a melody that sounds like it comes out of Alfred's basic piano book and expect to impress me. It may impress some people but it doesn't impress me.
4. Frank Sinatra is not a good human being. He's a pompous violent jackass, and I think it reflects in his music.
5. Dave Brubeck has extremely heavy hands on the piano. Compare "Take Five" with "Days of Wine and Roses" by Oscar Peterson.
6. Ellington wrote compositions, Brubeck wrote gimmicks.

A Personal Interlude

2007-04-30T19:02:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a hard day. Public response to the compositions isn't good. People seem to have focused consistently on the first string quartet, and out of all of the compositions, that is certainly the most difficult one to experience.

Personally, I've always been a little different. In social groups, I have generally been on the outside. There are two reasons: One I'm very intelligent, and two I'm unconventional. I just never thought like the other guy. I was always pushing further away from people.

As a musician, and a person, I have come to understand that relationships are everything: My relationship with Yeshua ben Joseph, my relationship with my creator, my relationships with my family and my very few friends. So I understand, here's a guy telling you that the string quartet is a means of relating to people, and to most people it's damn ugly.

Understand that I spent roughly 48 hours composing that piece of music, as in 48 hours of work, not just two days. The effect was something I discerned very carefully. I know what the piece sounds like. It went very quickly once I got to the computer, but it was a long hard haul before I got that far.

You have to understand that I look at myself as a semiprofessional musician and composer. I don't have a lot of demands on my time at this point in life, but I'm not lazy. I work very hard.

Now does that mean it's a good piece of music? I don't know. I think it is. Does that mean everyone will like it? No, and that's not the point. The point is that people hear it, whatever their reaction is. Someday that composition will be performed. Someone will like that little devil and play it.

In the meantime, you see the score and hear an electronic version of it, and I hope you can at least acknowledge that I didn't just roll dice to create the piece, but that I spent hours crafting an effective, from my point of view, piece of music that said something about, in this case, four corners of the world.

My feeling isn't hopeless, or even angry. They did it to Mr. Coleman, they did it to Mr. Coltrane, they did it to Mr. Parker, they did it Schoenberg and Berg and Stravinsky and just about anybody who didn't fit the mold. I've never fit the mold. I've always been an oddball. I have a way of making statements that people don't like to hear. I think this string quartet is one of those.

I've never been well-liked as an Internetizen. At the jazz community I was constantly fighting people who thought jazz was Frank Sinatra and Dave Brubeck. At a myspace classical forum I was pretty much jeered at for talking about music other than mainstream symphonic music. At Sequenza, people haven't been particularly kind either.

And honestly, after a lifetime of this, I've gotten used to it. I'm always going to be at the window if people want me, but I'm usually not allowed in the house. That's the way of it. I have been consistently rejected throughout my life, and I know that at some point, people will file in and listen to that string quartet, and if half of them cover their ears or leave then at least I know it's no longer just a Finale file.

You see, a person can get used to anything. I'm very well loved by those that love me, but I'm not exactly the man about town.

A prime example. I am an extremely good jazz piano player. Now, I was about to buy a board so I could be in a band, but what I figured out is that it didn't matter. Because what my friends did is hired a guy that can't read a lead sheet. In the end, I just went back to my apartment and played my piano some more, and I figured that when I did start a band at least I would be able to play the right way.

I have a level of contentment that may seem odd. I'm very poor, I'm in poor health, I have bipolar disorder, I'm not widely accepted anywhere, but I have a level of contentment in my life. Because I'm proud of my hard work, because I'm proud that I have dignity, because I have people that love me who make time for me.

I don't expect to get in the history books. I really don't expect to be rich or famous. If I can get to the point where I can subsist on my music without need for social welfare, and even some of my music is more than just Finale files, then I will have considered myself a success. I'm not in this to make friends. I haven't been for years. Friends have a way of taking off when you disagree with them or when your life gets too hard.

I understand that I'm a radical. My view of the world has always been radical. My view of music is extremely integrated with my way of viewing the world. I'm essentially one piece as a person. What you see is what you get. And most people decide what they're getting isn't for them. No big deal.

To Give You an Idea

2007-04-30T18:34:00.000-07:00

I remember a crack someone made about John Coltrane one time that he was "trying to express the inexpressible." Now I don't know what Mr. Coltrane said, or even if he said anything, but what I would say is "you really are hearing it expressed in my music."

How to Practice

2007-04-30T06:58:00.000-07:00

Well one thing I realized when I went away to music school is that, I was practicing the right amount of time, but I didn't know how to do it. A few years ago I had a piano teacher named Tom Lipps, who as far as I know currently works in Vegas, who sat me down and showed me how to practice. I'm going to add some of the things that Jerry Coker taught me when I was at UTK.

So some general principles:

1. Always, no matter how well you know it, practice something at a slow tempo first.
2. Use a metronome. If you're practicing jazz, put the clicks on two and four in half time.
3. When you're having a difficulty, play one or two bars before and one or two bars after, and then when you've worked out the difficulty, play through the section, and if you mess up, go back to those few bars and try again. Do this until you can play the section over and over at tempo without mistakes.

Now, here's what you need to do. You need to block out a period of time. Actually I recommend two periods of time. You should be able to do everything you need to do in 4 hours. Too much practice can lead to injury. So you have two two hour time periods with a 20 minute break in the middle.

First Session:

1. Warmup
2. Scales
3. Chords

Second Session:

1. Warmup
2. Etudes and Exercises
3. Repertoire

If you are in music school, you may want to try three two hour time periods, but be sure to take a break. And just to mother you a little, don't stay up all night! Start in the morning and finish by 11 if you can. If you're practicing correctly, you won't have to try to cram everything in.

