Re: Music notes

Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 23:15:05 -0230
Newsgroups: alt.religion.druid
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OK, I'll comment briefly on my own answers to my questions now.
David Dalton wrote:
> 1. Are you big fans of celtic music, and if so, what bands/artists
> do you like? If not, what music do you like?
I like all types of music, but particularly celtic music and
original singer/songwriters, and try to catch live music
once or twice a week, often including Wednesday night Folk
Club at The Ship Inn (which is often mostly celtic) and
occasionally one of the several sessions around town. I
was raised on celtic music as my father played fiddle and
my mother and aunt and uncle could sing and a neighbour
played accordion. And though not many touring acts come
to Newfoundland, we have a very strong local celtic (and
other) music scene for our population.
While I was in Vancouver from 1985 to 1995 I often attended
Rogue Folk Club concerts featuring touring and local bands,
and sometimes went to monthly Irish sesiuns, and sometimes
went to Irish ceilis (with live musicians) and even danced
a bit. Some local Vancouver celtic folk or celtic rock
bands I heard included The Paperboys, Martingale,
Spirit of the West, Mad Pudding, Blackthorn, The Clumsy Lovers,
The Stoaters, The Real McKenzies, Fear of Drinking,
Rattle in the Dash, Bourne and MacLeod and more. I also attended
the Celtica Festival there in 1990 which had acts including Andy M.
Stewart and Manus Lunny, De Dannan, The Clansmen, Alain Stivell,
and more. Some of the Rogue Folk Club acts over the years have
included Altan, Capercaillie, Pennou Skoulm (which grew out of
Kornog I think), Johnny Cunningham, Kevin Burke, Christian Lemaitre,
Robin Hu Bowen (but I may have missed him), Sileas, Maire ni Chatasaigh
(but I missed her, and missed her again here in Newfoundland),
Old Blind Dogs, Four Men and a Dog, Battlefield Band, Sharon Shannon,
Alasdair Fraser, La Bottine Souriante, some Newfoundland acts that
I will mention below, and loads more. I think the Chieftains
played the Orpheum once but I have never heard them live.
Some Newfoundland celtic bands and musicians who have influenced
me are Figgy Duff, Rawlins Cross, Great Big Sea, Fine Crowd,
Celtic Connection, The Fables, Irish Descendants, Pamela Morgan,
Tickle Harbour, Crowd of Bold Sharemen, Fergus O'Byrne, Jim
Payne, Dermot O'Reilly, Jim Fidler, Jim Joyce, Joy Norman,
Maura Hagan (originally Scottish/Cherish the Ladies I think),
Dave Panting, Geoff Panting, Art Stoyles, Geoff Butler,
Minnie White, Emile Benoit, Rufus Guinchard, Dave Penny,
Vince Collins, Graham Wells, Mike Hanrahan, Gerry Strong,
Mike Walsh, Greg Walsh, Gerard Walsh, Ray Walsh, The Punters,
Larry Foley, Patrick Moran, Shannygannock, Mark Hiscock,
Chris Andrews, Kelly Russell, Christina Smith, Jean Hewson,
Deborah Clarke, Gayle Tapper, Ed Kavanagh, STEP Fiddlers,
Celtic Fiddlers, Danette Eddy, Angela Pickett, Stan Pickett,
Ron Hynes (a little celtic, wrote Sonny's Dream, often
known in Ireland as just Sonny), Rob Brown, Michelle Brophy,
Paddy Mackey, Ralph O'Brien, Sons of Erin, Anita Best, loads more.
Some Irish musicians who emigrated here decades ago include
Dermot O'Reilly and Fergus O'Byrne (formerly of Ryan's
Fancy) and Ralph O'Brien. Not long ago Irish fiddler
Seamus Creagh spent five years here. Also for a while
Paddy Keenan was a frequent visitor and recorded a CD
(Na Keen Affair at least partly here and at least partly
with Newfoundland musicians). And younger and almost
as good uillean piper Eamonn Dillon, now based in Florida,
has been here a few times and recorded a CD here with
producer/musician Jim Fidler.
There are also a fair number of sessions here, and a fair
number of festivals including the Newfoundland and Labrador
Folk Festival here in St. John's the first full Fri+weekend
in August, which has a beer tent.
For more info on the Newfoundland celtic music scene
have a look at
http://www.nfld.com/~dalton/nf.html
(and e.g. in the music links section there is a link to
the St. John's Folk Arts Council which has more up to date
info on that festival.)
And I am also a big fan of lots of singer/songwriters
including some local ones and Sarah McLachlan and others.
> 2. Do you find music to be spiritually inspiring?
Very much so, for me spirituality and music are intimately
connected. At a musical concert the music raises my energy
level, and I often imagining swirling the chi around the
room, charging the room, projecting along with the music,
and even boosting and improving the projection of and
the connections between the musicians, though I haven't been
doing that as much lately. And my sun stare of my first
waning crescent high was partly inspired by Sarah McLachlan's
song Into the Fire, and while on the thorns (actually before
I had gotten into the really rough bit) I air fiddled some
of Emile Benoit's tune and visualized a connection from
Vancouver back to Newfoundland. And of a few occasions
during the chi swirling during music I have experienced
mystic sparks which I relate to afterlife energy beings.
