I had to get up early yesterday morning to drive up to Rochester for a shakuhachi workshop with the great Yoshio Kurahashi. I sat in on two group lessons. The first one was on the beginner piece “Kurokami.” There were five other students there besides myself. After “Kurokami” we took a break for lunch and all walked over to a little Chinese restaurant. Talking to the other shakuhachi students I found to my surprise that one of them, Karen, and I have a musical friend in common, specifically my friend Liz who sings in the early-music ensemble Luscinia. I had a nice friendly chat with Kurahashi and the other students over lunch, and then afterward we walked back to the dojo and had the second group lesson, this one on “Rokudan.” I had thought that I was already rather familiar with both of these pieces, “Kurokami” and “Rokudan,” but in the group lessons Kurahashi pointed out many little, but important, details of this music that I had been completely unaware of until then. It was an interesting experience to revisit this music that I thought I already knew, and to suddenly see it from a new, fresh perspective. Kurahashi is a very interesting fellow and I always enjoy talking with him and getting instruction from him.
After the second group lesson some of the shakuhachi students decided to take a break and go to see a photography exhibit at a gallery in Rochester. I stayed and had an individual lesson with Kurahashi, in which we worked on “Hachidan.” After my lesson my friend Bill had his individual lesson. Then the three of us, me, Bill, and Kurahashi, went out for a long walk around the neighborhood and chatted about life in Rochester (Bill), Ithaca (me), and Kyoto (Kurahashi). The weather turned cloudy and it rained a little bit, but it was a very pleasant time. After we got back to the dojo I decided I should head back home and not stay for the last group lesson (which I thought might be a bit too advanced for me anyway).
Last night I went to a reading at the Upstairs Gallery sponsored by Ithaca-based literary press Stockport Flats Press. Billed as the “three generations” reading, it featured poet & video artist Belle Gironda, her father Jim Crenner, and her daughter Caterina Gironda. Caterina read first. She is a poet in the slam style, a style which generally doesn’t have much appeal for me although I had to admit that she displayed a great deal of verbal virtuosity and performed with spirit and aplomb. Next up was Jim Crenner, a poet with a long and distinguished career of writing and teaching and an impressive publication record. He was affable and he read very well, although his poems didn’t excite me much. On the whole they seemed a bit too pedestrian for my taste. Belle Gironda read last. She began by reading some poems from her new book, Building Codes. I thought her poetry was very imaginative and evocative. She followed that with an intriguing performance of a long poetic work that was accompanied by a video projection. The video consisted of street scenes from Cairo, Egypt (evidently filmed from a moving car).
I got to talk with a couple of my poet friends who I encountered in the audience, and I bought a copy of Gironda’s book. I’m interested in this Stockport Flats Press. It’s a good thing that we have a press like this in Ithaca now and I look forward to seeing what else they come out with.
Two short performances by Yves Klein: “Anthropometries of the Blue Period,” and “Fire Paintings.”
Too bad there’s no soundtrack with these little films. I wonder what music the string ensemble was playing?
Klein was a very eccentric artist who started out as a painter, popularized what’s now known as “color field” painting, and was also a pioneer of the genre now known as performance art. A lot of people thought he was crazy. Maybe he was. But his work has always appealed to me, regardless of its supposed merit (or lack thereof) as art, because of the wacky playfulness of it.
I was one of the participants last month in a group shakuhachi lesson concerning the honkyoku (i.e. Zen) piece “Choshi.” I’m a newcomer to honkyoku and I found the whole experience to be utterly bewildering. The honkyoku notation was mostly a mystery to me, and the honkyoku techniques of playing are quite a bit more complex, subtle and delicate than I am used to in my shakuhachi experience so far, which has concentrated mostly on pieces of Japanese classical music. I struggled through this group lesson with great difficulty and emerged from it feeling that I had learned very little, if anything. But I did record the lesson and I’ve been going back to the recording and trying to play “Choshi” on my own, using the recording as a guide. Working on it on my own this way I feel like I’ve barely started to get a handle on this piece of music. I think I can play the first few phrases in the piece more-or-less properly. But about a third of the way through it I get bogged down and I don’t feel like I know what I am doing.