Advice for Young Musicians

2007-04-30T06:24:00.000-07:00

1. If you love music enough to work very, very hard, do not give in no matter what happens. When times get tough, remember your love of music.
2. Listen to a lot of music. Listen to stuff you love, and listen to challenging music.
3. Learn your repertoire. For Jazz musicians, Mark Levine has a comprehensive repertoire listing in the "Jazz Theory Book." For classical musicians there are also books available.
4. If you plan to compose, you need to learn the big three: Harmony, Counterpoint, and Orchestration.
5. Be patient with yourself. The course of study necessary to become a competent musician takes years to complete. I'm still not finished with it.
6. Find teachers that both challenge you and encourage you.
7. Do some writing about the sound you want to get.
8. Buy a version of Finale you can afford and monkey around with it to try to get the sound you want out of it.
9. You will probably need some piano skills, so consider taking some beginner's piano lessons.
10. Try to stay out of debt. Music making is expensive, but you'll probably be low on money as you're starting out and you need to work with as little overhead as possible.
11. Don't be arrogant. Remember that you're not Mozart or Charlie Parker and that you'll always be learning new things.
12. Expect rejection. Even if you play music that is more "straight-ahead" than mine, people are going to reject you as you go along. Remember point 1.
13. When you're playing, don't get tunnel vision. Listen to the other performers very carefully, and pay attention to your conductor if you have one.
14. As a composer, respect the performer and the audience. Make sure a piece is playable, and think of yourself listening to the piece and whether or not it's something you would enjoy hearing.
15. Put out the absolute best product you can. Quality is everything. This goes for composition and performance.
16. Lower your expectations about fame and fortune. If you make a living doing music, and you're not in a bunch of debt, that's better than about 90% of musicians. Everyone wants money and recognition, but try to think of yourself as a professional and not a budding rock star.
17. I recommend sharing your music with people cheaply. Dissemination and word of mouth does a whole lot for you. Obviously you want to make a living, but giving the people a chance to hear your music at a low cost will expand your listening group. If you're doing good music, you can bet they'll come back and spend more.
18. Spend time with people in music education. Do some outreach to the community and help people along that are in the position of learning as you once were.

How Much Do You Love Music?

2007-04-29T21:08:00.000-07:00

Well I remember one time, a guy I knew was packing up after a show and I'm hanging around and he says to me "I'm thinking about getting out of the piano gig." And always at my most helpful I said "What you need to think about is how much you love music."

And I ask people this question all the time now. They want to play music, but they don't want to do the work necesary to play the music they want, and I ask "How much do you love music?" Because if you don't love it that much, then give up. I'm going to bed with that thought.

My Influences

2007-04-29T20:43:00.000-07:00

1. Duke Ellington - One of the first people to use classical devices in the jazz orchestra, if not the very first.
2. Ornette Coleman - free jazz means to me that the player doesn't focus on a chord sequence, but on the melodic lines of the band.
3. Bela Bartok - I make consistent use of diminished scales, bi and polytonality, as well as pre-compositional techniques that Bartok used.
4. Alban Berg - I make use of twelve tone techniques in a tonal way, much in the way that Berg did.

A Brief Essay on Post-modernism

2007-04-29T20:27:00.000-07:00

What Post-modernism is: a state of crisis that denotes the end of progress, as all forms of modernism have been tried and have failed.

Someone asked me, do I consider myself Post-modern? I do in a sense. The way I do things is a way that someone came up with before me. The revolutions have gone by: Duke Ellington, bebop, free jazz, and I am sort of a re-liver of those revolutions. I think there is more to life than post-modernism, like love and joy and even awareness, maybe pain, as post-modernism denotes existential crisis more than pain.

So post-modernism is to me, real. It's also only part of the equation. I am a post-modern jazz and classical composer, but there is more to me than that if you get to know me.

Jazz as a Medium of Expression

2007-04-29T19:53:00.000-07:00

Okay, just got an interesting email through the site, which to paraphrase, asked why I choose jazz as my primary means of expression. Why not electronic music? Or Classical music primarily?

Well, this is a hard question to answer. First, I think jazz has the same range of expression as classical music. Coltrane can sound angry, Miles can sound cool, Charlie can sound effervescent, and so on. So I don't feel limited by the vocabulary of jazz. Second, as I've talked about, I want to play living music, and improvisation is the key to keeping music alive in my mind. Because every time will be different, because the arrangements are a guideline not a stony edifice to play over.

The reason not electronic is because even though I appreciate electronic music I like live performance and living instruments with living performers.

The reason not classical primarily is difficult to explain: First, most classical performers have little to no ability to improvise. Second, classical music is stuck in large concert halls with people that have no interest in music that I want to play. Third, I look at classical music as an extremely effective, beautiful art form, but when it comes to performing my own music, I want a little bit more freedom than classical music allows.

So jazz is my choice. It has a long history of innovations, some not widely accepted, and it has the means to express the emotions I want, with the possibility for an audience that is looking for what I have to give. It's different every day, and it allows me as a performer to switch things around a little and see what comes out. Nothing is more enjoyable than a good day with a jazz band.

The Meaning of the Word Gnosis

2007-04-29T19:08:00.000-07:00

In Attic Greek, or Ancient Greek, the word meant that something (not someone) was knowing something abstract. As in "the earth knows justice today," or something like that. There are other forms of the word knowledge that dealt with people, but this particular world dealt with things and abstractions. Greek is far more complex and specific than English, and there is no exact linguistic corollary in English.

The first group of Gnostics were a baptismal cult called the Gnostikoi. It's a funny expression, and it means roughly "the somethings that perceive." It was kind of a linguistic expression that was used only by this group. I'm sure the Greeks thought it was kind of odd.

What the word means to me, is to "be aware of something deeply, beyond words"... and this is the sense that the various Gnostic groups throughout the centuries used it in. It's also used as an object, "the Gnosis" or "the deep awareness of things beyond words." Note that scholars wouldn't approve of my definition completely, as the definition varied from Gnostic group to Gnostic group, and changed throughout the history of the West.

My definition is a pragmatic definition, a working definition that forms part of my beliefs. So I'm not trying to fill you full of hot air. Scholars look at Neo-Gnostics like me and kind of chuckle, because our beliefs are just as post-modern as any other belief system in use today.

Not convinced? There's no need. Gnosticism is by and large not evangelical.

A Post-Modern View of Gnosis

2007-04-29T18:40:00.000-07:00

Here are some principles borrowed from Gnostic groups that I have subtly altered for my own use. I thank Dr. Stephen Hoeller for getting me started in looking at these ideas.

1. There is an immutable, all powerful God.
2. Jesus is the messenger from this God.
3. The world is fundamentally fallen, and can't be escaped until salvation is realized.
4. Salvation is realized through a special knowledge called Gnosis, which purifies the fallen self so that it can escape the world.
5. The powers in charge of this world are as fallen as the world, and the world displays this fallenness in all the suffering and pain that goes on here.
6. The scriptures of the Jewish and New Testament, plus the Gnostic Scriptures recently discovered like the Nag Hammadi library form a repository of Gnosis in the world.
7. Gnosis speaks primarily in metaphors.

