When farmers plant new crops, it's often wise to rely on other crops or food sources rather than hope to reap from the first harvest. Why? Because the first few seasons often amount to learning, conditioning, and stewarding the soil's community of micro and macrobiota--you're prepping for the magic to happen, you're not going to see it finished until much later.
[By the way, some vocabulary for non-ecologists:
microbiota = all the microorganisms like fungi and
macrobiota = the larger than microscopic organisms like worms, etc. that help plants access nutrients, "communicate", and rotate/circulate soil nutrients and humus in the topsoil.]
And swinging around to reflections about music and creative processes from the lens of a gardener or a farmer (but mostly as a gardener), I'm starting to appreciate the development of one of my recurring groove-tunes as a creative demonstration of the above metaphor.
Years ago (about 3 to be specific) on a soggy winter/spring evening, I jammed out an idea for a tune I called the "Balkan Groove Thang" at about 1:15am while I was working through a fever (and no, not the kind of fever that's conducive for disco). It was fun to play even when my energy was down, and hearkened to the possibility of bridging one's heritage with more "modern" aesthetics while still representing a little bit of both, plus I figured out I could add a Mongolian exclamation ("Tuh!") in substitution for the traditional James-Brown-esque "Ungh!" and "Ow!" shouts:
Without a doubt, this tune was inspired by the existence and performances of an Ann Arbor "Balkan Funk" band called (at the time East, later Ornamatik, and later still Rhyta Musik -- which I think is the band's current name). In fact, the melody's rhythm is based on the second part of the Gankino Hora, a Bulgarian tune.
. . .
A few years later, likely toward the winter of 2017 though I unfortunately forget when at this moment as I type, I started to practice and improvise with a blend of the musical modes.
For non-music readers, modes are basically knowing what part of a word you'd want to emphasize when speaking with a different accent or in a different language. In the music world, the scales are the "accent" of a dialect or language--the bunch of pitches that make the notes you hear which often distinguish various kinds of folk tunes; while rhythm and the emphasis we hear on the words (in speech, elocution and cadence; in music they call these accents--very convoluted reuse of words but that's what it is) is a lot like learning the grammar found in a language
So we already combined notes you often hear with the blues and funk to couple with the Balkan style, and found adding a few notes onto the blues scale suddenly turns it into a traditional Japanese scale called Miyako-Bushi -- which has notes common enough that similar scales can be found in other cultures too, but it's very distinct in a lot of famous traditional Japanese folk tunes like Sakura Sakura (often on the Koto string instrument or Shakuhachi flute), Tsugaru Jonkara Bushi (often on shamisen), etc. -- which brings us a fairly nice melting pot of traditions into one Groovy Thang.
In this particular session late in August of 2018 I had just found another way to play with the clash between tri-tones (the notes that make the groove sound a bit more funky, rhythmic bow-chops aside) while taking a break at work in the Detroit Hispanic Development Corporation's immense back room/robotics area (imagine a warehouse with skylights, and fantastic graffiti from local Southwest Detroit youth on the walls in the middle of a community center--it has wonderful acoustics and it's an interesting space to play in).
Trying to make my way to a friend's harp concert in Ann Arbor, I ran out and didn't find the place until it was well done, but was able to enjoy the acoustics of this sort of arcade or alley (architects, feel free to take me to task on misnaming whatever this corridor might be called).
As I had recently returned from helping out family, I was still very well fed and fairly fit which made for good creative conditions, and the instrument I played on had an interesting alternative tuning which seemed to make the body of the violin resonate better too.
So all that backstory to share that 3 years later, we have this little jam that luckily didn't get deleted when my hard drive crashed.
[By the way, some vocabulary for non-ecologists:
microbiota = all the microorganisms like fungi and
macrobiota = the larger than microscopic organisms like worms, etc. that help plants access nutrients, "communicate", and rotate/circulate soil nutrients and humus in the topsoil.]
And swinging around to reflections about music and creative processes from the lens of a gardener or a farmer (but mostly as a gardener), I'm starting to appreciate the development of one of my recurring groove-tunes as a creative demonstration of the above metaphor.
Years ago (about 3 to be specific) on a soggy winter/spring evening, I jammed out an idea for a tune I called the "Balkan Groove Thang" at about 1:15am while I was working through a fever (and no, not the kind of fever that's conducive for disco). It was fun to play even when my energy was down, and hearkened to the possibility of bridging one's heritage with more "modern" aesthetics while still representing a little bit of both, plus I figured out I could add a Mongolian exclamation ("Tuh!") in substitution for the traditional James-Brown-esque "Ungh!" and "Ow!" shouts:
Without a doubt, this tune was inspired by the existence and performances of an Ann Arbor "Balkan Funk" band called (at the time East, later Ornamatik, and later still Rhyta Musik -- which I think is the band's current name). In fact, the melody's rhythm is based on the second part of the Gankino Hora, a Bulgarian tune.
. . .
A few years later, likely toward the winter of 2017 though I unfortunately forget when at this moment as I type, I started to practice and improvise with a blend of the musical modes.
For non-music readers, modes are basically knowing what part of a word you'd want to emphasize when speaking with a different accent or in a different language. In the music world, the scales are the "accent" of a dialect or language--the bunch of pitches that make the notes you hear which often distinguish various kinds of folk tunes; while rhythm and the emphasis we hear on the words (in speech, elocution and cadence; in music they call these accents--very convoluted reuse of words but that's what it is) is a lot like learning the grammar found in a language
So we already combined notes you often hear with the blues and funk to couple with the Balkan style, and found adding a few notes onto the blues scale suddenly turns it into a traditional Japanese scale called Miyako-Bushi -- which has notes common enough that similar scales can be found in other cultures too, but it's very distinct in a lot of famous traditional Japanese folk tunes like Sakura Sakura (often on the Koto string instrument or Shakuhachi flute), Tsugaru Jonkara Bushi (often on shamisen), etc. -- which brings us a fairly nice melting pot of traditions into one Groovy Thang.
In this particular session late in August of 2018 I had just found another way to play with the clash between tri-tones (the notes that make the groove sound a bit more funky, rhythmic bow-chops aside) while taking a break at work in the Detroit Hispanic Development Corporation's immense back room/robotics area (imagine a warehouse with skylights, and fantastic graffiti from local Southwest Detroit youth on the walls in the middle of a community center--it has wonderful acoustics and it's an interesting space to play in).
Trying to make my way to a friend's harp concert in Ann Arbor, I ran out and didn't find the place until it was well done, but was able to enjoy the acoustics of this sort of arcade or alley (architects, feel free to take me to task on misnaming whatever this corridor might be called).
As I had recently returned from helping out family, I was still very well fed and fairly fit which made for good creative conditions, and the instrument I played on had an interesting alternative tuning which seemed to make the body of the violin resonate better too.
So all that backstory to share that 3 years later, we have this little jam that luckily didn't get deleted when my hard drive crashed.
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