This whole experience of trying to play honkyoku is very strange to me. The honkyoku notation and the honkyoku techniques of playing are so very different from my previous experience playing the shakuhachi that it feels to me like I am playing a completely different musical instrument. But I know that one of the great challenges that I have to deal with here is to not allow myself to get overwhelmed by a feeling of frustration (which is definitely very counter-productive in musical practice of any kind), but try to keep my cool and be patient. I can be very, very persistent (perhaps even insanely so!). I’m sure that I will keep playing this thing, for good or bad, for the rest of my life.
It’s been a few days since the Grassroots Festival finished up. Both J and I had a good time there despite the occasional rain and the occasionally oppressive crowds. It was fun and we got to experience some interesting new music.
Every year around Grassroots time though, I’m always puzzled and sometimes even shocked by the anti-Grassroots-Festival prejudice I encounter. Every year there are letters in the local newspapers decrying the “huge hippie orgy” that is the Grassroots Festival. And I’ve talked to several people who, though they have not been to the festival themselves, are absolutely convinced that the music at the festival is merely an excuse for a huge mob of “hippies” to indulge in a massive drug- and sex-fest. One acquaintance recently told me that she had heard that the event was basically a giant orgy. Another person told me that she had heard that about half of the people there were naked, and that people were having sex in public. Others have told me that they’ve heard that drug abuse at the festival is rampant, widespread and open, and that no one there is safe from acts of crime. Where do people get this shit? The things they are saying about the festival are really crazy, yet if I try to gently correct them and point out that in several years of attending Grassroots I’ve never seen any of the shit they claim happens there, it makes no impression on them. They’ve never been to the festival, but THEY’VE HEARD that such and such stuff happens there, and of course who have they heard it from? Other people who have not been to the festival either! All the times I’ve been to Grassroots it has always been peaceful, safe and harmonious. It’s hard for me to understand why so many negative and untrue things are being said about Grassroots. Hey folks, it’s just a lot of people listening to music! That’s all it is. Really!
I was surprised to get an acceptance notice from a literary journal called Confrontation. They want to publish a somewhat avante-garde poem of mine that I wrote back in 2007. It gives me some encouragement, to have them take such an interest in this idiosyncratic and strange little poem of mine.
Well I had to skip the last day of the Grassroots Festival in order to go up to Rochester for my latest shakuhachi lessons with Ronnie Seldin. I went up there with my shakuhachi-playing friend Tony. I had my individual lesson with Ronnie, in which we played over the 2nd and 3rd sections of a classical piece called “Hachidan” (this is what I’ve been practicing at home over the past month). That went mostly pretty well and Ronnie didn’t have many criticisms to make on my playing. Then we went over the next two sections of the same piece. It’s intended to be played at a pretty fast tempo. I think that I can play the notes just fine but that it’s a real challenge for me to play it at the proper speed. I think that in my practice from now on I need to work more on trying to push myself to play at a faster tempo.
After my lesson, then Tony had his individual lesson. We took a break and then we had a group lesson, just me, Tony, and another (more advanced) shakuhachi student, Bill. The group lesson was on a honkyoku (i.e. Zen meditation) piece called “Choshi.” I had a very hard time with this. The honkyoku techniques are quite different from the playing technique for the classical Japanese music. I had a hard time adjusting to the different way of playing, which, although not played at a fast tempo, requires much more subtle and complex coordination of various blowing and fingering techniques. I really struggled very hard to play this but was having very little success. I think I will need to work on this piece on my own and take it very slowly and very gradually if I’m to eventually get a handle on the honkyoku technique. Currently the whole honkyoku approach to playing seems bewilderingly complex to me.
