Intuition

Some time before I left for my trip to Europe, I was listening to a program on NPR that was speaking about the defining or pivotal moments in the lives of successful people. I was quite surprised to find that a majority of them were almost random or completely arbitrary decisions. I have found this to be a common theme during my travels, in that seemingly, completely uncalculated deciscions turn out to be fundimental and crucial events. I always liked the introduction to Phil Lesh's Searching For The Sound when he makes a metaphor between musical form and the series of events within life itself: "Music can define life itself, and it has indeed defined my life. In life, as in art, there are recurring themes, transpositions, repetitions, unexpected developments, all converging to define a form that’s not necessarily apparent until its ending has come and gone."

So I will share just a handful of certain seemingly inconsequential decicions which could not have been better orchestrated.

1. Im in Munich, and happen to not have hostel accomodations for my next night. With this knowledge I amble down the street to another hostel to inquire about my next night's reservations and while doing so get passed a flier for a free bike tour. I eventually go on the bike tour which does a round of various Beergartens in the area. Theres a pretty cute american girl who works for the US Peace corps in Senegal that I am talking to during the trip but she is being hounded by a bleached blonde Australian dude such that he is physically geting in the way of me talking to her at all. Rather than dealing with this hassle, I sit down next to a bearded guy with a full slab of ribs. Turns out the fellow is from New Zealand and we become fast friends. He in turn introduces me to a team of New Zeland rugby players who take me out drinking and fun is had by all.

2. I'm in Cleveland and feeling thorougly bummed out. I have an offer to go see a concert downtown, and though its late and far I decide its what i need to knock me out of my funk. I go and enjoy myself thorougly and in so doing by chance become re-acquainted with a friend of a friend. This friend of a friend later invites me to a party which I gladly attend and during which I casually meet a girl named Alex. A few days later, an old tree leans into some power lines on my street thus stranding all the residents on the street. My mom happens to be one of the stranded people and ends up talking to the same girl I had met a couple nights beforehand and during the conversation it was revealed that we are both going to be in Florence at the same time. We make plans to meet up and have a great time, climbing the Duomo, eating food drinking wine and all of that wonderful stuff and eventually we decide we should drink a beer. We amble down a series of streets, poking our head inside of different establishments, being underwelmed by a majority of them until we finally settle on a pub with a decent selection of beers on tap. We decide that it makes sense to sit directly in front of the tap and order two Hefeweizens. A friendly looking american starts to make conversation with us. We mention that we are both from the cleveland area, he says that he used to have family in a suburb with a bunch of white, wood panneled houses. I infer that he is talking about Shaker heights, and I am correct. He mentions the name Muprhy. I say "Ben?" which is the correct response. I then tell him that Ben Murphy was my best friend in Junior High and the original rhythm guitarist in my band Aranka Fabian. He is familiar with the band and has one of the lighters in his pocket. I also mention that it happens to be my birthday, he shows us around venice and good times are had by all.

3. I wander down a series of crooked streets and find myself attracted to a collections of very dignified looking violins in a nearby shop. I find out that the place is a local ticket office for concerts in Venice. He mentions that tonight there is a special on a ticket to an Verdi Opera (la Traviata) performed in a converted 16th century Venecian palace. Good times are had by all.

4. I get lost and stuck in the Rain in berlin and arrive tired and defeated. Just as I sit down I am cordially invited to a drum n bass party by a visitor to the hostel. Good times are had by all.


You get the idea.

Quick Update

Hey there everyone, just want to touch base if anyone is paying attention.

Thus far I have been in Amsterdam, Berlin and Munich where I am at the time of this writing. After this I will be stopping in Interlaken, Switzerland for a few days before heading to Venice, Florence, La Spezia, Rome and Barcelona.

I think I have time to tell one story

After a failed attempt to catch a concert by a once famous Berlin based Krautrock band, I came back to my hostel and sat at the bar. It just so happened that I was placed in a room with a touring british rock band that also was sitting at the bar. We hung out there for a bit, talking about various things tangentially related to making music before eventually improvising a short duet of guitar and ukulele. As we were playing, a guy came over and befriended us. His name was Rene, and one of the more interesting people I have ever encountered in my life. Rene is black, his father is from the States and his mother is from Ghana but he was born and raised in Berlin. Eventually the topic of conversation drifted towards the concept of freedom, and freedom within a society. Rene said that he has been everywhere and he thinks that Berlin, ironically enough, is the freest city in the world. From what I experienced, I don't think that the statement is innacurate. Since freedom is the rallying cry and central tenant of all things done in America, inevitably we fell into The Amercia Conversation. What he said, his sentiments may have been a central turning point in my life.