Getting a Little Mystical

2007-04-29T18:20:00.000-07:00

Now, I've talked about how I have a message in my music. It's not often that I try to put it into words. I'll try. There are a few basic principles I'm interested in expressing: joy, love, awareness (roughly) and pain. Those are the things that I'm trying to express but I think it comes out better in music than in words. To me they're all one principle... and I don't know what the name is... Gnosis maybe?

I'm very influenced by Proto-Christianity, another black mark on my book for the average Christian, and I think that word, which is kind of like "perceiving" or "knowing intimately" is the fundamental word of my message. Actually the word "gnosis" appears in the letters of Paul, but it takes a secondary place to love. To me this "awareness" is love.

So now, if any of you listened to Ayler, you know that he had a spiritual message, and it comes off very out there or drug-induced, but I think my spiritual message that I'm saying in my music is more grounded. I like Ayler though, he had a sound that no one else has ever had.

At times this mystical bent of mine has irritated people. There are people that are Christian that think I'm giving an occult image. There are people on the other side who want me to can the mysticism. I sort of feel like my experiences of reality have a mystical edge, and I'm wanting to communicate that. I'm looking forward to doing it more effectively.

What I Enjoy In Music

2007-04-29T17:54:00.000-07:00

1. Swing
2. Counterpoint
3. Good melody
4. Complex harmonies and tone colors
5. Intensity
6. Originality
7. Cutting edge music, music on the forefront, facing the future
8. Music with good musicianship

Tonality in Music

2007-04-29T14:21:00.000-07:00

Well a tonal piece of music has a central tone. That's the short definition. A broader definition is that the tones of the piece, particularly of the melody, create either a broad or narrow tonality. Too broad and the piece floats around or seems to modulate key, too narrow and it's boring, although minimalists use narrow tonality for effect.

Then there is a narrow definition of tonality as major-minor tonality, which is music that has a certain pattern of tones that lead to different degrees of the scale, particularly the root and third (note) of the scale. This is the kind of tonality traditionally used in classical music, but rarely in jazz or popular music, or really even in folk music.

The Problems with Popular Music

2007-04-29T13:59:00.000-07:00

1. Popular music is a multi-million dollar industry. People spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in studio time, and executives make and lose millions of dollars a day. Everything is about the money and not the music.
2. Everything is also about the marketing. Good music gets ignored because it's not marketed well, and bad music gets sold because it's marketed well.
3. A lot of people don't know this, but all too often the people or person on the cover of the CD didn't play the music. A lot of times it's played by studio musicians. When someone who looks like a supermodel sings like a large African American woman, it's time to get suspicious.
4. There is a lot of use of shock tactics to sell things. Songs about people cutting themselves, or songs with explicit sexual content, or a bunch of talk about guns, anything to grab people's attention.

As an example, I was at a wedding and "Sexy Back" by Justin Timberlake was playing. Everybody at the wedding was dirty dancing, and it was a hell of a lot of fun to watch, because there were a lot of attractive women there. However, that song can hardly be called a song, and I thought "That's what my music doesn't have... sex."

What it Means to Me to be a Musician

2007-04-29T13:35:00.000-07:00

1. It means to work as hard as possible to be good at what I do.
2. It means that I'm forming relationships with an audience or a performer.
3. It's a means of communicating my experience of life.
4. It means being challenging but not abusing the audience.
5. It means sometimes being rejected even when I've done my best.
6. It means taking part in a beautiful art.
7. It means being part of an ongoing history of music.
8. It means always trying to improve my art.
9. It means listening to a lot of music.

Leavening the Lump a Little

2007-04-29T08:47:00.000-07:00

By the way, I'm not telling the improviser that he can't think of the implied harmonies of the patterns of the composition. I'd just prefer he didn't write them out. Like, if you hear Ab7#9, go with that, but what I want to hear is melody, not a diminished whole tone pattern. So if you look at it like Ab7#9, think in terms of the rhythm and let the notes come out according to the harmonic rhythm. Do it by ear, and experiment with it.

Obviously, in classical music there is a set of implied chords in the counterpoint, so I'm not saying, don't think ever in terms of chords, but I am saying, don't play up and down a scale, try thinking in melody. I think it's easier to play that way, but then, I'm used to thinking that way.

It might be better to analyze the chords according to classical function, because that's how they're being used.

My Vision of Jazz

2007-04-29T08:23:00.000-07:00

Since I'm primarily a jazz musician, I want to talk about my vision for jazz. I'm going to give a numbered list:

1. I want my jazz to move away from Dan Haerle block chords, and have its accompaniment be realized in counterpoint.
2. I want to integrate the revolution of free jazz into my work while maintaining more traditional compositional elements.
3. I want to use advanced classical music devices in my jazz compositions.
4. I want to free the improviser to play melody instead of abstract patterns.
5. I want to explore tone colors with jazz bands that aren't commonly used in jazz.

A Personal Musical History

2007-04-29T08:00:00.000-07:00

Well, I began playing flute at the age of 12. I was in wind band, and at the age of 17 I discovered the book "Young People's Concerts" by Leonard Bernstein. At that point I decided I wanted to be a composer, and a composer has to play piano. Also, I saw Horowitz's Moscow concert, and fell in love with the sound of piano. I checked Walter Piston's "Harmony" out of the library and battered the piano, and I was already involved in jazz and falling in love with it.

I took jazz piano lessons and was accepted into the University of Tennessee, Knoxville Jazz program. I studied with Donald Brown and Jerry Coker, but I began having a nervous breakdown. I returned home and floated a few years, and then I came out of the mental hospital badly burned. I've been studying on and off, and this year I had a breakthrough in composition. My first few scores were terrible, and then I began to write some things that made sense. I discovered some resources online about twelve tone and serial music, and I began listening to Berg and Schoenberg.

Right now I'm trying to get free of atonality by using it in different ways, but have retained a few of my old compositions that are a little better than some of the others. I'm working on a suite for Swing Band, and I'm trying to write my second string quartet. I'm still evolving as a composer, and I'm looking to sharpen my skills.

Currently I'm planning on continuing to study piano, and also begin studying saxophone, with saxophone being my primary instrument. I'm playing flute again, and I'm playing it pretty badly but once I get my fingers in the right position I'll be fine. Edward Alding is opening up a whole new world to me, and expect to hear me using all sorts of interesting techniques by this time next year. It's the most difficult and best book on the subject available on the market. I'm not understanding all of it, but I'm going over it and trying my best.

What I'm Studying

2007-04-29T07:35:00.000-07:00

Composition:

Harmony and Voice Leading - [CORRECTION]Edward Aldwell
Gerard Pease - Modern Notation

Piano:

The Beginner's Czerny Exercises Book 1
[EDIT]I'm also studying major scale exercises in all 12 keys out of a scale method book for piano.

