God, we are so polite. I'm going to
lose my New Yorker grump license if this keeps up and where is Mike
Hollinshead? He's a tenor. (I'll bet Arthur and Sally sing
also, if not out in the open, somewhere in the secretness of their hearts.)
Why didn't he sign into this? Well, just to nitpick
again.
Harry said:
. First you need to stay alive and
> if you can do it fairly easily, you pay attention to music - or to the
> World Series, or something. The choice is yours - if you can enjoy life.
>
. First you need to stay alive and
> if you can do it fairly easily, you pay attention to music - or to the
> World Series, or something. The choice is yours - if you can enjoy life.
>
When I was in the Army doing KP, I used to sing
Wagner at the top of my voice as I was scrubbing pots and pans
outside.
"O du mein holder Abendstern"
(Tannhauser) The rest of my
company liked it and I guess that means since they had eaten they had time to
enjoy a little art now.
But I was doing something else. I was
asserting my identity as a singer. Ridding myself of the BS I was
being required to do. I also did the same whenever I was required to
paint the dayroom
"Give to me the life I love, let the lave go by me."
(It made a mighty resonance chamber) or to rake
leaves.
"I wouldn't give a bean to be a fancy pants marine,I'd rather be a dogface soldier like I am."
(Singing outside is an interesting issue for
resonance).
I used to go out into the middle of a farmer's
field in Pennsylvania and "sound" the field as a meditation on acoustical
resonance.
What was even more interesting was that the birds
set up a rhythmic relationship to my sounds in their singing as
well. It happens that in the morning at the San Diego Zoo as the
sun first tips the horizon the Gibbon Monkeys begin a kind of squawk chant on a
definite pitch. All generally around the same pitch. As the
sun slowly moves out of the shadow of the earth the Monkey's pitch rises until
the earth finally lets go of the golden orb. At that moment the
Gibbon sounds have risen a perfect octave and then they go on about the rest of
their day. The composer Pauline Oliveros recorded that
when she lived in San Diego in the 1970s and played the recording for me one day
in the Experimental Intermedia Foundation loft in Soho NYCity. So I
can attest for its truth.
And finally there are all of those babies and
their words. I first noticed it with my daughter but I have seen it
happen many times since then. The child is getting ready to go to
sleep and begins to chant.
"And so I did this, yes I did and I will do it yes I will and....."
The child launches out on
a long aria about what she has done during the day and what her parents are
doing and her dog and her big sister etc. etc. and they all use basically
the same notes. Perfect fourths. The same as
"here comes the Bride" "I'v been working on the
railroad," or even the medieval Scholar's melody that Brahms
loved so much in his academic festival overture. You know it all you
latin academics. "Gaudeamus igutur luvenes dum
sumus!" It seems that there is something missing
when a person is not able to lyrically expand their words into song.
Something very important and primal in life.
Definitely missing and if
you don't plan to facilitate it and you are a social scientist then what kind of
a human being are you? Have you read how the Koran is taught
to children in Pakistan? They hold the knee on one leg and sit on
the other foot rocking back and forth over the perineal area opening the energy
at the base of the spine putting passion into religion. They are not the
only ones. All that chanting and working to put the sitzbones on the
floor in Zen, etc. etc.. Something very primal that can be used for
joy or fanaticism. Remember the marches of the American war machine
that did in my people that Hitler admired so
much?
"Garry Owen Garry Owen Garry Owen, In the valley of Montana all alone."
They played that as they
attacked "Dull Knive's" women and children at Wounded Knee with
Hotchkiss guns sitting in all four directions and killing their own as well
as the Lakota with "friendly fire."
Boy, do you learn to love
a brass band playing a military cakewall! I finally got over
that kind of conditioning that came from the government and society in my
early schooling with six years in the best Male Chorus on the planet
singing
"Garry Owen, Garry Owen, Garry Owen."
One day I said "hey those
bastards were shooting at us." So guys you can use a diamond
for many things. Some good, some evil but it is still a
rock. It all depends on your implicit values and who your
mother was.
Best
Ray Evans Harrell, artistic director
The Magic Circle Opera Repertory Ensemble, Inc.
PS Thanks Harry!