I haven't encountered any real anti-american sentiment and I think it is because I think there is a great degree of understanding abroad about complexity of our political situation. What I mean is that from the perspective of a European who encounters travelling Americans, there appears to be a serious disconnect between the public dialoge in the media (with its gross oversimplication, reductionism and sloganing)and the dialoge of real Americans. From what I have heard, the sort of Americans who travel and wish to engage into political conversations during their trips tend to be artliculate, contrite and generally well-informed. John Edwards campainged on the idea of there being two Americas and I tend to agree with him, though not in the sense he was talking about. There seems to be a particular breed of Americans that have escaped. I dont mean that in a literal sense, I mean that there is a horrible churning mass of shallow materialism, ignorance, religious fanaticism and racism that seems to suck in a large part of the population. The ones who are able to swim free from all of this look down upon the whole mess with disgust but gain a kind of sweetness from the struggle. If I may quote my Australian friend Keppie:

"For every truly beautiful, inspired person I meet, I encounter 10 who talk and think in a string of clichés and appear to be living according to television scripts. And the two things are connected. When the culture and government are so shrouded in layers of deception and attempts to stultify and homogenise people’s interests and tastes, the kind of people whose intellectual or creative buoyancy lifts them above it are generally more intense, more angry, more passionate, more subtle, more invested, and have such an acute love for humanity, than I think is produced by most other Western cultures."

And that is the pride that I feel as an American. I feel such an intense bond with these particular brand of people and I wish to express this America as I travel .

Anyway, the thing that Rene said to me was this:

"I know that you're intelligent and you're sorry and Bush probably, no definitely stole the election twice but Bush is still your president. Two times. Two fuckin' times. No matter what, that is what people will think when you say you're an American. Two fuckin times. So you got a decision to make, you're still young. If thats your America then say it loud and clear, 'Two fuckin times!' Two fingers doen't mean peace it means two fuckin times. If that's not who you are then you got some thinkin to do. Now I was raised in Germany, but I'm not a german. That's not my identity, I am a human being. But that's not to say I don't love this place, I feel free as a bird here. I love this place NOW. Things change, idenities change, you don't gotta have pride for something if its hurtin't you. Have pride in being a human being."

I liked that.

Takai

Takai 5, originally uploaded by SortaLucid34.

Here's one of the recently posted shots from my photostream. Its a picture of the traditional Takai dance done in Tamale (Northern Ghana) taken this past summer.

Stopping In

Hey Ya'al

I'm leaving on Monday Sept. 10th for Europe where I will be for about 6 weeks. Hopefully I will be adding frequent updates while I am there. I have meant to post a number of things about my trip to Ghana this past summer but between it's profundity and my sloth I haven't been able to muster the energy to write about it. I did, however finally post many of my pictures and a few videos. You can view them at my flickr photostream. Please stop in again and see what's up in my world.

Ok... a little more

Still pretty limited on time (I've got about 10 minutes) but I just wanted to drop in some more info.

If i'm making typos, sorry, The keys are all really stiff and the computers are horribly slow.

Right now I'm writing from Tamale which is in the northern part of the country, and is culturally very different from where I had been in the south. We are here learning from a master chief drummer named Allagi, mostly talking drum and other tonal drumming.

For the last week or so before arriving we were down at the Dagbe institute outside of Denu, it was a fantastic experience and it really became like a second home. Basically it was a little school/compound situated right in the the middle of a village and featured local drummers from the surrounding villages. While there I blessed to experience a number of remarkable things. Besides the daily drumming and dancing classes I partook in playing at a couple funerals and traditional religious services. In general it was an Ewe drumming boot camp where I really got the music drilled into my body.

Thats about all for now, just wanted to give another quick update. Go cavs.

Just want tosay Hi

Only have one minute to post.

I'm having an amazing time, leaving Accra today to go up to the northern reigon.


Hopefully a real update soon.

Love you all

The Brook

The Brook, originally uploaded by SortaLucid34.

From home.

My Reasons for Going

Music, at least in the pop world, seems to be entirely about familiarity. I spent a long summer working at the regional Clear Channel wing and this was my ultimate conclusion about the general consumption of music. By and large, the average music listener is not looking for content, emotional experience and not even quality; most are simply looking for some kind of semblance of "home". While I consider myself to be a fairly adventurous music listener, I am really no exception. So people often ask me, "Why Africa?" or "What do you see in this music?" The most simple answer I can give is that it sounds roughly familiar to me, it contains an essence that resonates with me.