Flute:

Trying to get my chops back. I'm having trouble playing my open-holed flute because of improper finger positioning. Just working on my major scales. I don't currently own a saxophone, but I'm getting a used one soon, and I'm planning on buying the Berklee method books. Playing music is expensive.

A Day in the Life

2007-04-29T07:20:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I'll talk about me a little, one of my favorite subjects. First, I awake early in the morning bright-eyed and ready to go, and I consider this a gift from God. No more slamming the alarm and writhing in agony in the morning. I take lithium, so I usually wake up dehydrated. I have a couple glasses of water and some cigarettes and then a cup of coffee, and I generally turn some music on.

Then I start deciding what I want to do that day. Usually by 6 am I'm working on something, whether it's composition or writing. Sometimes I have breakfast with my mother at around 7 or 7:30 am. Then at around 12pm or so I take a nap until 2 or 3. Then I practice my instruments, and usually go out and see someone in my family before coming back home, eating a light dinner and doing some more work on the computer.

By 9:30 pm I'm usually in bed. I don't work right now or go to school because of my health problems, but I'm planning on going back to school soon.

As a person, I'm fairly curious and intense, and so I tend to do a lot of research and focus on what I'm doing next. I'm currently studying a textbook called "Harmony and Voice Leading" by [CORRECTION]Edward Aldwell, and I'm also working on Gerard Pease's notation book to pick up where Finale leaves off when I write a score.

I usually hit up sequenza21 once or twice a day to see if there is anything I want to comment on, and I check the community portal at the netnewmusic wiki every few days. I'm not currently going to a jazz forum, but I'd like to find a good jazz blog. Hit me up if you know of a good one! Other than mine of course...

My Compositional Method

2007-04-29T06:38:00.000-07:00

Well, usually what happens is that I'm sitting somewhere drinking coffee and I come up with an idea. I keep copious journals, and I write down the idea. I draw pictures, I add pictures from the Internet, I might do some painting, I write scraps of music on paper, maybe some photography, play some things on the piano or flute, and when I'm confident that I know what I'm doing, I sit down and write it out in Finale. Almost all of my decisions are pre-compositional. In fact, the piece is basically written before I begin composing. All I do is piece it together and tease out some things that seem to be working well.

Another Composition

2007-04-29T06:23:00.000-07:00

Here's one I wrote that I'm dissatisfied with, but uses some pretty advanced techniques. It's an Impromptu for Piano subtitled "Puzzle Box." See what you think.

Piano Impromptu No. 1 "Puzzle Box"

A Brief Primer on Twelve Tone Music

2007-04-29T06:10:00.000-07:00

Okay, so this is going to require some theory to understand, so if this boggles your mind, just ignore it. I realize that I'm writing currently for someone with a fairly high education in music, and I'll try to come down to a lower level a bit in further posts.

So what Schoenberg was doing at the time he thought of this was trying to write music that didn't sound tonal. This proved very hard to do, because the Western ear organizes music tonally so strongly that even a random series of notes will usually appear to have a tonality. So he decided to give every note of the equal-tempered chromatic scale equality, by using a tone row.

Now let's give an example of one of my tone rows:

G B C# D F E A F# D# C A# G#
0 4 6 7 10 9 2 11 8 5 3 1

Now let's talk about the construction of this tone row. First of all, the opening motif suggest the lydian dominant altered scale. Second the last three notes have an appearance of a cadence in G#. Third, there is a fourth between the first and second hexachord and a half step back to 0. There is only one dissonant interval in the row, and that's the fourth, and it will be either dissonant or consonant depending on where it appears in the counterpoint of the tones.

That's how I construct a tone row. I stick to mostly thirds, sixths, and semitones, a few whole tones, and fourths and fifths between hexachords or tetrachords, and I generally avoid the tritone class totally.

So then you construct the matrix, by subtracting the next note from 12. So below G would go D#. When you are finished, the downward columns are the inversions, the upward columns the retrograde inversions, the left to right rows the transpositions of the tone row, and the right to left rows the retrogrades of the tone row.

And now you have to make choices about the rhythm of the melody, and then you add the canon, finish up the markings and you have a composition that uses twelve tone atonality.

It's easier than it sounds. I've been working on different ways of approaching these things in my music, sometimes not using a tone row but making use of atonal colors, or making the rhythm somehat serial. All kinds of things. I'm so glad to have Finale Songwriter to experiment with these ideas in.

Waking Up Before the Birds

2007-04-29T05:40:00.000-07:00

So I've had WBGO on all night, and I woke up early and I'm looking to post some things here.

So you might notice that one of my big influences is Berg. Now, Berg took Schoenberg's twelve tone system and used it to create tonal music. I've extended this idea somewhat. I use tones borrowed from scales outside the tone row, or use the tone row in tonal ways, much the way Berg did. I had someone tell me that even my jazz compositions sound like Berg. That pleases me.

One thing about my compositions is that they're very mathematical. There is an element of serialism in all my works. I try not to use it to the point where the human side is lost, but I have a very mathematical mind. Everything in my music is mapped out according to a plan, not necessarily a matrix, but a plan.

The influence of Berg is most readily seen in that first string quartet, "Four Corners." I used a twelve tone matrix and created the canon and harmonies from the matrix, adding tone color, primarily in the viola part. But the other ones have some of the same characteristics.

Why Berg? Because I love his music, primarily. Also, it fits well with the way I think about music: as a language that communicates, and as organized sound.

One thing I want to say: Please don't go through my compositions and add chord symbols to them. I don't like block chord harmonization in any music, and the whole point is that the harmony is realized through melody. I'm loathe to use the piano at all because I can just see it... Cmin7/F, Adim/F, etc... That's not the point of my music. You can play it that way, but you're missing the point.

When you improvise a piece of my music, the idea is that you'll listen to the bass and any other stable parts and improvise melodically, not based on chord symbols. As the players vary the parts your improvisation will change. This is my way of integrating Ornette Coleman's free jazz into my work.

Just some thoughts for the morning...

Living Music

2007-04-28T16:26:00.000-07:00

There are two things about me that anyone who meets me should know. First, I have been studying music since I was twelve years old, and music is the love of my life. I love music so much that I don't have space for a significant other, because music takes up all my time. The second thing is that I have always been the type that wants to challenge, break into new things and push the envelope. I'm curious, and I like to explore and experiment.

