Our life has no end in just the way in which our visual field has no limits.
have blog :: will travel
Some say the real miracle of Christmas is not that we fail to observe Goodwill Towards Man on all the other days, but in how, as wild animals ourselves, it is miraculous that we can even just somewhat tone down preying upon each other for a few hours each year -- I am sitting here now, downloading Christmas carols in free public domain arrangments, thoughtfully typeset and even transposed for band instruments, and they are good 4-part arrangements. Just imagine ...
No other web site offers all of these features:
- All of it is free! No hidden costs, no teasers, no bait-and-switch.
- Sheet music for every carol, in standard PDF (Adobe Acrobat) format. No need to purchase or download special software!
- Sheet music in 4 parts (SATB) for most carols. Just the thing for caroling!
- Lead sheets (melody, chords & lyrics) for most carols.
- Additional guitar lead sheets in easy keys, when the piano lead sheet is in a horrible key for novice guitarists.
- Instrumental parts for C, F, Bb, and Eb instruments. Play in 4 parts with any combination of instruments!
- MIDI files for every carol (so you can hear what they sound like), with both 4-part (SATB) and melody-only versions.
- New! A list of CD's where you can hear each carol, with easy links to buy them from Amazon.com, and (in most cases) a sound clip of a sample of the carol from the CD.
- Background music only when you ask for it, instead of playing automatically whether you want it or not!
- Lyric sheets for every carol. (Okay, so this is no big deal, but this site wouldn't be complete without them.)
- Credits (author, composer, translator, arranger) for every carol.
- No obnoxious animations or pop-up ads.
- And did we mention that all of it is free?
absolutely mindbogglingly amazing - can you imagine? I could call you up, I could post to my site an open call to say, "Grab your instruments and download the following and meet me at the town square and we'll fill the air with music!" and we'd all just meet there and pick our parts and we're ready to go, no lawyers, no rights organizations to notify, just music to be made for everyone.
Truly this is Christmas.
The musicians of the Detroit Symphony were hired originally to play only orchestral repertoire and at very high levels of quality. Yet they now face the possibility of having to professionally wear many hats. Future symphony duties beyond orchestra playing would include teaching, mentoring, chamber music concerts, public speaking, among others.
Most change is both good and bad. One criticism of the proposed changes is that the level of quality of their performances will go down. That fear is justified, and probably true. Yet, the proposed versatility of the musicians’ jobs may, after a period of adjustment, improve their quality of life through that variety. Instead of the “assembly line” churning out of high-level orchestra concerts, the musicians will have the opportunity to perform more chamber music, which on the whole is more satisfying than orchestral playing. And their value to the community will be greatly enhanced. It is that non-monetary value which is the true spirit of music and music’s expression. (Needless to say, musicians must earn a respectable income to continue to perform at high levels.)
I see musicians returning to the role of “healers”, rather than distant performers on stage. Musicians are community “glue”, not only through playing beautiful music, but also through encouraging others in their expression of it.
to which David adds the apocryphal postscript: "Connections with people are more difficult to make through traditional concert settings." and that is when I lept to my feet.
most of us in the arts have a completely wrong-headed idea of our true mission. Jim Collins argues that we mistakenly assume our mission is to present our particular and beloved artistic canon, the greatest artworks, old and new. He suggests our core values are exactly not that, that our favorite artworks are the means by which we have try to fulfill the core values of art, and according to his research, that is exactly where we must experiment. To rediscover our purpose, to live long and prosper, we must let go of our focus on programming favorite artworks, old and new, and instead boldly experiment with engaging people in artistic experiences. We must reconnect with the human art instinct.The arts have been around since at least Day Two of human history (ornamental jewelry goes back 80,000 years, painting almost as far—and that’s not mentioning our impulses to create dance, music and to tell stories, which undoubtedly are even more ancient). Artistic expression is not just the province of artists; it appears spontaneously, irrepressibly, throughout each of our lives, mostly in forms and venues not identified with Art with a capital A. So, how have we let the identity of art get quarantined as an occasional pricey event in a special building?
Art appears in every endeavor raised to its highest level of expression, and more commonly in our conversations, hobbies, homes, as we dance at parties … anywhere people slip into the work and play of art. The core value for those of us in the arts professions—engaging people in the richness of the artistic experience—is to prompt that universal sense of meaning, richness, “specialness,” and satisfaction. It feels good—really good—the kind of good feeling that is hard to find in our overstimulated, materialistic, multitasking lives.
In order to unify our disparate arts, we need to find the quintessential elements of that human experience. We need to identify the fundamental particle or particles at the basis of the attraction, a Higgs boson for the human movement toward the artistic experience. And if we can agree around that unifying principle, I believe we can begin to answer the Jim Collins challenge in a powerful way, by experimenting boldly to bring people into the common, universal, highly-valued human experience of art. Not just those who already value the arts, but also those who aren’t in the club and don’t think about or care about the arts, yet yearn for fullness in their lives. We need to move the experience of art to the center of our intention, and reclaim Homo sapiens’ cultural birthright of artistic engagement.
