Music Blogging

Old gig picture taken by my Mom. 
I might not even be 21, yet.
Taken at Flying M Coffee House in Boise, Idaho. 

Finally! After a year or so of thinking about posting at Reigniting My School Girl Crush  for Music, I've done it!

This blog sort of serves as a hub for many blogs. At least, that is the goal. I want to run a series of music research blogs that start at that page and really, help me keep track of things I come across.

I haven't completely thought this out yet. In fact, figuring out the way in which I would go about the music crush blog was a bit of an accident, or rather, it came from a reminder, a conversation about music, which I talk about in the first post.

I'm not a critic, nor do I really want to be. I just want to share experiences and learn. So, there you go. That's precisely what this blog aims to do and where it begins. It aims solely to express excitement about music, share that excitement and even relate what I learn from the music that comes into these ears. I might even sometimes talk about craft, and how I might apply what I learn.

Hopefully within this year, I will work on more thorough research and study projects, as well. Some of those projects involve connecting with other folks in the musical and sound healing arts. Some of them just involve listening, going through my old CDs, and ever finding new reasons to be simply in love with music. Maybe, I'll find some new ideas along the way. I hope you'll listen and share along with me. I'm always open to listening to new tunes, new sounds, etc. Please, please, feel free to send them my way, should you think of it!

Furthering My Geekery in Music: Researching the Concept Album

because i have no records in the house, i'm posting an old picture of thrown away tapes
from umpteen million years ago

My friend Matt Channing and I talk  a lot about music ideas, history, and techniques in our band rehearsals for Month of Sundays. One of the ideas that keeps coming up is the idea of the concept album. We've been talking about the concept album, really, because we want to make one (or maybe more than one! who knows!).

I've found that I don't really know a whole lot about the concept album. I mean, it makes sense to create a slew of tunes and also related performances around a theme. I get all of that. I just have never really thought about the concept album in depth until round about now. I'm suddenly smitten and curious. As a result, I've decided to do a little research and make it collaborative and interactive to those who might want to participate. Here's the link should you want to read, conversate, contribute, or offer insights/feedback/comments/etc.
--->
http://researchtheconcept.blogspot.com/

A Quote on Living and Another About Poetry from Henry Miller

I have been looking for a quote from the Rosy Crusifixtion by Henry Miller that speaks to the point that writers must live their lives and not just write all the time. All I remember is that Miller was not worried (or may have been at some point and shirked the worry) about writing every single day. Living was important and he would trust that memory would serve him by acquiring the bits that were important to remember at any given time. 


It could be that the passage from which I crave quotes is close to this one (which is one of my all time favorite quotes, as I deem the words words to live by): 

"Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music--the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself."

Although I did not find the quote that I wanted, tonight  (and I'm turning in soon since I've been up since 3a.m.), I did find the following about poets and thought I would post it here for safe keeping: 

“Conditioned to ecstasy, the poet is like a gorgeous unknown bird mired in the ashes of thought. If he succeeds in freeing himself, it is to make a sacrificial flight to the sun. His dreams of a regenerate world are but the reverberations of his own fevered pulse beats. He imagines the world will follow him, but in the blue he finds himself alone. Alone but surrounded by his creations; sustained, therefore, to meet the supreme sacrifice. The impossible has been achieved; the duologue of author with Author is consummated. And now forever through the ages the song expands, warming all hearts, penetrating all minds. At the periphery the world is dying away; at the center it glows like a live coal. In the great solar heart of the universe the golden birds are gathered in unison. There it is forever dawn, forever peace, harmony and communion. Man does not look to the sun in vain; he demands light and warmth not for the corpse which he will one day discard but for his inner being. His greatest desire is to burn with ecstasy, to commerge his little flame with the central fire of the universe. If he accords the angels wings so that they may come to him with messages of peace, harmony and radiance from worlds beyond, it is only to nourish his own dreams of flight, to sustain his own belief that he will one day reach beyond himself, and on wings of gold. One creation matches another; in essence they are all alike. The brotherhood of man consists not in thinking alike, nor in acting alike, but in aspiring to praise creation. The song of creation springs from the ruins of earthly endeavor. The outer man dies away in order to reveal the golden bird which is winging its way toward divinity.”
― Henry Miller, The Time of the Assassins: a Study of Rimbaud

Further, as a sort of side note, the above picture was found with this blog which I would follow, were it not dead.