I don't want Stalin breathing down my neck telling me to write old forms. I want to write music that's alive. Music that's better live than in the recording studio, music that pulls people out of their seats, makes them mad, makes them happy. I want to write living music. Music that's headed somewhere new.

When I hear a recording, I hear good music, but I realize that the performance is set in stone. It will never change. That's why I want to focus on live performance, and improvisation. I want to free the performer to play from their heart, not just play the score.

When people like John Coltrane, and Bud Powell, and Charlie Parker, and Ornette Coleman, and Clifford Brown, and Max Roach and Ray Brown played their music at the clubs, that music was alive. But now it's an old form, all we can do is ape the recordings. Jazz and Classical music need to head out into the unknown and perform music that isn't just mimicry, but is an expression of the soul of the performer.

I'm an independent Christian. When someone communicates through whatever language, including the language of music, I think you receive a message from their soul. And that only happens when the music is living and breathing, and isn't just mimicking something that we heard on a recording or saw in a score.

Some Thoughts for Today

2007-04-28T13:59:00.000-07:00

Well, today I just want to say thanks to all of the people making good music out there, and enriching our lives. A special thanks to Contemporary Classical and WBGO jazz radio.

I think as musicians and composers we often get bogged down in the details: learning the next scale pattern, harmonizing the next melody, or in negativity: the apparent lack of care of the audience or the destructive criticism we receive. But the big picture is that we love music and are expressing our love in our music.

What we have is a thing of great beauty, and we shouldn't lose sight of that. We have years of hard work under our belts, a career to make for ourselves, and people's lives to contact through the language of music. Listening to WBGO and Contemporary Classical music today, I think musicians today should be proud of the way things are going. But, we need to work that much harder to make them go even better.

Thanks also to the Sequenza site for its outreach from the contemporary classical community, and to all of the performers and musicians there. To the great beauty of music!

Some Classical Recordings I Recommend

2007-04-26T16:03:00.000-07:00

Here are some classical recordings you will find in my player fairly often, the only problem being that there is very little contemporary music here because I don't know much contemporary classical music.

1. The Piano Trios - Franz Schubert - Beaux Arts Trio - Philips Classics
2. The Violin and Piano Sonatas - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Itzahk Perlman and Daniel Barenboin - EMI (?)
3. Aida - Giuseppe Verdi - Maria Callas and others - EMI
4. Die Zauberflote (The Magic Flute) - Mozart - Karl Bohm and the Berlin Symphony Orchestra - Deustche Grammophon
5. Prelude apres midi a Faun (?) - Claude Debussy - Pierre Boulez and the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra - Deustche Grammophon
6. Symphonie Fantastique - Hector Berlioz - Pierre Boulez and the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra - Deustsche Grammaphon
7. Keyboard Sonatas, Book 1 - Domenico Scarlatti - Eteri Andjaparize - Naxos Recordings
8. The Complete Mikrokosmos - Bela Bartok - Jeno Jando - Naxos Recordings
9. Koyaanisqatsi - Philip Glass
10. Kundun - Philip Glass
11. Berg and Schoenberg: Violin and Piano Concertos - Zvi Zeitlin and the Bavaria Radio Orchestra - Universal Classics
12. Two and Three Part Inventions - Johann Sebastian Bach - Andras Schiff - Philips Classics (?)

A Brief Primer on Electronic Listening Music Outside of the Classical Genre

2007-04-26T12:26:00.000-07:00

Okay so most Electronic Listening Music falls into three basic categories:

1. Ambient - a collage of sounds and music without pulse.
2. Ambient Groove - the same with a slow drum groove added to it.
3. Glitch - A variation on drum and bass. What they did is speeded up the drums as fast as they would go, and then add music in roughly a quarter time. Small mistakes were introduced into the drum beat for added effect.

One of the first forms of ELM was Techno. Now if you want to tick off an electronica fiend, call electronica "techno." It doesn't really matter to me, but we're establishing a definition.

Now in Detroit, there was this club called the Garage. They would take a fancy (for that time) drum machine, program in a drum beat and some fragments of music, and then they would tweak the effects all night while the drum machine played. This was called either "Techno" or "Garage." No one has really heard this music, and its hard to find, but for some reason the term "Techno" stuck in people's minds.

Needless to say, this wasn't a popular art form, but people would sit in the Garage, high on whatever their particular flavor was and listen to it. In fact, some of Aphex Twin's work is a remixing of these old Techno songs.

Some Sample Songs:

1. Blue Calx - Aphex Twin - ambient
2. Girl/Boy Song - Aphex Twin - glitch
3. Icct Hedral - Aphex Twin - ambient groove
4. Teartear - Autechre - ambient groove
5. Everything in its Right Place - Radiohead - electronic post-rock
6. Idioteque - Radiohead - electronic post-rock
7. Packt Like Sardines in Crushd Tin Box - Radiohead - electronic post-rock

That's a smattering of things.

The History of Electronic Dance Music

2007-04-26T11:11:00.000-07:00

It all starts in Kingston, Jamaica. At the time, there were a lot of reel to reel tape players lying around, and the kids in Kingston couldn't afford to form bands. So they layered sounds on the reel to reel, amplified them and threw parties. Pretty quickly they added an MC, the master of ceremonies, who didn't really rap, he just roused the crowd. This was called "dub music."

A little later in Detroit, a guy named Frankie Knuckles was running shows at clubs with a mixer and two expensive Technics turntables, using old R&B records. This started a movement, and the guy running the turntables was called the DJ, or the Disc Jockey. This was called "House Music."

The two movements met in New York City, and people like the Sugarhill Gang began doing street poetry in front of the turntables, and this was "hip hop," named after a scat lyric in their song "Rapper's Delite."

Now in dub music there was something called Gabba, which is where the reel to reel tape player was turned on double speed. In the UK, this formed a movement called Jungle or Drum and Bass, the main difference being that Jungle had a more African sound and Drum and Bass was more electronic sounding.

Now Trance is hard to pinpoint. We know there was early trance music being played in Goa in India, where young people from the Middle East and other parts of the world went to party. There was also Trance music being played early in the country of France. Whoever invented it, it was a sort of minimalist trance-like music with an easy to dance to four on the floor beat.

In Detroit, a noise music collective called "Throbbing Gristle" composed a song with a characteristic dance rhythm and many groups followed this song to create what Industrial music is today, a square beat with heavy metal rock elements and throbbing synths.

All different forms were tried: speeding up the beat, slowing it down, anything that people could dance to. There were also a group of electronic musicians doing listening music, and we'll talk about that later.