And my chi sensitivity as exhibited by tingling/throbbing/
warming/cold fire in palms or fingers or rarely feet seems
to be enhanced by music sometimes. And I have found some
concerts to be spiritually moving experiences, including
one performance of Emile Benoit's Bridgett's Reel by the
STEP Fiddlers at the D.F. Cook Recital Hall once, and
some of Sarah McLachlan's concerts (including one on Aug. 28, 1991
three days before my first waning crescent high), and
a mixed concert (with some wild dancing by me) on the
night of Aug. 31, 1991 a few hours before my first waning
crescent high began. Also music was wrapped up in some
of my later waning crescent highs, including the January 1994
one when on the first night I heard Art Stoyles and Christina
Smith and Jean Hewson, on the fourth night I heard Ron Hynes
and Liz Pickard and then a celtic session.
> 3. Do you use music in private or group planned or improvised ritual?
I have only participated in one group ritual so far, a recent
Beltane one in which we did a web weaving. We would have had
some drumming but since only six of us showed up all hands
were needed for the web weaving.
To some extent for me every musical concert is a spiritual
experience with aspects of ritual, in that I often imagine
swirling the chi widdershins around the room and charging
the venue, and sometimes (not often these days) do little workings
to boost the musicians and improve their projection and
connectivity. I also sometimes do links of the venue to
other very good venues/concerts I have been in in the
past, and also to the earth as one big musical venue. Occasionally
I have also imagined piping the concert to my deities, or
invoked the deities, or even linked each deity to different
parts (or all) of the venue (e.g. I sort of did that with
The Rose and Thistle a few years ago, not during music I
think, but my beliefs have changed a little since then so
I may want to update the associations, which may be significant
only for me). I thus try to charge the venues, but I think
said charge can fade a bit over time and has to be renewed.
However I believe that everyone does some such charging/boosting
automatically when they groove along to the music.
Regarding private rituals. I think I have used recorded
music a few times in private improvised rituals. In
particular in a "5 candle global blessing" I did once
and which I think did not end in an orgasm but with me
biting into an apple, and in which each candle was
linked to one of my deities at the time and they
were arranged in a rough circle around me, I think I
used the Song From the Tempest (Honour Riches) from
Figgy Duff's After the Tempest (it ends "Spring come
to you at the farthest, at the very end of harvest,
scarcity and want shall shun you, Ceres blessing so
is on you"). And once I made a mix tape, I think
maybe around Sept. 21 but I'll have to check, and
when I was done it was near sunrise, and I had had my
big red candle in the east window all night, so I
then played the mix tape and did a yoga sun salutation
and after sunrise blew out the candle. Also my
triple candle renewal sex magick working of August
1994 may have had music involved but I forget. But
definitely my later December 1994 just before new moon
sex magick working (less focussed) did have music
involved, Sarah McLachlan's song Mary, which I associate
with Gaia (Mother Earth) and my blue rose vision and
the fact that the earth separated Sarah and me at the
time (she was in New Zealand). The resulting mystic
orgasm was probably ten times longer lasting and
a hundred times as strong (Kundalini antenna) as my
usual orgasm (and thus maybe 10000 times as strong as
my worst orgasm) and probably close to 5 times as
strong as my Aug94 one, which I rank second.
So anyway, for me, music helps me build up my energies
and get in tune more, and is intimately wrapped up in
my spirituality, and I hope to use music in future
private or group improvised or planned ritual, ideally
live music but probably still at least sometimes recorded
music for me. And I will continue to treat musical
concerts as a mild form of ritual (or at least as
a spiritual experience).
> 4. Do you write tunes, lyrics, or poems yourself, or play
> and instrument or sing?
I don't yet play an instrument or sing very well, though I
have done live sound engineering before and am interested
in researching musical acoustics and related signal processing
techniques more in the future (especially since my field
of geophysics uses some similar techniques). I am also
interested in researching the relationship between low
frequency acoustics (the warm sound on some LPs that is
cut out of some CDs), particularly the 7.8 Hz earth cavity
resonant frequency, and chi (there may be a coupling between
low frequency acoustics and infrared/low frequency EM at
the cellular level somehow). I also hope to learn an
instrument someday, and hopefully to sing a little better.
But on a few occasions in the past, though very little
in recent years, I have had the ability to improvise
lyrics in real time to celtic instrumental music, but
have very rarely written anything down or remembered
anything. I can sometimes do this too by repeated
listening through headphones, which isn't the same
as live improvisation. I also sometimes modify
and/or parody existing lyrics, or build on them.
However my lyric improvisation ability hasn't been
with me much during the last part of my low years,
but I hope it will return after my next waning crescent
high (beginning as early as last quarter) ends my
7+ years of low years, and if it does I will make an
effort to write down or record or remember the material
and ideally complete at least one song. But recently
all I have done are a few private vulgar snippets in
jig time, most of which I have forgotten, and which
weren't particularly good.
Regarding poems, I have done a few short poems, poem
fragments, a bizarre overloaded word play Poe-M,
limericks, tapered poems, and lots of puns, broken
English, and other word play in the past (particularly
in 1994 to 1995) but it was mostly unfocused and
playful and stream of consciousness with a few good
bits here and there. However when my creativity
returns (probably during and after my next waning
crescent high) I plan to try and craft some poems
more consciously, ideally including some long poems
as well as short poems. So perhaps during my
next waning crescent high instead of trying to
answer questions outside my field as I did in the
last one (Aug/Sep94) I will quickly do some rough
drafts of poems and maybe song lyrics and maybe even
some rituals, and then will later edit the poems a
bit, and then get my poet (and poetry professor, though
not to me) sister to advise on further editing. However
during my best high of Jan94 I just enjoyed the
experience and did little writing (except for a
Shy Pin poem on the blackboard in The Ship Inn
men's room, which I forget) but I think it contributed
to later creativity and later religious thoughts.
Some elaboration on some of the points in this post is
in my Salmon on the Thorns web page, which is a subpage
of David Dalton's e-Den: http://www.nfld.com/~dalton
DRD