On Saturday at the Grassroots Festival we got to see and hear Alash, Evil City String Band (playing for a contra dance in the Dance Tent), the Grumbling Rustics, Paso Fino, Samite, the Horse Flies, Scythian, and Bela Fleck. A lot of interesting stuff there! I thought the Evil City String Band played extremely well and J and I had fun watching the contra dancers. I would like to learn how to do contra dancing but I was just feeling too tired that day to get up and join in with the dancers at the Dance Tent. Someday though, I really want to start getting into this contra dance stuff. I figure it can’t be any more difficult than dancing salsa rueda which I do regularly now. The Grumbling Rustics are a trio of young women playing traditional music, and they have a lady playing the Irish flute who is a fantastic player. I was astounded at her skill. Where do these Grumbling Rustics come from? I would like to find out more about them but they apparently don’t have a website. Samite and his band played beautifully, as always, although they played some more extended jams this time than I have heard them play at past gigs. Bela Fleck played a strange and unexpected variety of music on solo banjo, including a beautiful rendition of a Bach partita, also some African tunes and some of his own music. I thought it was great but a lot of people in the audience seemed to be bored with it. I would have liked to stay to hear Oumou Sangare but J and I were getting too tired, and we felt too hemmed in by the dense crowd in front of the infield stage, so we left before Sangare’s performance.
It rained almost all day and all evening on Friday.
A funny thing happened. I knew that the Tuvan band Alash was scheduled to play on Friday, and I’m a fan of Alash (and of Tuvan music and culture in general) so in their honor I wore my Tuvan-flag T-shirt that day. At one point in the day while J and I were walking down the knoll toward the food booths, a young man in his 20s with a bushy beard came running up to me and said how much he liked my shirt. I wasn’t sure I heard him right so I asked him to repeat it. He said he really, really liked my shirt. I hadn’t expected that I might run into someone who would actually recognize the Tuvan flag and was an enthusiast of Tuvan culture, but that was apparently the case! I asked him if he was interested in Tuvan stuff, and without any further reply he immediately launched into some throat-singing. Sounded like Kargyraa style to me, but I could be wrong (as I’m not an expert on recognizing the different styles of Tuvan throat singing). And he was quite good at it! I was amazed. I complimented him on his throat-singing skill. I wish I had had the presence of mind to ask his name.
Thursday was the first day of the Grassroots Festival. This festival is kind of a big deal around here. It is certainly the biggest event that happens all year here and it’s the highlight of the summer. J and I got there around 5:00 and had to stand in an exasperatingly long line in the hot sun in order to exchange our tickets for the weekend-pass bracelets we would need. The first thing we did when we finally got in was to head for the ice cream stand. While we were hanging around eating our ice cream I happened to run into my violinist friend Sam from CMEMME. He said that there was a Greek band that was supposed to be playing in the Cabaret Hall, which was right next to the ice cream place. I looked on the schedule and the band was the Rebetiks. I had never heard of them before but we decided to check them out. They got started late, much later than scheduled, and there were a lot of technical difficulties in getting the sound system set up prior to their performance. But their performance was worth waiting for. They played some very interesting music and they played with great verve and style.
I was especially excited to hear them play the Greek folk song “Thalassaki,” which I have actually played myself (on the kaval) with CMEMME! I love that song. Several of the audience members danced to the music, some Greek dances, such as Kalamatiano, and some bellydancing. At one point between songs, prior to announcing the next song the leader of the band mentioned the reason for their late start. He said they were stopped by the police in Candor while driving up from Binghamton, and the police held them (he said he was not at liberty to say exactly WHY) in the police station for four hours before they finally let them go!
After the Rebetiks finished we went over to the dance tent to catch the last half of the Horse Flies’ performance. They were doing great, and then in the middle of a song there was a sound like an explosion and all of their sound stopped working. Apparently a couple of the amps had blown out, and also they lost power to some of the sound equipment on the stage. Sound techs worked on it, the band started playing again, and then a little while later some of the sound equipment cut out again! The sound techs worked on it again, etc., etc. This went on for quite a while, throughout the whole rest of their set even, with the sound equipment intermittently working and not-working, and sound guys scrambling around trying to figure out what the hell was going on. The band members were very cool about it though, maintaining a great deal of composure and graciousness under these very frustrating circumstances.
Later on we heard Rusted Root play at the infield stage, where the crowd was large and very dense. We left after a while because we got tired of being jostled about by drunks pushing their way through the crowd. Went over to the grandstand stage and heard part of Toots and the Maytals’ set before we finally got so tired we left and went home.