A Brief Primer on Electronic Dance Music

2007-04-26T10:23:00.000-07:00

You'll see these guides online with 300 different genres, and you'll see the wikipedia articles with their many genres and their short stubs. I've figured out a way to do this without collecting categories, and I'm going to share it with people.

There are four broad categories of electronic dance music: House, Trance, Breakbeat and Industrial. Each of them is classified according to their characteristic rhythm.

House has beats drawn from or based on old R&B grooves and is generally between 100 and 120 beats per minute. Trance has a four on the floor beat, one bass hit for every quarter note and is usually between 100 and 120 beats per minute. Breakbeat has a drum pattern drawn from or based on the drum breaks of old R&B records, a very syncopated sound. There is hip hop and new R&B which is generally around 100 beats per minute, fast breaks, which is usually between 120 and 140 beats per minute, and drum and bass or Jungle (there is a slight difference) which runs between 200 and 240 beats per minute. Industrial has this very square beat pattern and is usually around 100 beats per minute.

An example of a House tune is "Da Funk" by Daft Punk. An example of a Trance tune is "Greece 2000" by Three Drives on Vinyl, mixed by Paul Oakenfold. An example of Hip Hop is "Ready or Not" by the Fugees, an example of Fast Breaks is "Orange Wedge" by the Chemical Brothers, or "High Roller" by The Crystal Method. An example of Jungle is "Rebirth of Cool (London Elektricity Mix) by Aquasky. An example of Drum and Bass is "Accelerate" by Break, mixed by Dieselboy. An example of traditional industrial is "WarlockED" by Skinny Puppy.

The subgenres everyone talks about are in a few groups: Deep or Dark, which has a very dark sound, Acid, which is based on a characteristic preset bassline from a Yamaha Bass Module, Vocal, which includes vocals, Progressive, which has more complex chord sequences, Tech, which includes metallic harsh sounds, and Epic, which has sweeping epic chords. That covers most of the subgenres but not all.

There is also a subgenre called hardcore, which is either Trance or House sped up to around 140 to 160 beats per minute.

More Popular Songs People Should Listen To

2007-04-25T20:43:00.000-07:00

1. Ryan Adams - Wonderwall - A stunning rendition of a hit that was only an average song. There is a live version floating around, so be sure and get the right one.
2. Aphex Twin - Girl/Boy Song - Get the original mix. A glitch tune, which is a variation on drum and bass, with orchestral colors.
3. This Place is a Prison - The Postal Service - An electronic composition with indie rock style vocals.
4. Radiohead - Pyramid Song - A touching ballad tune with an interesting rhythmic complexity.
5. Radiohead - Everything in Its Right Place - An electronic composition from one of the most stolen from albums in 15 years.
6. Ready or Not - The Fugees - The wonderful Lauryn Hill on a hip hop track that I think is worth hearing.
7. Da Funk - Daft Punk - House Music from an oddball French group.
8. Still Grey - [Correction] Pendulum - Trance meets drum and bass, which some people call "electrofunk."
9. Monkey Gone to Heaven - The Pixies - The avant-garde roots of indie rock.
10. Addiction (KMFDM Remix) - Might be a little dark for some, but the synth riffs are incredible.
11. Tricky - Hell is Around the Corner - Tricky the trip hop artist on one of his best.
12. Orange Wedge - The Chemical Brothers - Slower than drum and bass, faster than hip hop and still breakbeat. A very interesting tune.
13. Indifference - Depressing lyrics and wonderful singing go well together.

Some Popular Music People Should Listen To

2007-04-25T16:52:00.000-07:00

1. Sexy Back - Justin Timberlake - This song is just terrible, but it's one of the most popular songs in the dance market right now.
2. Blue Calx - Aphex Twin - A wonderful ambient electronic composition.
3. Icct Hedral - Aphex Twin - An ambient song with a groove that Philip Glass orchestrated.
4. Rebirth of Cool (London Elektricity Mix) - Aquasky - A poignant political statement and a song from a cult dance movement called Drum and Bass.
5. Acclerate - Break - Mixed by Dieselboy - Another drum and bass tune with a very different character than the previous one.
6. Alison Krauss and others - Down to the River to Pray - Country folk from the soundtrack to O Brother Where Art Thou
7. Everybody Here Wants You - Jeff Buckley - An interesting take on R&B from a very ingenious popular musician.
8. All the Pretty Horses - Calexico - Mexican folk with some very good guitar playing.
9. Diary - Alicia Keys - A beautiful ballad.

More later, I'm going to dinner.

Some Thoughts on the Classical Community

2007-04-25T16:43:00.000-07:00

Here is a numbered list of some thoughts about the classical community:

1. The classical community needs to change its business model. My recommendation is small ensembles and small venues: chamber orchestras instead of full orchestras, chamber ensembles, theater venues, single ticket, single show sales. This would get away from the patron/subscriber model.
2. Classical music needs to know its audience and write according to its audience. The piece can't only have artistic merit, it also needs to be tailored to its audience.
3. Classical music needs to be aware of popular music and jazz, because good work is being done in those fields. However, it takes a little searching because the good work is underground music.
4. Classical music needs to develop a friendlier attitude towards people who don't know much about their music.
5. Classical music needs to make education part of their performances.
6. Classical composers and musicians need to put the best music out there that they can possibly create.

The Shape of Jazz to Come

2007-04-25T05:00:00.000-07:00

I believe the Shape of Jazz to Come is Jazz that uses contemporary classical devices next to improvisation. I believe that free jazz is part of the equation.

Now this latest piece is sort of interesting. First of all, it is tonal, but not in the sense of major-minor tonality. There is an ostinato in the bass, and the key center is the tone F. I stayed away from block chords, because it would have made for a very irritating sound in my opinion. The trumpet line varies from the piano part, and I'm sure it looks like a mistake, but I like the sound.

Then you have the tenor sax. It plays one note Cb (Db in Bb) as a trill every other bar for the entirety of the piece. The sound is of a flatted fifth, and it also suggest a minor sixth, because Cb trills to Db. It gives the piece a sense of bitonality, and I liked the tone color.

A New Composition

2007-04-25T04:06:00.000-07:00

Here is a new one I wrote for a big band, the first of three parts. The piece is titled "Shadow Fire" and this first part is subtitled "Old Embers."

Shadowfire Part 1 "Old Embers"

A brief description of the recordings

2007-04-24T17:41:00.000-07:00

1. Art Tatum - His Best Recordings - The Best of Jazz Series

A virtuoso blind piano player from the early days of jazz recording showing off his amazing technique. Sound quality is inevitably poor.

