Hi Mary, I stopped drinking many decades ago. I've stopped smoking. I never did dangerous drugs, but I have on occasion played with "non-dangerous" drugs (marijuana). In the end came a realization that even the non-dangerous drugs might interfere with clear awareness, so I stopped that too. I still have addictions: books, laughter, marzipan, music, coffee,,, This was not social pressure, but a hearts desire.
Marsha On Jan 2, 2010, at 9:39 PM, Mary Clark wrote: > Hello Joesph Maurer! > > <snip> > When I fly by the seat of my pants, I like to have a model or > direction-finder for where I am going. As a singer, I prefer the model of > the musical octave Do, Re, Mi_Fa, Sol, La, Ti_Do for evolution. The thing > about the octave is that there are two naturally occurring intervals Mi_Fa, > Ti_Do, at which any mechanical schema breaks down. If a pitch is going to > double in vibrations the last note of seven is shocked, and looks to the > mi_fa interval for support. > > Hi Joe, > > May I call you that? > > I am fascinated by this. Daddy bought a cheap Yamaha guitar from Sears & > Roebuck sometime in the late 1960's and started teaching himself to play. > He drove us crazy (Mother and me) playing "Wildwood Flower" over and over > again for years. I think he worked on it so hard because it required you to > learn pulling off and hammering on. Anyway, when I was about 10 he showed > me 3 chords (you know you can play any country-western song ever written in > 3 chords), and I was off and running. Later on he showed me the circle of > fifths. I don't understand why it works, but I do know you can use it to > transpose a song from one chord to another. > > My problem with music is that I was a smart-ass. I absolutely do not have > perfect pitch. I can't tell you a true C from a true G to this day. > Perhaps a lot of that has to do with the fact that I never had anything to > tune my guitar to. But I can sure tune it to itself. All I strive for is > to get the strings to not be too tight or too loose, then go from there. E > A D G B E, or so they tell me. > > When I was 6 my mother started me in piano lessons. Ha. I never did learn > to read music, but if I heard something once or twice I could pick it out. > No problem. This is also known I believe as cheating. Same with Clarinet. > I was in the band at school and spent a lot of time vieing with this other > girl, whose name I can't remember, for first chair. Thing is, I couldn't > read music then either. I'd just pretend to play through the first cold > run-through of anything new, then pick it up for real on the next go-around. > > I guess my point is (and I hope it's not on the top of my head :) ) that I > have had a life-long love of singing and playing guitar, but have no > understanding at all of what I am doing. I just hear music and it is right > or it is wrong. Is this evidence of Mary having a Dynamic Quality > experience? Same with rhythm. The drums are so easy as to be ridiculous. > I once remember being in a drumming circle with some other heathen women > friends of mine. I brought the whole thing to a halt. Each woman would > take turns drumming whatever she felt. When it got to me I took off on some > kind of jazz-like thing with extreme syncopation (which to me is emphasizing > the counter-beat, but I could be totally wrong about what syncopation > actually means). Anyway, I was off into some frenzied drumming that was so > - I don't know - complicated??? it brought the whole thing to a halt. So > what's with that? Where on Earth does this come from? To this day I can't > stand to listen to a certain Aerosmith live album because they are off beat > on certain songs. I think they are either too drunk or too high to stay > with it. IMHO. > > After this long tirade (can you tell you've struck a "chord" so to speak?), > the question I wanted to ask you is I've heard that the 8 note octave we > westerners use is not the only one. I haven't Googled this yet, but I seem > to recall that some Asian or Indian music uses a 12 (?) note scale. Is this > true? What on Earth? I can't even imagine what that would sound like. Do > they have notes that don't exist in Western music? This profoundly bothers > me because I can't imagine any music with any other notes between the ones I > know of. I mean, when I'm having a bad day and singing off key, those are > other notes, but that just means I'm not in control of my voice, and they > are BAD. Can you explain this? > > I have no idea how any of this relates to the MoQ, but you brought it up, > after all, and I'm beginning to think that is DOES. Why do we see Quality > in music constructed using the Western octave? Is this a learned response > or a fundamental TRUTH of the Universe? What's up with music anyway? Why > do we respond so profoundly to it? Where did it come from? Is it something > of the Biological Level? I think it must be because it is so universal; > but, if so, what's the deal with these different scales? Why are there > scales at all? Why does a certain chord progression evoke such an emotional > response in us, but not other chord progressions? They say music is > mathematics. Yes, even my gut level understanding of music agrees with > that. Is music the language of the Universe? If so, what scale does it > use? 8 notes or 12? Is a Sitar player more in tune with the Universe than > me? And do you notice how we use the phrase "in tune"? There is much > wisdom in language that goes unnoticed. I have a book somewhere about word > origins. It is fascinating. Those that came before us were not dumb. > > In a previous post I alluded to the fact that I used serious drugs for a > number of years. Tomorrow (January 3rd) is the 3rd anniversary of my > disuse. I have had the time since to ponder the nature of this. I am of > the opinion that drug use is maligned in our culture because it is akin to > cheating. I agree. Using mind-altering drugs to attain a different state > is CHEATING. This, I believe, is why most straight people's unexamined gut > reaction is negative. We should use the equipment we've got, and not > attempt to enhance it. I would love to know what the MoQ has to say about > that. > > > Mary > > The most important thing you will ever make is a realization. > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ _______________________________________________________________________ Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars... Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