I had a discussion with a friend recently about the concept of Originality. If one was asked what originality is, chances are they would say something about it being new or unique. Many people overlook the root of the word, Origin; the real strength of something Original is that it taps into the roots and beginnings of things. In my quest to create something creatively valid and Original I felt I had to be connected to the genesis of the music that I love. American music, as often noted,is essentially a fusion between European and African traditions and because European music history is the defacto music history and theory core of education I felt it was only natural to investigate African music. And as Americans tend to be cultural amnesiacs, I hoped that I could gain some connections to my own cultural traditions that have been lost along the way. I doubt I could ever embrace this culture and its traditions as my own because they clearly are not mine; rather I am looking to discover the essence of ritual and tradition itself through this specific culture because they express this in an ideal way.

When I first arrived at Berklee I became acquainted with a drummer named Perry Morris. He was somewhat of a child prodigy jazz drummer who, after achieving some degree of success as a jazz musician in high school, grew tired of the general attitude in the jazz world and began to explore Cuban music instead. The next tradition that he decided to follow was music of Santeria, sacred ceremonial drumming that has its origins in modern Nigeria with the Youruba people. Is played on a set of three Bata drums and the ceremony is composed as a sort of suite to the various gods of the relgion as an invitation for them to visit and "mount" those at the ceremony. For whatever reason, this music seemed to hold some kind of keys for me. It was intellectually stimulating to me because of the staggering intricacy of shifting polyrhythmic figures as well as spiritually appealing because of its mystical implications. Additionally, the melodies sounded very primal and bluesy to me, and felt strangely like "home." And to this day these are the same attractive qualities that I find in all the various West African musics.

As I begin to discover more of this music, certain themes seem to be emerging. One important one is the general conception of time and rhythm in a cyclical sense; events are seen as cycles within cycles within cycles etc. The western/european approach is almost always linear, certainly in a historical sense but also in a musical sense. The cyclical view of the world is by no means unique to west african cultures but is certainly a strong component of their folkloric traditions. Another important feature of the culture is the fact that all of the arts are in a sense joined eachother and none of them are viewed as having any real autonomy. The language and thus the oral history is embedded in the drumming patterns which themselves do not exist without the dances and all of these are contained within ritual . This unity of arts in relation to ritual is something seldom seen in conceporary American culture and something I believe we can all benefit from. Part of the reason for such a lack of ritual in our culture stems from the lack of a common mythology, which most west african cultures have in droves. Joseph Campbell says that "Ritual is an enactment of the myth" and thus through ritual we are merging and uniting with the active archetypes in the myth. Because all of the traditional arts are so intimately woven together, the stories are illustrated in in every facet of the ritual and the mythology survies.

Though these are my initial impressions and observations, it will be interesting to see if they are corroborated in my experience. In any event, I believe I feel I have found to some degree the reason that I feel so compelled to go. I felt the familiarity, not only because the music of my culture is a direct descendent of this music but also because this music does have true Originality. It is folk music of the highest degree: something with an unfathomable degree of order that grew not out of one composers mind but rather a cultural collective mind over generations. Tradition is often the more accurate expression of truth because it is sanctified by time itself; if something doesn't belong there it will get wrung out. And in fact, I believe that that only way to be truly Original and modern is by uncovering traditions that have been largely forgotten and overlooked and rejuvinating them. For whatever reason, these "lost" traditions will be strangely pertinent to the modern world because truth is still truth even if it has been forgotten.

All of this is to neglect mentioning that I am just looking to go and have a great time and see a completely different part of the world. I will hope to be posting pictures and reflections of the exprience whenever I get the oppertunity but I have no idea how often that will be.

Thanks to anyone that took all the time to read this

New Parlor Guitar

New Parlor Guitar, originally uploaded by SortaLucid34.

Just want to check out my flickr->blogger connection.

This is the guitar that I bought last week for travel purposes, and I will be taking it around with me everywhere I go. I love it.

First post here, re-establishing a public persona.

Hello all!

It has been a while (about three years) since I've kept a weblog, but it occurred to me that it might be worthwhile to do it as I have a lot exciting things happening in my life in the near future. Hopefully I can share some stories, observations, pictures as well as share some musical information of a more specific nature. I have just finished my third year at Berklee College of Music and am currently enjoying a short stint at home (Cleveland, OH) before traveling to africa. I will be in Ghana for about a month studying music before returning back to Boston for the summer semester, after which I will be traveling in Europe for about a month and a half. Hopefully I can check in often and give updates.

My time at home has been bittersweet as my family is in the beginning stages of moving out of the house we have lived in for 20 years now. While it has been good and thereputic to at least be a part of the moving process, I will not be around for the actual move, nor will I spend a great deal of time the new house. I may be sharing some pictures of the chaos as it unfolds. Also I'll try to post some information about my preparation for the trip to Africa as well and try to illuminate some aspects of the trip and my reasons for going.

Well now I just have to get the word out that I even have this thing. See you all soon.