2. Duke Ellington - Masterpieces by Ellington

The swing band compositional genius whose influences included Debussy and Ravel.

3. Miles Davis - Kind of Blue

A milestone jazz disc including Cannoball, John Coltrane and Bill Evans, playing cool jazz.

4. John Coltrane - Blue Trane

A milestone record on the Blue Note label featuring some of John Coltrane's early compositions.

5. Clifford Brown and Max Roach - Clifford Brown and Max Roach

Clifford Brown had the best sense of swing in jazz, and he really shines on this set with Max Roach.

6. John Coltrane - A Love Supreme

The landmark album that John Coltrane created a few years before he died. A spiritual quest. Fitfully dissonant, and shows the use of motifs as part of jazz improvisation.

7. Ornette Coleman - The Shape of Jazz to Come

The landmark first free jazz album, by the soulful Ornette and a great backing band.

8. Bud Powell - Jazz Giant

One of Bud Powell's best and few recordings, showing a virtuoso piano player who has all kinds of original ideas.

9. Billie Holiday - Billie's Best - Verve Catalog

The sultry Lady Day sings classic songs from the Great American Songbook in her inimitable mature voice.

10. Louis Armstrong - Hot Fives and Hot Sevens

Louis Armstrong's early New Orleans style jazz at its best.

11. Sonny Rollins - Saxophone Colossus

A landmark hard bop album by the athletic Rollins.

12. Workin', Steamin' and Relaxin' (Three albums) with the Miles Davis Quintet - Miles Davis

Shows another side of Davis. Instead of cool, we get hard bop, and these albums show that Davis did have some chops.

13. Cannonball Adderly - The Definitive Cannonball Adderly

A cross-section of the fiery alto sax player Canonball's work on the Verve and Blue Note catalogs.

14. Thelonius Monk - Brilliant Corners

One of Monk's better albums, showing a fiercely independent way of playing piano, and highlighting his compositional ability.

15. Pithecanthropus Erectus - Charles Mingus

A conceptual piece for a large ensemble by bass player Mingus that includes elements of free jazz.

16. Spiritual Unity - Albert Ayler

A rare find by a tenor saxophonist who breathed fire into free jazz.

17. Interplay - Paul Bley Quartet

A low key dissonant album featuring bass clarinet, soprano saxophone, Paul Bley's piano and Bill Frisell's eclectic guitar stylings.

18. Everybody Digs Bill Evans - Bill Evans Trio

A wonderful and often ignored album by pianist Evans that shows him flexing his muscle as well as his gorgeous famous ballad style.

19. Chick Corea - The Akoustick Band

One of the best contemporary piano players in the industry, who plays with verve, a touch of Spain, and Bartok.

20. Standards Live - Keith Jarrett's Standards Trio

Gary Peacock on bass, Jack DeJohnette on drums and pianist Keith Jarrett, playing their complex realizations of historically standard jazz tunes.

Jazz Recordings Everyone Should Own

2007-04-24T17:20:00.000-07:00

CD list is by no means comprehensive. List is chosen by quality and affordability.

1. Art Tatum - His Best Recordings - The Best of Jazz Series
2. Duke Ellington - Masterpieces by Ellington
3. Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
4. John Coltrane - Blue Train
5. Clifford Brown and Max Roach - Clifford Brown and Max Roach
6. John Coltrane - A Love Supreme
7. Ornette Coleman - The Shape of Jazz to Come
8. Bud Powell - Jazz Giant
9. Billie Holiday - Billie's Best - Verve Catalog
10. Louis Armstrong - Hot Fives and Hot Sevens
11. Sonny Rollins - Saxophone Colossus
12. Workin', [CORRECTION]Cookin' and Relaxin' (Three albums) with the Miles Davis Quintet - Miles Davis
13. Cannonball Adderly - The Definitive Cannonball Adderly
14. Thelonius Monk - Brilliant Corners
15. Pithecanthropus Erectus - Charles Mingus
16. Spiritual Unity - Albert Ayler
17. Interplay - Paul Bley Quartet
18. Everybody Digs Bill Evans - Bill Evans Trio
19. Chick Corea - The Akoustick Band
20. Standards Live - Keith Jarret's Standards Trio

What are the necessary elements of classical music?

2007-04-24T16:49:00.000-07:00

Well, this is a bit tougher, considering that John Cage had people sit in silence for 4 minutes and 33 seconds as a classical piece, or as noted in the Sequenza blog, a composer had a piece where he drew a 25 foot chalk line onstage. So what I'm going to do is this: Here are the necessary elements of classical music, outside of the avant-garde.

1. Rhythm. Everything in classical music is broken down mathematically rhythmically. A whole note is so many beats, a half note is half that many, a quarter is half that many, an eighth is half that many, and so on down. Further, anything with a dot is one and a half times the length of the regular note. This isn't true in jazz. In jazz, one eighth note might be longer than the next, a quarter note may be held just a little more or less before proceeding to the next beat in time and so on.
2. Score. A piece of classical music has a score, a detailed account of how the piece should be performed. If a modification to the sound is necessary, it is written in the score, although a few things may be left up to the performer. In Jazz there are scores, but they aren't as strict, and there is some expected humanization of the notes on the page. That generally isn't true in classical music.
3. Harmony. Since pretty much every permutation of harmony has been tried in classical music, it is expected that you will use harmonic vocabulary in set ways that have been predetermined by historical usage.
4. Counterpoint. Classical music usually has multiple melodies occurring at one time, and the harmonization of these melodies as they play simultaneously is counterpoint.
5. Orchestration. Because of the instrumentation used in classical music, which includes a very wide variety of instruments, it is expected that the composer know how that instrument plays, and how the different timbres of the instruments will harmonize with one another.
6. History. There is a long and highly complex history of classical music, and one uses classical devices in terms of that history, or else one is making a statement.

I'll have to think about how to view classical music in light of the avant-garde.

The Necessary Elements of Jazz

2007-04-24T16:36:00.000-07:00

1. Swing. Swing is a time feel that sounds almost like triplets in a 3/4 or 4/4 time signature, 9/8 or 12/8 respectively, but isn't quite triplets. Someone who swings well is constantly modifying the rhythm of their playing according to the band's time and to accentuate the line they're playing.
2. Instrumentation - jazz instruments are saxophones, usually not bass saxophone, trumpet, trombone, piano, guitar, contrabass, drum set, hand percussion, vibes and occasionally clarinets or flute. Any other instrument you see in jazz is an outsider, other than possibly the Rhodes Piano and the Hammond Organ. I'm not an acoustic purist but I prefer acoustic jazz.
3. Harmony - The harmonic functions in jazz are just this much different than those in classical music. There is a lot of focus on chromatic alterations of the dominant chord and its extensions.
4. History - playing jazz requires knowledge of the history of jazz. One must know the repertoire, which includes roughly 200 songs, according to Jerry Coker.

