Sunday, January 29, 2012

Charlie Haden

I read this recent quote from Charlie Haden on NPR and thought it was so true that I should add it to the blog.   "I learned at a very young age that music teaches you about life. When you're in the midst of improvisation, there is no yesterday and no tomorrow — there is just the moment that you are in. In that beautiful moment, you experience your true insignificance to the rest of the universe. It is then, and only then, that you can experience your true significance."

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Dragonfly


I finished the fretboard and decided to try and make a small dragonfly on the upper last two frets.  My daughter designed it for me before she left for Ireland.  The original design had too many parts that we so small that when I cut them out of the pearl they simply turned to dust.  Consequently I revamped the piece into something I thought I could handle.  Cutting it out was really not too bad with the jeweler's saw, but using the dremel tool to rout out the fretboard was a little scary, but if you don't try you'll never learn.  I think it turned out quite nice.  Yesterday I put the fretboard on the neck and now I'm waiting for some supplies to come so I can begin the bridge and tailpiece.  I totaled up my hours working on this instrument. I have 151 so far.  Considering I'm new at this and have had to struggle with certain things, I think that's pretty good.

I came across this letter I sent to my son last year, I think.  I'm including it, because of some conversations I've recently had with several people and I think this sums up how I'm feeling pretty well.

Hey Jesse,
     I had another dream last night I thought I would share with you.  I was reading from the Damapada before bed, specifically the twin verses, "All that we are is the result of what we have thought: we are formed and molded by our thoughts.  Those whose minds are shaped by selfish thoughts cause misery when they speak or act.  Sorrows roll over them as the wheels of a cart roll over the tracks of the bullock that draws it.         All that we are is the result of what we have thought: we are formed and molded by our thoughts.  Those whose minds are shaped by selfless thoughts give joy whenever they speak or act.  Joy follows them like a shadow that never leaves them."
     I decided I would dwell on these verses while I slept.  As I drifted off, my mind would wander and as I recognized it I would bring it back.  I've had a pain in my shoulder, which actually made me recognize that I was sleeping while dreaming.  In my dream you wanted to show me a movie that someone in your church had made.  You were upset at how ridiculous it was and wanted me to see for myself.  What I remember, is that the movie was in a cabin and we were both watching it in real time; not on a screen, almost like a play.  There was a man who opened the cabin door from outside and I could see out.  He had two children, a girl of about 8 years old and another one, which I never made out.  I began to listen to him and watch the girl play.  I never understood anything he said.  My eyes were drawn to the sky outside as he talked.  It was a summer day like we have in the south, only it wasn't hot; only nice.  As he spoke I focused more and more on the air outside.  I could see the seeds of plants blowing in the wind.  I could see bugs, and pollen.  As I looked closer I could see individual particles of matter. The air that we breathe was full of life.  At this point I was barely conscience of the man speaking,but I could still hear him.  I knew that what he said didn't matter, and that he would never be able to explain what I had come to understand.  It was as if the air itself was water.  It was so full of life that I marveled that we could actually breathe.  I laughed to myself when I realized that the man was trying to show us the path to God, when in fact He was all around us.  We were breathing him in and out.  It was like we were all splashing around in the ocean, and here was a guy trying to tell us how to find water.  Not only were we in the water, but we had been swimming since the day we were born.  At this point I understood something with my heart that I'd always hoped was true intellectually.  The Tao, dharma, and the logos are all the same thing.  Like the scientists trying to explain light as a wave, or a particle, and now as a series of dots, or something like that; I can't remember for sure.  Different sides of the same crystal.   
       I woke feeling as alive as I have in along while.  We are all a part of this cosmic way.  We are so much a part that we don't see it.  We were born into it and we will die a part of it.  It is the very fabric of who we are and we cannot be another.  We bind ourself to unreality with doctrines, with time, with passions, and with duty.  Art and music, at it's best, should be outside these things.  They should mirror nature, which mirrors God in it's perfection.  To begin to "awake", to begin to see that nothing is as perfect as "a piece of uncarved wood," to understand that, "the Father and I are one".
       We are separated by distance, but not by God.  We swim in the same eternal spirit.  We are sons of the same Father.  Learn to use your mind, while you're young, to become the man that you want to be.  "As irrigators guide water to their fields, as archers aim arrows, as carpenters carve wood, the wise shape their lives."
                                                 into the mystery,
                                                                           Dad