I went to a number of John Fahey concerts in Berkeley. He must have settled there for a while. They were engrossing, and I still have my beat-up John Fahey album from the sixties. In terms of one guitar engrossing an audience, perhaps classical guitar is the only other thing that will do it. And at the top of my list is the Villa Lobos Preludes. They are as deep and dark and haunting as a poem by Lorca. One's from Spain and the other's from Brazil, I know, but in my mind they share the same duende--darkness of the soul.
Let's talk music, no genre boundaries
This is an offshoot of the jazz thread. I and others found that we could not talk about jazz without discussing other musical genres, as well as the philosophy of music. So, this is a thread in which people can suggest good music of all genres, and spout off your feelings about music itself.
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@audio-b-dog - Indeed, he may have resided in the Bay Area for awhile. His record label, Takoma Records, was named after Takoma Park, and there are lots of suburban-DC Maryland references in his song titles, like 'Dance of the Inhabitants of the Invisible City of Bladensberg'. I think I may have seen him at Freight and Salvage or the Starry Plough. I'm from MD but have lived in San Francisco for 50 years. |
My wife grew up in Oakland and attended Berkeley, too, only four years behind me. We wouldn't have gotten on then. I was a motorcycle-riding screw-off. I literarly dropped out of my junior year just before finals without telling anyone. I took my mother's money for school and went off to Europe and parts east. I got very sick with hepititas, but it was worth it. I learned a lot on that trip. I was around the Bay Area for five or six years. My sister still has a house in Berkeley. And my wife and I visited often when her parents were alive. We had dreamed of moving to San Francisco, but we've pretty much been priced out of the market. Besides, I like the warmth of Southern Calif. Do you go to the opera or symphonies or any other music up there?
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I must admit that spirituality in music is difficult to talk about. Especially from my point of view because I see religions as something that get in the way. But first, of course, the composer must have a depth of feeling and spiritual connection. If that is the case, then any metaphors can be used as a lattice on which spiritual music can be strung. IMHO, however, religions are misogynistic. Just look at this quote from the Bible: *“To the woman he said, This misogyny can be seen in many other aspects of religion. The Jews were told by their God to take the Holy Land by force, killing everyone who lived there. The "other" was already named in the Bible.The Quran was also about holy lands and war. And if you look at very religious Jews and Muslims, as well as Christians, women are still considered beneath men. Let's add one more thing that in my mind interferes with what I call "spirituality." God made man (not women) stewards over the earth, and there was a hierarchy. God, the Creator, who was outside of the universe and his creation, counted on men who were made in His image to rule the earth wisely. Big mistake, I think. In the Adam and Eve section of the Bible, Eve is tempted by what used to be the symbols of the Goddess religions. Namely, the tree, in which carvings of godesses can be seen sitting at the tree top. And the serpent whom the goddess held in her hand. The serpent was a symbol of renewal because it shed its skin each year. Of course the ancients thought of woman as creator, because that was all they had ever seen. Babies came from mothers. And their goddesses were pregnant women rather than nubile young virgins. But the goddess as creator was not outside the universe. She was part of her creation. She created it by being part of it. When women dug in the earth they could feel the goddess. She was part of the clothes they wore. And now we get to the part about belonging. Of course people felt as though they belonged in this perspective of the religious order. People adorned their bodies, played music, and danced, their goddess was with them, not looking down from outside their universe. The Christian God is said to have to "think" of the universe every moment or else it will disappear. That is called "God's Grace." The goddess exists because the universe exists and the universe exists because she does. Which weaves spirituality throughout our very existence. And again, that is what I am taling about when I say "we belong," rather than writing music to Jesus or Mary or God, we write it to ourselves. Since I know you like philosophy, I will take you a step further. I believe that the fact that men created science without female input (until the late 20th century) has left holes in our scientific theories. Entropy, for example, predicts the universe will dissapate into white noise, all particles spread out so thinly they will never again form galaxies, solar systems, planets, and life. Yet the universe is about 14 billion years old, according to these same scientists, and we have seen nothing but the opposite of entropy. Everything continues to become more and more ordered, new galaxies being created all the time. Where is entropy on a macro scale? I think that science was created with "masculine principles," which is our current stadard model. What was left out was the "Feminine Creative Spirit" which causes new forms that become galaxies, solar systems, and life. New scientific theories of fractals can tie life to universal mathematic formulas. I believe that the universe was programmed for life, but to infer that is to intrude god into science. And science has been trying to divorce itself from the church for hundreds of years. But I'm not talking about the church. I'm talking about science itself. And you can read real, famous physicists like Paul Davies from whom I got these theories. So, complicated as it is, hopefully I have set up a structure for spiritual music that is different than the religions we normally think of. As I read the book you suggested on the origins of thought, I am looking for some alignment with my thought. So, how does one reach that spirituality today within our given paradigm? I think a musical creator mus feel it, not on the rational level that religions are taught. Not from dogma, but from spirituality which exists in feelings, not words. And that's why music is so perfect to contain that spirituality. Music, for the most part, is not about words. It is expressed feelings. And I agree with you. When words are part of music, I don't want to know what they say. I want to hear them as instruments, part of the whole.
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Religions are social institutions... They work as such and play their role in each culture... Attacking religions is preposterous or useless..
Mystics in all religions are often "heretics", always free individuals, sometimes imprisoned because they disturb the institution... If we speak of spiritual in music, the religions matter not so much, but the mystical insight of the musician matter... Religions is no more an obstacles than a chair... It serve a purpose sometimes well sometimes not...
The feminine and the masculine are polarities in each of us male or female... What matter is the balance... More and more woman in politics for example will not improve politics if we live in a bad political set of institutions... There exist too much example of female psychopaths, nevropaths or sociopaths in politics to disprove this point... the fact that you observe a lost of balance between the polarities by the predominant power of one over the other dont means that the feminine power will solve the problem by virtue of its nature... balance is needed thats all ...
Do you know "the master and his emissaries" of Iain McGilchrist ? He is a neuroscientist who describe the lost of balance in our civilization but not associating with male/female concerpt but with the modes of attention and their relation with the hemispherical brain... This book will be very useful for you...not as deep as Gebser but deep too ...
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