Why I Do My Music the Way I Do

2007-04-24T15:14:00.000-07:00

My goal as a composer is to communicate an experience, and I want the piece to do that by using the musical language appropriate to either classical music or jazz. My view is that the most effective piece contains the language necessary to express that experience, whether it be counterpoint, dissonant counterpoint, the octatonic scale, or whatever else I may choose to use. So my eclecticism is an eclecticism of technique. I'm influenced by Folk, Classical and Jazz, and these sounds come through in my writing.

Everything in my music is based on the melody line. I start with the melody, or in the case of the tune "Emergence," with the passacaglia, and then I write everything around that. I'm a melodic composer. I always admonish people I come in contact with not to start with the harmonies before writing the melody line. Melody is the soul of music, and counterpoint and its resulting harmonies are the shell the soul resides in, in my mind.

So each passage of my music is an attempt to allow the audience to participate in the experience of the music. That is the guiding philosophy. However, anyone who knows music really well hears the eclecticism. I have an unfinished work I'm going to post. Keep in mind that the markings aren't complete and that there are three more sections before this piece is completed along with some transitional passages. I'm opening up the writing process on this one because I think it's a good work to show what kind of things I'm interested in doing. See what you think.

That piece is called "Pathways" and I mismarked it as a jazz file. Look in the archives or down the page for the file. I'll put in a correction note in the post.

The Genius of Ornette Coleman

2007-04-24T10:50:00.000-07:00

Well around this time, hard bop was in full swing. People in jazz improvised by playing a series of very complex chordal structures. A guy named Ornette Coleman got tired of playing chord changes. He formed a piano-less quartet including Charlie Haden on Bass, Billy Higgins on drums, and Don Cherry on Cornet. They improvised, not based on chord changes, but based on melody. People hated it, and Ornette took a lot of abuse. Unlike avant-garde jazz, Ornette's free jazz had a swing pulse, and a basic tonality. Jazz still hasn't integrated the revolution he caused in jazz. He won a Pulitzer this year, and he deserves it for his massive imagination and cutting edge music.

CD's in my Player Right Now

2007-04-24T10:35:00.000-07:00

Jazz:

1. Bird's Best Bop on Verve
2. The Definitive Cannonball Adderly
3. The Shape of Jazz to Come - Ornette Coleman
4. Live at the Golden Circle - Ornette Coleman Trio

Classical:

1. Keyboard Sonatas Volume 1 - Eteri Andjaperize - Domenico Scarlatti - Naxos Records
2. The Complete Mikrokosmos - Jeno Jando - Bela Bartok - Naxos Records
3. The Piano Trios - Beaux Arts Trio - Franz Schubert - Philips Classics
4. The Grid - Koyaanisqatsi - Philip Glass
5. Kundun - Philip Glass
6. Icct Hedral - Philip Glass Orchestration - Aphex Twin

Folk:

1. Smithsonian Folkways - Classic Old-Time Music

Bipolar Composition

2007-04-24T10:27:00.000-07:00

Because the differences are so great between the way classical music is performed and the way jazz music is performed, I attempt to have one foot in classical and one in jazz. I compose a classical piece and a jazz piece completely differently. Sometimes it's hard straddling the fence. I'd like to write classical music that includes improvisation, but I haven't yet because I'm not sure how to direct the performer. My jazz uses a lot of classical devices, but it's also not classical music. This creates in me a sort of tension. I'm not able to unify my compositions under one umbrella.

If I were to put a point on it, I'd say that what I write in jazz isn't appropriate for classical music, and vice versa. There are a lot of barriers between classical and jazz music, even today. I can't expect a classical performer to play swing correctly, and I can't expect a jazz performer to play the same things a classical performer does either. It's very difficult to think this way. My education straddles jazz and classical performance, and as I mix the two, the oil and vinegar separate.

Huang Rho's Eclecticism Compared with Mine

2007-04-24T10:15:00.000-07:00

Based on a reaction to the Naxos Blog at Sequenza21.

1. Unlike Huang Rho I believe there are differences in music. Swing is not characteristic of classical music, but it is of jazz. The tone colors used in Bach are different than the ones used in Berg, and so on.
2. Unlike Huang Rho, I believe there is some hierarachy in music. John Coltrane is the equal of Mozart, but Justin Timberlake is not the equal of Mozart.
3. Like Huang Rho, I believe in drawing from a wide tonal palette to create effective music.
4. Like Huang Rho I am interested in a variety of forms of music and a variety of forms influence my composition.
5. Unlike Huang Rho, while being an eclectic, I don't want my work to sound too much like a pastiche. I try to integrate my influences as best as possible, while knowing that I can't integrate them fully.

My Thoughts on Composition

2007-04-24T09:47:00.000-07:00

I wish to use the broadest tonal palette possible to communicate effectively through my compositions. This means I'm an eclectic. You may find the octatonic scale butting up against an authentic cadence in my work. You might find jazz with classical devices. You might find twelve tone atonality mixed with dissonant counterpoint. If I think the device helps me to communicate, I'll probably use the device. Because music is a language, and I want to use a large vocabulary.

The piece "Four Corners" is a programmatic piece showing four different parts of the world. The first is a wedding in Israel, the second the Sudan, the third Vienna in the Winter, and the fourth, New York City in the Spring.

The other pieces are less programmatic, but attempt to communicate an experience I've had. I'm somewhat of a mystic, and I want my pieces to be experiential.

Some music I've written

2007-04-24T09:25:00.000-07:00

Here are some compositions I've written in the form of Finale files. If you don't have Finale, you can download Finale Notepad at the Finale Site. As a composer, I try to make all of my compositions freely available on the Internet. Let me know what you think!

Here is a twelve tone string quartet I wrote, all four movements:

String Quartet No. 1 "Four Corners" Movement 1

"Four Corners" Movement 2

"Four Corners" Movement 3

"Four Corners" Movement 4

[Correction] Here is the beginning of my Second String Quartet, with six short movements planned:

String Quartet No. 2 Movement 1 "Pathways"

[Correction] Here are some free jazz compositions I wrote:

What it Means

Whispers

Free Play

Emergence