Precisely. I refer to this all the time as the "Sacred duty" of the performance, be that as a theatre group, as musicians or as a painter, I ask if the performers were aware of their sacred duty to deliver the message.
And I don't mean the story line or the author's politics.
"No wonder the arts have sustained since the beginning of human history—this is the list of the best parts of being alive. They provide unity, attraction, and the reason there is something to being a human instead of being nothing."What can we do, as believers in the power of the fundamental act of creation, to align our actions, our creations, our organizations, our intentions and interactions with everyone inside and outside the arts to maximize that power? How can we create environments that effectively, irresistibly support and nurture that power? What events can we devise that are dedicated to that power, not merely to the presentation of artworks that we hope will contain it for those few who pay to attend?"
The answers, say Eric, are in the Unknown, in new collaborations, new artistic environments, new dialogs, in bold and brilliant new ways of retelling old stories. Which is to say, the answers, say Eric, are in the practice of Art.
The film shows the gripping way ‘El Sistema’ functions on a daily basis in a typical nucléo: the ‘La Rinconada’ nucléo is located adjoining the barrio of the same name. The area around the nucléo is considered as one of the most dangerous and poorest areas in Caracas. Up to 300 children find their daily destination here.
In the film, three selected young people from the nucléo are accompanied through their daily lives for a whole year. The kids come from different backgrounds, family circumstances and stages of personal development. There are correspondingly few overlaps in their biographies – up until the day when they become part of the ‘system’ and are confronted by their own instruments, as well as the love, persistence and patience of their teachers.
One of Jose Antonio Abreu’s key goals is to broaden young people’s horizons and encourage them to organise their own lives in a meaningful, responsible way. The film documents the personal development of the children and teenagers, few of whom will be crowned by a successful musical career. This is, however, not what the system aspires to.The film explores the central question: what can the system accomplish by connecting young people with classical music, and to what extent can it change their lives?
"To my mind, our social problems all stem from a sense of exclusion. If you look at the world, you see that exclusion in some form or other is to blame for the explosion of social problems everywhere. So we have to fight to bring as many people as we can, everyone, if possible, into our wonderful world: the world of music, the world of the orchestra, of singing, of art."
Our schools think they have such problems, such woes and worries: they sit in such secure luxury and opulence wracking their brains to invent new ghosts to flee from while remaining clueless to what is happening all around them. Meanwhile, in Venuzuela:
"It was my first day in the chamber orchestra, so I wanted to be early, but I got shot in the leg so I couldn't go ... I started to cry because ... it wasn't the pain in my leg.
what really hurt was that I couldn't be in the orchestra that day."
This rambling rant was my comment inflicted on the Jazz: Music of Unemployment post "The world we have lost"; I thought I'd take a page from Luciano Berio and "Say it again, LOUDER" over here.
At issue is the notion of what do the fans fetishize in the post-CD world of MP3s, in how do they continue to be band-fanatics, and the attendant issue of how it might be possible for artists to control the context of their own work. This is my attempt to answer both questions from the perspective of a disgruntled old geezer lost in a world he did not make, for which the short form might be, "You kids! get the hell off my lawn" but for the record, here's the long version:I don’t believe in centralization of culture. I am for decentralization. But it will not hurt to give a pride of being centralists to people. It is, in fact, necessarily for one to believe in one’s spiritual center inside one. I think that is lacking in the people of Japan, now, in all fields. All people of Japan should know that your center is centrally important to the whole world. Start with that.
