Raga Bass Meditation…
There is something very beautiful in the resolution of dissonance… Our ears love it! A gifted musician once told me, that was one of the secrets the Beatles used often in their music. Throw out a dissonant note… Which makes the listener wince a little, be slightly uncomfortable… But then the pay off is in the note which logically resolves the dissonance… Giving it a context. Like suffering and healing. In the Transcendence of Suffering there is great joy. In the harmonizing of notes, we find the metaphor for harmonizing in life… The dissonant notes will play out… And be resolved by beautiful notes… And then the whole Song… Symphony… Concert of your Life will be filled with such beautiful music… Others will be compelled to hear.
Sketching clouds with a camera and app… Is this cheating? What is art in the digital age? Can pushing buttons be a form of creativity? Sure! Why not? You gonna tell Thelonius Monk he played the piano wrong? Hit the wrong keys? Still gotta make choices, and push the right buttons/hit the right keys. But maybe more importantly… Don’t push the wrong buttons or play the wrong notes, or too many all at once… It’s the space between the notes that makes the music… It’s the words left unsaid, that complete the poem in your mind. It is the emptiness in the frame, that creates space for the subject. Less is more!
I meditate with my bass…
Don’t play covers, can’t read music, don’t know a damn thing about keeping time! But i love the sounds that come out of her, when i finger her strings. She mystifies me. Sounds like some lost Indian instrument… replaced long ago by sitars and sarods. But i listen to her ancient incantations, as we commune, and in this moment of merging with the music… I find Transcendent Bliss.
Jimi Hendrix wrote a song called Manic Depression, where he described his desire to make love to music. I feel that when i play. You aren’t just making love with the instrument, it is the actual physical sound waves traversing your being… Maybe, I’ll call it… “Bipolar Raga!”
