(no subject)
Jazz fest is this week and I am already in love with it. I have a pass, so essentially I get to walk in wherever music is play (except for Eastman, but I get over it). My parents took off the entire week, which will be great for them, because they work too darn hard sometimes.
We split up a bit today. They wanted to listen to groups we had heard yesterday (which were awesome groups mind you) and I wanted to see some of the other talents. So first I skittered off to a jazz trio led by a pianist, he took a lot of broadway tunes and jazzed them up (beautifully I might add). I had a kick there, it was also kind of funny because we ran out of seating, so I was at the back door closing and opening it for people, having flashbacks to house managing. It really doesn't leave you.
I finished just in time to catch a group with my parents, Girls with Guitars, one of the groups we saw yesterday, but loved so much we had to see them again.
I then separated again, this time checking out a bass player from Norway who was leading a trio. I must admit, the jazz groups I hear out of Norway intrigue me a lot. They have a more ambiance focused jazz. The bass player and the drums were awesome (I am of the conclusion that drum players are trained a distinctive way in Norway, there is a playfullness there that I am enamored by). Not going to lie, I could have done without the saxophone, he just didn't seem in the groove to me.
Regardless.
I was sitting there listening and I started to listen so deeply that my ear started tuning in to the noises outside. We were in a church for this venue and I could hear the sirens of the city coming through the window, and it struck me as odd that we can focus so deeply on something and completely shutter out the world. In fact, being a house manager, it was my job to keep the amount of noise heard to a distinct minimum. Even just that distinction, music and noise, is something we all just kind of assume.
I actually had a moment where I thought "You know... John Cage was actually making a valid point..." For those of you who don't make 4'22 jokes. John Cage did a performance piece where he walked out to the piano, sat and stared at his watch for 4 minutes and 22 seconds. He didn't play a note, he was showing how everything in the audience, all the noises we hear and make are part of the composition. He was merely hilighting it by taking away our usual focus point.
So hearing this my mind started to wander again about the notion of what we hold sacred and what we don't consider worthy of being held sacred. Its a fascinating thing to focus on and I would encourage most anyone to just ponder it.
At one moment I was listening to everything I could open my ears to I started to have a shifting understanding on the implications of what holding everything to be sacred (or at least carrying the potential of sacredness) means. It is one of those things I would ruin by expounding upon my answer. I'll simply leave you with what I can remember of a haiku I heard while pondering this.
Between longing breathe
Between dancing thoughts and dreams
God waits there, (in/it's) you
There is no word in English that simultaneously says "it is" and "in". So I took their meanings, and decided they share the same space in this haiku.
We split up a bit today. They wanted to listen to groups we had heard yesterday (which were awesome groups mind you) and I wanted to see some of the other talents. So first I skittered off to a jazz trio led by a pianist, he took a lot of broadway tunes and jazzed them up (beautifully I might add). I had a kick there, it was also kind of funny because we ran out of seating, so I was at the back door closing and opening it for people, having flashbacks to house managing. It really doesn't leave you.
I finished just in time to catch a group with my parents, Girls with Guitars, one of the groups we saw yesterday, but loved so much we had to see them again.
I then separated again, this time checking out a bass player from Norway who was leading a trio. I must admit, the jazz groups I hear out of Norway intrigue me a lot. They have a more ambiance focused jazz. The bass player and the drums were awesome (I am of the conclusion that drum players are trained a distinctive way in Norway, there is a playfullness there that I am enamored by). Not going to lie, I could have done without the saxophone, he just didn't seem in the groove to me.
Regardless.
I was sitting there listening and I started to listen so deeply that my ear started tuning in to the noises outside. We were in a church for this venue and I could hear the sirens of the city coming through the window, and it struck me as odd that we can focus so deeply on something and completely shutter out the world. In fact, being a house manager, it was my job to keep the amount of noise heard to a distinct minimum. Even just that distinction, music and noise, is something we all just kind of assume.
I actually had a moment where I thought "You know... John Cage was actually making a valid point..." For those of you who don't make 4'22 jokes. John Cage did a performance piece where he walked out to the piano, sat and stared at his watch for 4 minutes and 22 seconds. He didn't play a note, he was showing how everything in the audience, all the noises we hear and make are part of the composition. He was merely hilighting it by taking away our usual focus point.
So hearing this my mind started to wander again about the notion of what we hold sacred and what we don't consider worthy of being held sacred. Its a fascinating thing to focus on and I would encourage most anyone to just ponder it.
At one moment I was listening to everything I could open my ears to I started to have a shifting understanding on the implications of what holding everything to be sacred (or at least carrying the potential of sacredness) means. It is one of those things I would ruin by expounding upon my answer. I'll simply leave you with what I can remember of a haiku I heard while pondering this.
Between longing breathe
Between dancing thoughts and dreams
God waits there, (in/it's) you
There is no word in English that simultaneously says "it is" and "in". So I took their meanings, and decided they share the same space in this haiku.