In my youth, it was unthinkable to have a letter actually reach a pop culture icon, let alone get a personal response from one, so when given the chance and vehicle to do it, y'know, it's not so easy to think of a question to ask. Nonetheless, Yoko Ono has been sharing her grace and patience with us all, one at a time, every Friday over at ImaginePeace.com
Here is what I'm talking about, music as a social catalyst. This is Kaelin, sitting in with the Owen Sound City Band at Harrison Park this evening, set in a woodwind chair like anyone else, set like he belongs because he does. I've played with a peck of bands in my day, I've worked with a stack of famous and semi-famous star composers, but really, when it comes down to it, which of them would actually give a 9 year old a chart he can play, and then let him sit in and play it? What's this kid going to think of this experience 10, 20, 30 years hence? Squaresville? Or the day people treated him as a human being, as a full and valuable participant. He could be 9 or 90, he could be anyone; if he has the chops, if he's been given the chops, there is a chair, a camaraderie, an essential part to play, an inter-cooperative involvement, a belonging. This isn't cutsie kids in mock-culture get-ups dancing a pageant for a sequestered room of paying parents, this is the Real Thing, out there playing the living soundtrack for the evening parkland, same way we did it back in '23. Same way we'll do it 86 years from now. All around us is disconnected humanity, lost to the side. McLuhan proposed that violence stemmed from a loss of identity, a dis-enfranchisement that turns to Sour Grapes that turns to goth grunge yeah well I wouldn't join you even if you asked facade they call 'being cool', cool like stones, cool and cold like dead things. It's how we've left them, outside to chill. War orphans running in the streets. How do we re-engage the marginalized? R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Not the faux tacit unconditional Al Franken MouseClub because we love you to buy our stuff stuff, but the real respect earned through all those hours of watching, listening, learning, practicing practice practicing, a respect the cultural apprentice truly believes they have earned: A place at the table, a seat in the woodwinds, a chair in the band. As simple as a blue cap. This isn't about playing their music their way and handing them the baton or forcing them to do what they want; this is about arrangement and discipline, about rewarding participation by working together as equals to make something necessary and beautiful. The beauty of the work is it's own reward.This is how it starts, people. This is music as the agent of the Eternal Golden Braid that grows that sense of belonging, of whole community engagement as a totally normal thing. This is the awakening. This is an antidote to our being the only species without full employment. This is music as socio-economic medicine. Why does everyone go running around looking for a 'business plan'? Why squander collective resources on box-office hungry national arts clique 'culture' and then slash investments in school music and art programs, community orchestras, sports clubs and the precious community infrastructure of halls, festivals and virtually all other humanly necessary opportunities for social engagement? There is no 'business plan' because the dividends are completely off the money-scale. Great-Grandpa's factory had a band! His Foundary Band was a time-honoured tradition from ancient antiquity, empirically evolved and honed, a normal and necessary part of the social fabric of Building The Team. The factory across town had another band, the town itself another still. We'll send executives to play Laser Quest or a Hopi Spirit Retreat, yet all our museums scream at us over and over and over again how our great and amazing human progress, up to just recently, up to just about the point where it all started to fall apart, was wrought from company bands, city bands, community orchestras, company baseball teams, cricket clubs, rowing teams ... the tradition had its share of great heroes, but none of this was really about personal glory.
Where did we get the crazy notion we could replace Beethoven with Laser Quest? Since when did we empirically prove gourmet coffee bars and roaming masseurs were the ultimate impetus and golden strategy to Working Together As A Team? Here's a tip: bonuses didn't work either. Neurocognitive fact: Pleasure perks breed corruption. We encourage the wrong sort of reward system in the brain, the one that seeks reward and then starts to connive optimizing that reward, we activate the shrewd region neurologists affectionately call The Las Vegas Centre, and surprise surprise, it pits the Mark against the House, it provokes an adversarial relationship of employee-employer, a contractually constrained gimme-gimme fistfight scenario. By contract, the social self-reward motivation may be less easy for Accounting to tally, but it strikes deep into the creature proviking a sense of 'harambe' of working together, living life together, growing stronger, safer and more involved, together. Its the spirit you see on any unfunded cultural arts project, everyone pitching in where ever needed, whatever it takes, however it has to be to get to the goal of that Really Good Time Together. Gimme-gimme may have sounded great in theory, but clearly it is the road to adversaries in every direction. Government vs business, arts vs funding, unions vs factories, everyone reflexively opting to optimize their personal reward at the expense of others, the most toys wins, oblivious to the simple biological fact that every time a parasite sucks too much life from the host, they both die. We arrive inevitably at a statis, a deadlock, a stalemate. As the Japanese say, "Where a house is filled with rights, there is no room for gifts."And we are right back at Robert Putnam, and the great flowering of the Tower Societies. We arrive at the need for social symbiosis. We look around and we see those who are prospering are those who simply come together and work together for the work as its own reward, supporting each other through a culture of common ground and mutual support. We come face to face with Open Source and the gift economy of free software and free culture. Here is my prediction: This will all be re-discovered. This will get picked up by FastCompany and Oprah Winfrey, and the notion will be catapulted to the forebrains of the mass-media as someone's really good original groundbreaking novel new idea to save us from the current socio-economic collapse. The contageon will spread rapidly as corporations, factories, contractors, schools and governments everywhere seize on this Very Good Idea, location after location they will take full credit for their brilliant insight and invest that small bit of needed time-is-money into the el Systeme 68% ROI equation and they miraculously side-step the impeding black-hole event-horizon with great thundering joyeous bursts of badly-played Strauss waltzes and nearly-forgotten passages from half-remembered high-school musicals. They will pound on rusting out-of-tune pianos in halls with no heat and sing Daisy, Daisy because its the only song they all still know. And they will Survive.
Our life has no end in just the way in which our visual field has no limits.
Our life has no end in just the way in which our visual field has no limits.
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